Gray Cloth: Discussion of Margaret Crastnopol's “The Organismic Otherness of Being”

Margaret crastnopol has written an interesting and wide-ranging paper exploring the proposition that “much of our functioning as a ‘self’ occurs enigmatically in a way that cannot be seen or known directly, at the biophysiologic, organismic level of our existence.” In particular, she asserts that uncrystallized aspects of our being that reflect the biophysiological level of our existence can well up and, felt as an experience of “otherness,” carry us away from our customary sense of self.

The term “organismic” has multiple meanings and can be grounded in a number of psychological theories. Usually it refers to “holism,” a term and concept co-opted by the New Age health movement, but that literally refers to the systemic organization of the person, both physically and psychologically, into an integrated whole. Crastnopol probes the organismic realm in relation to idiosyncrasies, states, and actual limits on our psychic functioning in various spheres of life that may be “more a function of our neurophysiologic makeup than of an intrapsychic constellation.” It is notable that rather than formulate a more balanced organismic approach recognizing both physical and psychological