Altered Self and Altered Self-Experience

From a theoretical point of view the experiences in which the feeling of self is temporarily or permanently altered, pose opportunities to apply, critically verify or even renew theories of the self. The altered self, from a human point of view, gains its most relevance when it is related to psychological sufferings, their comprehension, relief or treatment. For some, self-alterations are desired as in technically achieved, or drug induced suspensions of a “fixed”, „regular“, „normalized“ or „orthodox“ experience of self. Altered Self and Altered Self-Experience (ASASE) explores different conceptual and clinical notions of the altered Self and different modes of altered self-experience in order to clarify the notion of self.
This book deals with questions on the self from an interdisciplinary point of view including decidedly divergent perspectives from different philosophical approaches to the Altered Self and Altered Self-Experience such as “neuro”-philosophies, philosophy of emotion, philosophy of psychiatry, phenomenology besides approaches from developmental psychology, mindfulness praxis, as well as religious studies, cinema and literature studies