The goal of psychotherapy
is the relief of psychological suffering and the removal of obstacles
to functioning in the world. Normally, this means focusing on such
experiences as anxiety, depression, self-defeating behaviour, destructiveness,
and interferences with work and love. The spiritual disciplines are
concerned with knowing - by experience - the answer to the questions,
Who am I? What am I? Why am I? Although it is expected that many symptoms
with which psychotherapy is concerned will resolve in the process
of spiritual development, such improvement is regarded as a secondary
by-product, not the primary aim or effect.
Nevertheless, unless individuals can satisfy their needs for work, intimacy, and social
acceptance, they are likely to have a hard time progressing on the spiritual path, for
they will be unconsciously seeking to meet those needs through activities that have
another goal. Here, psychotherapy can be considered complementary to spirituality because,
by resolving psychodynamic conflicts that interfere with everyday functioning, it can
decrease the pressure to use spiritual pursuits in the wrong way.
Another question that arises frequently is whether techniques from the domain of spiritual
practice should be introduced into the psychotherapy situation. My own view is that they
should not - unless the psychotherapist is also qualified as a spiritual teacher. Although
a variety of procedures such as meditation, chanting, and visualization can be used to
provide calmness and relaxation, the mystical literature indicates that such benefits are
secondary. The sages who invented these techniques emphasized that they should be used as
part of an integrated, individualized teaching system requiring the supervision of a
teacher whose own perceptual capacity has been developed and who thus knows how to
prescribe them according to the specific spiritual needs of the student. To use such
techniques for lesser purposes may decrease their effectiveness for spiritual development.
Since locating a competent therapist can take some searching, and locating a competent
spiritual teacher can take even more, locating someone who is adequately skilled in both
is a difficult undertaking indeed. I do not regard myself as such a person, nor do I know
of anyone else who is.
Thus, if patients wish to practice meditation, I help them explore their motivation: what
they hope to obtain, what problems they hope to solve, how realistic their expectations
are. Sometimes the idea is dropped because their need calls for a different remedy than
meditation. Sometimes the idea is pursued, in which case I refer them to a source of
meditation teaching. But I do not myself give instruction in meditation or any other
spiritual technique
I believe the primary value of
spiritual practice in psychotherapy is its effects on the therapist,
the maturation it fosters, the wider and deeper perspective it can
provide. It is this larger perspective that constitutes the best way
of combining the two fields. For example, suppose I am treating someone
for depression and a major complaint is the feeling that his or her
life is empty. It makes a significant therapeutic difference whether
such a person devotes any time and resources to caring for others
or whether his or her life has been devoted solely to accumulating
money, power, or fame. In the latter case, the question must be addressed.
How much fulfilment can be derived from acquisition? In the former,
the questions need to be raised. What is the person's motivation for
doing things for others? Is there a secret contract or assumption
involved that has been disappointed?
In some cases, where self-denial and self-sacrifice have been a prominent
part of a person's life, that person may believe that by exerting
willpower he or she can ignore the need for being cared for, for pleasure,
for recognition. This can be a form of disguised omnipotence, the
wish to be invulnerable. In other cases, service has been performed
in the expectation of reward: when payment is not forthcoming, resentment
and depression result.
Such fantasies, conflicts, and strategies can be dealt with effectively
by traditional psychotherapy. However, the possibility of fulfilling
the need for meaning will likely be missed or ignored if the therapist
holds to the perspective of modern science and believes that there
is no intrinsic meaning to human life, that we impose meaning rather
than discover it. After all, whether the Big Bang theory is correct
or not, science tells us that life originated by chance in a random
universe.
From the spiritual perspective, it is quite a different matter. At
the very least, the question remains open, for the nature of "I"
eludes science, and the mystic's insistence on another way of knowing
resonates with our sense that "something is there." If the
therapist engages another human being in an extended therapeutic process,
the problem of meaning will eventually arise. Then, the spiritual
has much to offer the psychotherapeutic. And what the therapist understands
of both will play an important part in the outcome.
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