Opinions on Psychotherapy

[Turnip]

What are your opinions on psychotherapy? Is it useful?

 

I feel that everyone needs therapy and also that it’s a dystopian product of transactional hyper-individualism that risks subtly distorting people’s development of natural intimacy and relational processing. 
 

Has anyone else had similar thoughts?

[Forestgreen]

No.

[liminal_luke]

It´s impossible to say that psychotherapy is "bad" or "good" because so much depends on the quality of the relationship between the client and therapist.  Psychotherapy has been helpful for a lot of people but it´s not always helpful.

[SodaChanh]

Something like VortexHealing is much deeper than psychotherapy but sometimes a mix is good for releasing blocks in your system.

 

Facing a person revealing your inner thoughts and feelings can aid in the path since the ego doesn't like vulnerability.

 

Ultimately the path is to let go of the 'I' - marinate in Presence and let the mind release itself.

 

 

[Nungali]

3 hours ago, Turnip said:

What are your opinions on psychotherapy? Is it useful?

 

I feel that everyone needs therapy and also that it’s a dystopian product of transactional hyper-individualism that risks subtly distorting people’s development of natural intimacy and relational processing. 
 

Has anyone else had similar thoughts?

 

Well ... not quiet like those      

 

The thing is  Turnip ...... what sort / type of psychotherapy ?   

 

wiki ;   '' There are hundreds of psychotherapy techniques, some being minor variations; others are based on very different conceptions of psychology

 

Its a bit like asking ; '' Is surgery useful ? '' 

[ChiDragon]

1 hour ago, SodaChanh said:

Ultimately the path is to let go of the 'I' - marinate in Presence and let the mind release itself.

Yes, one who can help is the one that can help oneself and to let go of things. Self cultivation of the mind may be considered as psychotherapy.

[forestofclarity]

I agree with what Luke said, it depends on the relationship between therapist and patient. A lot of traditional teachers have discovered that Western psychological treatments can be helpful to forming a healthy ego which, ironically, is often considered a prerequisite to transcending it. 

 

 A lot of traditional teachings were developed in much different circumstances. 

[steve]

19 hours ago, Turnip said:

What are your opinions on psychotherapy? Is it useful?

 

Useful to whom?

It's certainly useful for therapists, often for their clients.

I found psychotherapy to be very useful for me.

 

I somewhat disagree with the statement that "self-cultivation of the mind can be considered as psychotherapy."

Certainly cultivation of the mind can have benefits. In the right person with the right method and guidance, perhaps some mental dysfunction and illness can be improved but there is also risk of significant harm. Meaningful self-cultivation of the mind really needs to begin with a relatively healthy mind and ego as mentioned above. 

 

Cultivation methods can be destabilizing or counter-productive for someone who has a variety of mental issues such as poor reality testing, a fragile or poorly developed ego, repressed trauma, negative self-image, depressive tendency, personality disorders, and so forth. This can be the source of nihilistic crisis, aberrant energetics, depersonalization disorder, qi sickness, kundalini syndrome, psychotic break, even suicide. One of my favorite teachers, Anthony Demello, speaks to his experience of being both a psychotherapist and a spiritual guide for Catholic clergy in India. His message was, in part, that as a therapist his job was to ease pain and help create or restore a healthy sense of self. As a spiritual guide, his job was to push people to see the truth of their situation even when that truth was painful, challenging, or destabilizing. Ultimately his job as a spiritual guide was to break down the very sort of patterns that are often needed by people to maintain mental health in unhealthy situations and environments. As Jiddu Krishnamurti said, "it is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

 

19 hours ago, Turnip said:

 

I feel that everyone needs therapy and also that it’s a dystopian product of transactional hyper-individualism that risks subtly distorting people’s development of natural intimacy and relational processing. 
 

Has anyone else had similar thoughts?

 

Yes, I don't disagree entirely but there's more to the story. I think it's also possible for therapy, in the right person and setting, to support the development of natural intimacy and relational processing once obstructing, dysfunctional patterns and reactivity are identified and addressed. The existence of psychotherapy, like many medical/surgical treatments and diagnoses, certainly is in part a dystopian byproduct of dysfunctional modern society. Some of that may be related to transactional hyper-individualism but perhaps, in Asia, to hyper-collectivism and related manipulation and abuse. 

[liminal_luke]

A few potential pitfalls of psychotherapy...

• Individual psychotherapy can tend to decontextualize problems that are better seen through the lens of the larger society, rather than problems of an individual.  Poverty, sexism, racism -- many of the difficulties people face are rooted in systemic, cultural issues.  As individuals we have to figure out how to best deal within our individual circumstances and psychotherapy can help with that.  But there´s so much we miss as a larger culture when these problems are stripped from their broader contexts.
• Individual psychotherapy can overemphasize personal happiness as the goal of life.  I´m not sure that seeking happiness directly is the best way to find it.  Often, happiness comes as a "side effect" of the other meaningful things we do in life.  For some, building character and living a life of integrity according to one´s values is more important than happiness.  
• Individual therapy -- and especially the culture around therapy -- can encourage an unhealthy preoccupation with the self.  Everybody has a diagnosis, we´re all traumatized.  While it can be useful to recognize our issues and confront life´s hardships, sometimes it really is better just to get on with things.

Edited 4 hours ago by liminal_luke

[old3bob]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

A few potential pitfalls of psychotherapy...

• Individual psychotherapy can tend to decontextualize problems that are better seen through the lens of the larger society, rather than problems of an individual.  Poverty, sexism, racism -- many of the difficulties people face are rooted in systemic, cultural issues.  As individuals we have to figure out how to best deal within our individual circumstances and psychotherapy can help with that.  But there´s so much we miss as a larger culture when these problems are stripped from their broader contexts.
• Individual psychotherapy can overemphasize personal happiness as the goal of life.  I´m not sure that seeking happiness directly is the best way to find it.  Often, happiness comes as a "side effect" of the other meaningful things we do in life.  For some, building character and living a life of integrity according to one´s values is more important than happiness.  
• Individual therapy -- and especially the culture around therapy -- can encourage an unhealthy preoccupation with the self.  Everybody has a diagnosis, we´re all traumatized.  While it can be useful to recognize our issues and confront life´s hardships, sometimes it really is better just to get on with things.

 

could be many years of talk and who knows how many thousands of bucks in cost, along with having someone who may or may not be safe in digging around in our heads, is such natural? 

 

[Forestgreen]

So, basically:

Getting a treatment one does not need, or getting a treatment not focused on ones needs, might be bad for you?

 

Sounds like something relevant for any treatment, really.