Category: Therapist Corner

The Therapist Corner
by Peter Boger

When thinking about change, our human belief system is programmed to think of ‘making things happen’. Change is something that is assumed to be ‘fixing’ a problem, whether losing weight, stopping smoking or drinking, or addressing things needing ‘improvement’. In other cultural traditions with different basic belief systems, change is addressed in a radically different manner.

In our way of thinking, change is perceived as happening outside of ourselves, in the world around us. The alternative is that real change only happens inside ourselves, in our own minds. Rather than finding ourselves struggling to change our world, we have the opportunity to change our view of the world, our attitude towards those things we have traditionally thought needed to be ‘fixed’.

These other ways of thinking talk about this inner change as ‘awakening’. The wisdom traditions in these cultures refer to three stages in this awakening process. The first is Purification, the second is Transformation and the third is Liberation.

The first stage, Purification, usually involves a person having an encounter with suffering which involves an experience of powerlessness sufficient to shatter the illusion of control. As in Step One of the 12 Steps, ‘We admitted we were powerless and our lives had become unmanageable’. This involves the ‘surrender’ of our ego delusion that we are separate individuals who are in charge of our lives and either ‘succeeding’ or ‘failing’ in the process. This doesn’t happen for everyone in the same way and most will live out their lives and pass on without ever having this experience of ‘hitting bottom’. So you might say Purification happens when life conspires to break through the ‘spell’ of ego, kind of like the old story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Unfortunately, ego is very stubborn and tenacious, and without support for this new awareness, the ‘spell’ will quickly re-establish itself and the opportunity for change is lost, at least until the next Purification experience appears.

The next stage is Transformation, which is not unlike the caterpillar changing into the butterfly. As my teacher, Dr. Fritz Perls said, ‘To suffer one’s own death and be reborn is not easy’. We are all attached to our notion of ourselves and will actively seek to protect, defend and maintain it both consciously and unconsciously. Transformation involves ‘letting go’ of your old notions of yourself and opening to the discovery and realization of a ‘you’ that has been hidden beneath the surface of your ego belief system. For Transformation to proceed one needs a lot of support which the old wisdom teachings describe as ‘going for refuge’. This support is found in the teachings about this new ‘map’, having a direct connection with the teachings through a teacher, and the ‘student body’ of others who are also on the path of Transformation. As an example of how this works, in the 12 Step experience, the teachings are the 12 Steps, the teacher is called a sponsor, and the community of recovering people are there to provide a supportive ‘cocoon’ while going through the transformation from ‘addiction’ (ego insanity) to ‘sobriety’ (spiritual awakening).

The final stage is Liberation which clearly resonates with our ego notions of freedom and release from bondage. Again, here we’re talking about setting yourself free from the prison of your ego belief system. There’s a powerful metaphor in which a prisoner is in a long narrow cell in which one end of the cell has a tiny window that lets in just enough light to allow the prisoner to see; the other end of the cell is in total darkness. The prisoner stays at the end of the cell where if he turns his head just so he can glimpse a little sky out of the window, while at the dark end of the cell, the door is wide open and the prisoner can walk out to freedom at any time. When you free your mind, nothing in the world you inhabit changes, but everything is different because you now have a new ‘view’.

In my next essay I will talk more about this journey through the three stages of awakening and some common barriers and obstacles you might encounter along the way.

‘Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man’.

Aristotle, The Philosophy of Aristotle

by Peter Boger, M.A.

In my last article I talked about the assumptions underlying psychotherapy and the most basic one being the unquestioned belief that the ‘map’ we are taught in our childhood is true and reliable so if we are having trouble finding our way in life the problem must lie with us, not the map we were given.   Thus psychotherapy is concerned with identifying the ‘problem’ or ‘dysfunction’ or ‘mental illness’ that needs to be ‘treated’ or ‘corrected’ and the presumption is that everything else is just fine, thank you. 

For most people this arrangement is accepted as perfectly appropriate and all the customary structures around it, the ‘authorities’ and ‘experts’ who research, teach, certify and regulate the practice of psychotherapy ensure that people have confidence that what is provided is going to be helpful and not harmful. 

Mental health treatment today is fundamentally defined as either ‘talk therapy’ or the use of medications that target what are considered brain disorders such as depression, anxiety among a long list of diagnoses, or both.   While these treatment approaches are both considered ‘mental health treatment’, they are profoundly different, and the health care providers come from completely different educational and training backgrounds.   Medical doctors who specialize in the brain and nervous system are called neurologists and a small subset of these go on to get further training in the specialization called psychiatry.   Psychotherapists are primarily educated in universities and while many major in psychology, their undergraduate studies can span a wide variety of different backgrounds.   In my experience over many decades of practice many male therapists started out pursuing a career in the clergy or ministry and ended up as psychotherapists.   All therapists have at least a Master’s degree in psychology, social work, or related fields.   Each state licenses therapists and sets rules governing mental health treatment.

Nowhere in the above described system for the training, certification, and regulation of mental health providers is the basic assumptions underlying our cultural and societal beliefs ever questioned or challenged.   In fact some have argued that mental health treatment is ultimately one of many ways societies maintain conformity and protect the ‘status quo’,  whether done in obvious ways such as political dissidents being ‘committed’ to psychiatric hospitals in dictatorships to more subtle ways it can be employed in more ‘democratic’ countries.   In any case no one wants the social stigma that comes from having one’s sanity called into question. 

To summarize,  we currently have an uneasy relationship with mental health and mental health treatment in this country.  While we have come light years from the days when we treated people suffering from emotional, cognitive or behavioral problems as possessed by demons, burned them as witches or isolated them in ‘madhouses’, we still keep mental health as a ‘stepchild’ in the larger healthcare system in this country.  

To further complicate an already complicated picture, we live in a current capitalist culture that has embraced the area of mental health as a lucrative marketplace where everything from the ubiquitous self help book to new drugs for everything from depression to addiction can be extremely lucrative and there is a virtual parade of mental health celebrities like Dr. Phil, that seem to come and go with great regularity. 

I write this here to give some context to this topic of the lost potential of psychotherapy, not to attack the field of mental health care.   When you start to get curious about yourself and others as conscious beings it’s important to appreciate both the complexity of the subject and the likelihood that your exploring will take you to places you hadn’t anticipated. 

Most people will live out their lives and die of old age without ever questioning anything –  they are too busy just trying to survive in a world dominated by war, natural disasters, poverty among a host of other challenges.   We in our country (and other so-called ‘First World’ nations) have the luxury to take basic survival for granted and put enormous resources of time and effort into thinking about things.  This has led to challenges to conventional wisdom in a number of areas, not just psychology.

I hope this series of essays contributes to this ongoing challenge in the  spirit of seeking understanding as a process that is never ending.   In my next article I will look further at the experience of psychotherapy and it’s still mostly unrealized potential.