Spirituality and Psychology

[Bogdan_K]

Hi Friends,

Now I am doing research about psychology to be a therapist. I've briefly examined all the most popular in my country approaches (psychoanalysis, CBT, gestalt, existential, process-oriented)  and got confused, because none of their paradigms resonated with me deeply. I have been into spiritual development (meditation, self-inquiry) for about 2 years, it might be a reason. I can't understand relationship between spirituality and psychology. From my perspective both relate to human psyche, but from different angles and with different depths. I would appreciate your opinions regarding this relationship and pointing me in any direction.

[Breakingthewall]

psychology tries to solve the labyrinth that is the human social ego, the trauma, going through it until you find the exit. authentic spirituality flies over it and comes out of it directly

[Carl-Richard]

(Note: idiosyncratic use of words)

Psychotherapy mainly deals with meaning (the techniques and methods to become a vital and resilient human being). Meditation mainly deals with being (how to experience the fruits of all that to the fullest extent). They interloop and strengthen each other: a psychologist will sometimes employ techniques grounded in being (e.g. mindfulness or guided meta-cognition), and a mystic will sometimes employ techniques grounded in meaning (e.g. faciliating trauma-release or solving neuroses).

Even "technique" as a concept has a meaning component (procedural structure; the "how") as well as a being component (experiential content; the "why"), and different techniques emphasize each component to different degrees (e.g. a meditation technique emphasizes being over meaning, while a visualization technique emphasizes meaning over being).

[Seraphim]

A quote from a good non-duality  teacher (Artem Boytsov) on enlightenment and psychology:

Quote

Enlightenment is the cessation of the dreaming activity of the mind. Dreaming is the capacity of the human mind to imagine something that doesn’t exist in reality, and believe its existence. Dreaming is the source of all human suffering, it is the source of all fear, misery, anxiety, sadness and all psychological pain and sorrow. It’s also the source of all aggression and violence (except self-defense), irrationality, cruelty and abuse.

Dreaming is what human psychology is based upon, and it’s also the source of confirmation bias and a variety of other psychological phenomena. Psychology as a discipline is basically a study of the human being’s dreaming mind. Which is why it’s kinda moot as a field of study (compared to, say, physics) - because even though the deeper layers of humans’ dreaming are universal (ideas of God, death, universal human emotions of guilt and shame), outer layers of dreaming are quite unique, and there’s no limit to their uniqueness, example being multiple personality disorder and all other psychiatric disorders. The capacity of human imagination, strictly speaking, knows no bounds.

Contrary to the popular belief, enlightenment has nothing to do with thought, and has everything to do with emotion.

 

[gettoefl]

spirituality is the transcending of psychology

you are not angry, anger is trying to trick you into thinking you are, and there begins the work of spirituality

[Bogdan_K]

@Breakingthewall @Seraphim @gettoefl Seems you are talking about a similar point. And I can’t disagree. From my perspective psychology looks like something not very useful, something that feeds the ego; something that might help to create new beliefs instead old ones that might be useful in some sense, but from my current experience this process is just creating another loop of identification with mind. Seems therapy is important to heal mental disorders and psychosis, but it isn’t important and can be an obstacle to finding true peace and happiness. That’s why I am kind of disappointed at the results of my research.

@Carl-Richard It's an interesting point, but I can't catch the sense. Could you please share a concrete example of psychology working together with spirituality? Do you have favorite psychology approaches?

[Chrisd]

If therapy would serve as an obstacle to finding true peace and happiness it wouldn't be very good therapy. 

Both spirituality and psychology deal with the mind. There are ineffective therapists, and so probably ineffective spiritual teachers. Both aim at a happy mind.