Is Trying To Self Actualize In Complete Opposition To Psychology And Psychologists?

[JustinS]

@Charlotte Incredible stuff right? This Work (4 Questions & Turnaround) by Katie shows us that nothing external can be the cause of our misery. Only our attachment to an opinion keeps us from clearly seeing reality.

Ahh talk about taking 100% responsibility for our happiness.

"Who would you be without the thought, ___ ?"

 

Edited March 26, 2017 by JustinS

[TeamBills]

On 21/03/2017 at 4:14 PM, LRyan said:

I am in the midst of "therapy" which does nothing but continue to bring up the past and re hash things and make you re live any horror that you went through as a way of exposing you to it over and over so that you become immune or no longer fear what happened?  Their line of thinking is the same as curing any fear such as that of a fear of spiders...continuous and repeated exposure will cause you to no longer fear it?  

How can anyone who is trying to work on themselves and gain enlightenment and awareness participate in traditional Psychology?  This feels like a method of torture to me and has caused a definite back sliding of all of the hard work I have put into myself.  

What are your thoughts on the clash of these meeting head to head. Pardon the pun! 

Are you doing exposure response prevention (ERP)? There have been studies done that it helps with OCD fears. It has helped with me, but usually I get too afraid of doing it.

[eskwire]

On 3/22/2017 at 1:46 PM, LRyan said:

Without getting into all the details, I'm not free to just get another Psychologist, they have to be certified under a certain board in order for their services to be covered under my plan.  There might be some newer age forward thinking "therapists" in town but they don't qualify so in order to complete my "rehabilitation" I am restricted by who I can use.

He is literally the *only person* who is certified and covered under your plan? 

[LRyan]

No, there might be a few other but some Psychologists don't treat PTSD.  He seems to have the niche market where I live.  I could look into it further if I wanted to if i went that direction.

[poimandres]

On 3/21/2017 at 4:14 PM, LRyan said:

I am in the midst of "therapy" which does nothing but continue to bring up the past and re hash things and make you re live any horror that you went through as a way of exposing you to it over and over so that you become immune or no longer fear what happened?  Their line of thinking is the same as curing any fear such as that of a fear of spiders...continuous and repeated exposure will cause you to no longer fear it?  

How can anyone who is trying to work on themselves and gain enlightenment and awareness participate in traditional Psychology?  This feels like a method of torture to me and has caused a definite back sliding of all of the hard work I have put into myself.  

What are your thoughts on the clash of these meeting head to head. Pardon the pun! 

I believe psychotherapy is parallel to self-actualization.  You have to examine your past behaviors and triggers to understand why you react to situations the way that you do.  Psychotherapy helps you to see how your brain sabotages you and puts you in stressful situations.  I believe @Leo Gura says multiple times in many of his videos that you don't even know the tricks it plays on you, that's how sneaky it is.. Psychotherapy helps you to see how this happens.  It also helps understand and better equip yourself with dealing with people and have power over your situations (before your brain sabotages you). I believe this is Freud's pleasure principle..  In Freudian therapy, I believe the objective is for the "child" to meet the "adult".  

The other schools are basically going to teach the same thing, just with different terminology.  Jungian is more metaphysical, but it's goals are the same.  Any new agey therapy place you go to will be similar.

Therapy isn't there to answer questions like "Why does life exist? What is the point in life? What/is there God?" etc.. Psychology is a framework of how to examine yourself through dream analysis, your feelings, your past experiences, etc.. It is introspection. It's not fun, it's work.. It can be scary, etc.. But the more you talk it out in therapy (if you have a good psychologist), and the more honest you are with yourself (and the therapist) the more you will understand yourself and faster.. 

I was in therapy for 3+ years. We would talk about a situation that brought up anxiety in my life. He would analyze my body and my words. He said, "tell me every detail about how you feel right now".  I never realized while I was telling him my stories, my heart would race, my mind would start to escalate panic, my face would itch, my throat would be scratchy, I would start coughing, my palms were sweaty.. Knowing this (psychosomatic symptoms), I hope you can start to see the value of psychotherapy.

In one of my first sessions, I told my therapist about one of my OOBE's (about how I saw God, which was really me) and said I wanted to become my "higher self".  He understood exactly what I was talking about, but he put it in terms of Freudian psychotherapy.  The path of therapy is slightly different than spirituality, but I believe it's congruent and it's aims are for you to become your best self.

That being said, psychotherapy stole a bunch of ideas from religions, like meeting your higher self.  Psychology took out all the zodiac/planetary/horoscope/rituals/prayers/meditation stuff and gave you the core of the framework.  Kind of like Buddhism did to Hinduism.  Screw all those Gods, God(s) do not matter, here's what matters. The goal is the exact same, said in a different way.

I keep amending this, so I hope you get the full post.. You might want to check out Alan Watts' book Psychotherapy East and West.

 

Edited March 30, 2017 by poimandres

[LRyan]

Thanks so much for your input!  I'm glad you saw a real value in your therapy and that you had a wise Psychologist.  There is good understanding of the brain to be had, I believe that.  The trick is in getting the right person I think.

It sounds like you had someone who recognized what your experience of your thoughts were doing to your body and in noticing that you made the connection..

I definitely notice my body when I am re-visiting a trauma memory, I can feel my heart pounding, dry throat.  My Psychologist has noticed my face go red and my body language.  He says it is the sympathetic nervous system kicking in.

I do see the value in therapy, I just have a conflict with the therapist because he acts lt of ego all the time.  Every session I have with him, he goes into a story from one of his other patients and tells me how HE noticed this or that in them which led the patient to a huge AH HA moment or that he "knows" what already happened to a person by them just telling him a bit of the story....example...he had a new female patient go to him, she relayed her traumatic childhood. As she was getting to the part where she was in college, he said he guessed that she was raped.  He went on to tell me that can tell by a person's history what is very likely to happen to them.  He constantly tells me things like this so as to prove how good he is?  It's like the saying: He is always ringing his own bell.  This is not productive to me personally so I don't know why he feels like he has to keep doing this?

Edited April 1, 2017 by LRyan

[poimandres]

On 4/1/2017 at 10:27 AM, LRyan said:

Thanks so much for your input!  I'm glad you saw a real value in your therapy and that you had a wise Psychologist.  There is good understanding of the brain to be had, I believe that.  The trick is in getting the right person I think.

It sounds like you had someone who recognized what your experience of your thoughts were doing to your body and in noticing that you made the connection..

I definitely notice my body when I am re-visiting a trauma memory, I can feel my heart pounding, dry throat.  My Psychologist has noticed my face go red and my body language.  He says it is the sympathetic nervous system kicking in.

I do see the value in therapy, I just have a conflict with the therapist because he acts lt of ego all the time.  Every session I have with him, he goes into a story from one of his other patients and tells me how HE noticed this or that in them which led the patient to a huge AH HA moment or that he "knows" what already happened to a person by them just telling him a bit of the story....example...he had a new female patient go to him, she relayed her traumatic childhood. As she was getting to the part where she was in college, he said he guessed that she was raped.  He went on to tell me that can tell by a person's history what is very likely to happen to them.  He constantly tells me things like this so as to prove how good he is?  It's like the saying: He is always ringing his own bell.  This is not productive to me personally so I don't know why he feels like he has to keep doing this?

I don't know the guy, but I would bet he's not telling you these stories to show how good he is. Just like sacred texts, the messages are portrayed using metaphor and stories. My psychologist did the same thing. "I had a patient did XYZ." But it wasn't to boost his own ego. He would tell me examples that actually related to my situation. Try to look at it from his perspective, he's seen dozens of cases and behaviour is predictive, so of course he can see how the end result is going to be (that's how psychology works). It sounds like Freudian if you guys are discussing childhood experiences. If he's asked about your relationship with your mother and father, in Freudian therapy, that tells how a person will seek out a partner etc.. So that's why he can predict how situations will end.  Do you know what his background is in? Freudian, Jungian, Reichian, Solution focused, etc? Might not hurt to ask.

If anything, perhaps find a new therapist?  Keep in mind the type of therapist (Freudian,etc) and that will be the system they will be using. Trust is a huge portion of therapy and if you feel like you cannot open up with him, that's going to only hurt you in the end (and your wallet). You won't get very far in therapy no matter how many sessions you have with him because you won't want to talk about the stuff that's deep down inside that you want to hide.. The best therapy sessions I found were ones that I would sit in a just talk the entire time.  Say literally everything I was thinking without analyzing or asking myself "How can I divert this conversation" or something similar. I would talk for like 40 mins, he would eventually stop me and give me an analysis.

What if you forget about the new age stuff for a minute and accepted his system as truth temporarily?  What if you silenced your ego for a moment instead of trying to silence his? It's ok to talk about the books that you read, but keep in mind, psychology is basically a slimmed down version of all this new agey stuff. Don't discuss Eckhart Tolle or anyone in there because the field of psychology has taken that message and condensed it even further.

Let him keep telling you stories, it does effect you over time.. I have first hand experience of it. I guarantee, if you find another psychologist, he/she will tell you stories as well about their other patients.  That's a part of therapy, it helps you build a relationship with them knowing you aren't the only one going through some situation or dealing with a problem. In a way, it works unconsciously, and they know this.. Everything is about the unconscious in therapy.

I agree about the pills though. Generally, Psychologist do not recommend (or have the power to prescribe) medications. They know it's a mask to the root of the problem. Psychiatrists actually prescribe medications.

[poimandres]

On 4/1/2017 at 10:27 AM, LRyan said:

I do see the value in therapy, I just have a conflict with the therapist because he acts lt of ego all the time.  Every session I have with him, he goes into a story from one of his other patients and tells me how HE noticed this or that in them which led the patient to a huge AH HA moment or that he "knows" what already happened to a person by them just telling him a bit of the story....example...he had a new female patient go to him, she relayed her traumatic childhood. As she was getting to the part where she was in college, he said he guessed that she was raped.  He went on to tell me that can tell by a person's history what is very likely to happen to them.  He constantly tells me things like this so as to prove how good he is?  It's like the saying: He is always ringing his own bell.  This is not productive to me personally so I don't know why he feels like he has to keep doing this?

He's probably also telling you these stories to show you how their brains sabotaged them.  Again, the pleasure principle from Freud, or the tricks our brains play on us as Leo describes. Their "ah ha" moment was when they actually saw it as well (and probably after hearing a million other stories like yourself).

Edited April 3, 2017 by poimandres

[LRyan]

Thanks for the input and clarifications but I have decided to follow my intuition  and what feels right to me and I am looking for someone who I click with and who uses EMDR therapy.  I believe that I have learned all that I can and feel it is time to move on.

[Revolutionary Think]

@LRyan what exactly are you talking about with your psychologist that you can't talk to with us here? Of course if it's too personal I understand. 

[LRyan]

In my case it relates to PTSD from my workplace.....I don't want to give attention to any specific issues and I don't believe this is the platform to discuss personal issues like this so I have not included details on this.

This was a topic I started because the person I was seeing is vehemently opposed to any  form of self help or mindfulness or basically any other methods other than his own.  I didn't understand how someone who is vested with the responsibility of aiding someone's mental health could be so closed minded and opposed to practices that can help a person heal or feel better or make progress.  I don't understand why he acted so threatened and angry other than he took it personally.

[nick96]

@Leo Gura  What spiritual truths are you talking about ?

Is it everything that has to do with awareness and acceptance of past non experienced emotional pain ?

[LRyan]

 

On 5/5/2017 at 4:59 AM, nick96 said:

@Leo Gura  What spiritual truths are you talking about ?

Is it everything that has to do with awareness and acceptance of past non experienced emotional pain ?

I don't know if your comment was for Leo but I think it is avoidance of past emotional pain that causes this build up in the body which is experienced as symptoms of PTSD/depression/anxiety...they are all intermingled and very hard to separate.    I think the awareness is always there but maybe it is just deeply repressed experiences that the mind cannot take.

From what I know, PTSD usually occurs in childhood.  Having a traumatic childhood that is never dealt with makes a person more likely to experience PTSD symptoms related to other situations that occur in adulthood.  This certainly describes the life I have experienced.  It feels to me that my life experience has been full of trauma.  When you don't deal with it you may be causing yourself more harm.  I believe what I have been through from physical/emotional abuse to neglect and lack of any support or love as a child, led me to make terrible major decisions in my life which led to very harmful adult relationships which led to a terrible career choice which led me to work related PTSD which led into a very dark period of my life where I didn't want to exist.  

Tomorrow I will finally start a new chapter with a new Psychologist.  I am a bit terrified of what that will be like because I feel like Psychology doesn't mesh well with spirituality but I will give it a try with a new therapist...