Psychosomatics - Spirituality Or Science?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The more my articles appear on the Internet, the more it seems that I am a categorical opponent of esoteric teachings and an avid supporter of drug therapy. However, this is not quite true. In my life there is a place for theosophy and esotericism, I sometimes glance at horoscopes, practice automatic writing for introspection, etc. At the same time, I am very well aware of the negative aspects of drug therapy, the dangers and consequences of irrational treatment. However, if we talk about psychosomatics as a field of helping work with a patient, I see it more as a path, and the only difference is that some people strive to find their own, while others follow someone's path.

The spiritual component in psychosomatics is very important, since it is not so much illness as psychological disorders on the basis of which the diseases themselves appear, in the form of depression, neuroses, etc., often arise against the background of a lack of meaning in life, understanding of one's purpose, etc. For a long time I have not asked clients the question "why do you need your illness", because this question is often rhetorical and meaningless. If a person could answer it, he would not come to me). And vice versa, I use the question “what would your life be if there were no illness” as a diagnostic one, since the answer to it often gives an understanding that a psychosomatic disorder is nothing more than filling a meaningful gap in life. And I immediately recall the interpretation of the basic principle of CBT that "a symptom goes away when life becomes more interesting than the symptom itself."

Some clients choose drug and behavioral therapy precisely because of unconscious existential holes, where that meaningful void is so frightening that they in every possible way avoid the methods of therapy that cash it out. And if such clients, by a random non-randomness, stumble upon some kind of esoteric information, as if indirectly filling these existential holes, the direction they have chosen can be really "healing". At the same time, existential therapy, logotherapy and many others also provide an opportunity to fill in these very gaps. The difference between the psychological method lies in the fact that any esoteric direction gives a person a ready-made model of the world order with its "laws", "potential" and "sanctions", while psychocorrection always strives for the client to create his own personal model. For only such a model can simultaneously take into account both the difference in the psychophysiology of each personality and the difference in upbringing, attitudes, values, priorities, etc. Accordingly, some people choose the path of following someone's values and models, which often leads to relapses of diseases, since these models are generalized and may well not fit their individual history. Others choose the path of self-exploration and self-determination, which ultimately gives not a technique against illness, but, as it were, "immunity" from various kinds of life troubles and shocks. It is the creation of oneself through self-knowledge that helps a person find his individuality, his core. Sometimes people oppose spirituality to science because they do not know that psychology has different directions and methods of work, where special attention is paid to the spiritual component, and all they need to do is simply form a request that the work should not consist of "training a symptom", but in "existential conversations" as a search for one's own path. And again we run into the category of "time", tk. finding your way is an endless process, while someone else's model is already ready.

The other side, as if near-spiritual, is that psychosomatics always implies some kind of bodily changes. Living in the 21st century, many of us think that treating the body with methods that influence physiology is a matter of course. However, in practice the situation is different, and very often advocates of "spiritual" healing oppose themselves to medicine. There are even some "psychologists" who dissuade patients from operations and treatment, which is categorically unacceptable, because not in their competence to solve issues related to medicine. Often it can look like a manipulation like "It's up to you to decide, but I wouldn't do it", because the client perceives the words of the psychologist, first of all, as a specialist and does not think about the fact that the psychologist can tell a lie, make mistakes. Even Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, in his sermons about the disease, said that the disease should be treated by a doctor.

Many clients in their work with psychosomatics associate it with the works of L. Hay, L. Burbo and other authors who create their theories based on their method. At the same time, Liz Burbo, known for her "typing" on psychosomatics, in fact, in the preface to her main book "Your Body Speaks Love Yourself", wrote that she did not consider her method psychosomatics and deliberately chose the term "metaphysics" for description, focusing on the fact that the disease of the body is associated with something more than the person himself. Working as a manager in a large corporation, she helped people in matters of self-identification, which is probably where the main idea of the metaphysics of diseases as "the soul's search for its purpose" comes from. Louise Hay was also far from psychology and medicine and led a completely different lifestyle, until the moment she was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors were no longer able to help her, and accepting the illness as a "punishment" Louise decided to humbly spend the rest of her days in the monastery, helping the suffering parishioners. Such a life helped her to rethink a lot, after a while it became obvious that her condition had improved, and as a result, the tumor disappeared altogether. And then Louise decided that she should not stay in the monastery, but should convey her experience to other people. However, it does not happen that we get sick, start praying out of fright and suddenly recover. Only coming to true faith, to understanding his life through God, through the commandments, through the structure of the world, etc. can change life as described at the beginning of the article, filling that very existential gap. It is impossible to fill your existential voids through the path of another person.

And on the one hand, the important thing in these stories is that people help others to find faith and meaning. At the same time, these stories take consciousness away from the individualization of its path and from medicine itself, from the understanding of psychosomatics as a constant interconnection and interdependence of the bodily with the spiritual in each of the sides. So people often think that it is enough just to believe that diseases are manifestations of a "confused or stumbled soul", where a specialist helps to get back on their true path. This is partly true, but only partly. Here, more than ever, it becomes important to separate psychosomatic disorders from psychosomatic diseases. Since while disorders do arise on the basis of neurotic emptiness, diseases always affect the function of an organ and the organism as a whole. Spiritual search and becoming on the "path" does not give a person a new kidney, cartilage or lens, does not tighten stretched veins and does not heal bones, does not kill microbes, etc. Moreover, as already noted, clients who are guided by a ready-made scheme, instead of looking for its own model, constantly return to the disease. The theosophical direction interprets this as a failure or indigestion of the lesson. In fact, such an outcome is predictable since it is impossible to pass mine way through stranger experience and someone else's interpretation.

This is how the understanding is formed that psychosomatics cannot be considered separately from the spiritual component, but it is important to understand whether we are looking for our own path or trying on the path of other people. And at the same time, psychosomatics cannot work without affecting the body itself through science and medicine in particular. Those. successful work with psychosomatics is a simultaneous impact on the body and the search for one's own spiritual path.