Is There Spirituality In Psychology? - Self-development

To develop, everyone chooses their own path. Someone follows the path of religion, someone develops with the help of yoga, meditation, psychotherapy, someone is looking for a teacher and the person himself and his qualities are important to him, and not to which confession he belongs. There are many tools, everyone is free to choose according to their liking. And here it is not even the instrument itself that is important, but the intention of the person. If he sincerely wants to develop, then any chosen tool will contribute to this. And if a person is inclined to pseudo-spirituality, then again absolutely any instrument, no matter how wonderful it is, will only contribute to the development of pseudo-spirituality and work to strengthen the illusion of his own omnipotence and spirituality. Is there spirituality in psychology?

“In the nineteenth century, the problem was that God is dead; in XX - the problem is that a person is dead …"

Erich Fromm - social psychologist, psychoanalyst, philosopher

It is possible to distinguish between development and pseudo-development by such signs. If you have more respect, warmth and patience for yourself and for people, not indulgence, but rather patience, compassion, then you are on the right track. If feelings of contempt for others and a sense of your own superiority over others have become your companions, and the world has divided into you and others, or your family and others, or your community and others, then you should seriously think about whether you have fallen into a special trap of pseudo-spirituality.

Such states are normal at a certain stage of development, but the fact of the matter is that only at a stage. You have seen, caught these defects in yourself and continue to work with them. This is an important development workflow. But if you have been living in this for a long time, then, as written above, it is worth considering. Since this contradicts the main idea of spiritual development - unity with the world. In the second case, not only is there no unity, but there is isolation from the world, which always goes along with alienation and from oneself. As we despise others, so do our inner parts. In the big world, we tend to act out our internal processes.

By the way, Hitler also started with the idea that there is a special nation and there are others. How it ended is known. This, of course, is an extreme degree, but it all started with just such an idea, and then it is a matter of technology.

Psychotherapy as one of the tools for self-development

There is an opinion that psychologists deal with childhood grievances, mom, dad, and generally pester with childhood in every possible way. Not without this, of course. But I want to restore justice and show another side of psychology. If you think that this is all the work of a psychologist and that psychotherapy is not able to develop a person, but only solves his "superficial", pressing personality problems, then most likely you have not read the books of Erich Fromm, James Hillman, William James, Arnold Mindell and others.

The directions are different. Here everyone chooses to their liking. This does not mean that one approach is good and the other is bad. It is impossible to compare, for example, an ant and a butterfly. Both the ant and the butterfly are important to the universe, and each has its own function. But if you want deep changes, development, you are interested in the topic of spirituality, then psychotherapy is able to provide such tools.

There are whole areas in psychology where there is a place for spirituality, if there is a request in it. After all, it is impossible to give a person more than he is able to take.

Spirituality in psychology

• CG Jung's analytical psychology. It is believed that this direction is more popular among philosophers, religious leaders, poets than among classical psychologists. The closest colleague, his associate, collaborator Maria-Louise von Franz, for example, had a Ph. D.
• Arnold Mindell's process-oriented psychology and existential psychotherapy based on existential philosophy, the founder of which is considered the philosopher, theologian Søren Kierkegaard. K. Jaspers, who himself was a philosopher, psychologist and psychiatrist, believed that S. Kierkegaard returned the spiritual component to a person. His works were not popular during his lifetime, as is often the case, the genius is ahead of his time. But decades later, when Freud actively investigated animal instincts in man, the process was appreciated and balanced, illuminating, in addition to animal instincts, spiritual processes in man.

• Hakomi (Hakomi) is a direction of body-oriented psychotherapy, which directly combines the principles of body-oriented psychotherapy and values, the wisdom of Eastern philosophy, such as non-violence, compassion, respect, loving presence, unity. The words of Ron Kurtz, the founder of this approach: “Unity reminds us of the interconnection of all living things, all life, all events. This is integrity at the universal level."

  Hakomi is not a religious trend. It is a spiritually oriented practice of self-knowledge. Perhaps this direction will be especially interesting for people who help professions, for example, psychologists. After all, a psychologist cannot work exclusively with his professional part. He works with all of himself, a person is always much more than his professional part. And who he is and his values cannot but influence the work process.

• There is a direction in body-oriented psychotherapy - biosynthesis. The approach is based on the principles of body-oriented psychotherapy, depth psychology, prenatal psychology. There is room in the concept for concepts such as essence and spiritual integrity. Lili Anagnostopulu, psychologist, psychotherapist, Ph. D. and director of the Institute of Biosynthesis, writes in the article “Spirituality in biosynthesis”: “People talk about spirituality, but as a mental process. You are looking at the physical signs that I talked about earlier, and you do not see them here. You do not see openness, radiance, flow, warmth, contact …”.

Body-oriented approaches explore spirituality not only as mental processes, but as mental, spiritual qualities, states in conjunction with physical, bodily manifestations of these states.

The principle of unity speaks not only of the relationship of all living beings (external level), but also of the relationship of the internal parts of a person, including spirituality and the body (internal process). Remember that a person is acting out his inner dynamics in the big world, so the most important task is to establish internal connections.

I hope I managed to dispel a little the myth about the lack of spirituality in psychology and show that psychotherapy can be an excellent tool for development, spiritual, including, if there is a request for it. The only thing that psychotherapy lacks is dogmatism.