Archive for the ‘Spirit’ Category
A Buddhist Perspective on Healing: Wisdom and Compassion
My immersion in Tibetan Buddhism has influenced my perspective on the healing process. The central tenets of Tibetan Buddhism are wisdom and compassion.
Wisdom in Healing
From a conventional point of view, phenomena are incontrovertibly how they appear. At this level, healing in psychotherapy includes the kinds of work that I have described in previous blogs and radio shows. It is essential to bring dissociated feelings and memories into conscious awareness. Doing so in the context of a caring psychotherapy relationship allows the “working through,” the integration and the release of these emotions. Mourning is central to this process: mourning for both what was wounding and for what was lacking in the patient’s early life.
Another key component of the healing process is working on the patient’s “shadow” side. Trauma propagates through identification with the aggressor. It is a painful, but vital, step to recognize one’s own propensity to hurt others.
From an ultimate point of view, all phenomena are inherently “empty.” I am not qualified to discuss the Buddha’s teachings. So, for our purposes, let me just say that healing is facilitated by the cultivation of the awareness that all of our perceptions, all of our experiences, are like a mirage, like an illusion. We all construct our own “psychic reality.”
This realization is very powerful. It gives us the freedom to construe the past from multiple vantage points. We can achieve release from an identity as a perennial victim of circumstances. We can develop the capacity for what Carolyn Myss has called “symbolic sight.” We can learn to “learn from our experience” (Wilfred Bion). We can develop the potential to do things differently, to experience transformation.
Viewing life as an open field, rather than as a constellation of solid figures, liberates us from fixity, from the unconscious compulsion to repeat the past.
Compassion In Healing
Compassion for others is the antidote for narcissism. Narcissism is the root of all suffering. When we fixate on an “I,” we experience ourselves as fundamentally disconnected, constricted, anxious and depressed. When we cultivate our compassion for others, we feel alive, related and infused with life energy.
Wisdom and compassion are inseparable, like the two wings of a bird. In conjunction with one another, they liberate us from suffering, allowing our spirits to take flight. The darkness of our delusions is dispelled. The radiance of our innate nature shines forth unimpeded. We are free.
A Psychiatrist’s Journey: “Nothing can be created or destroyed”
“Nothing can be created or destroyed”
I remember having this thought, with great conviction, at the age of three. I was gazing intently at a large rock covered with green moss.
Not the thought of a three year old ….
Valentinus, a second century Gnostic, wrote:
“What liberates us is the knowledge of who we were, what we became, where we were, whereinto we have been thrown, whereto we speed, wherefrom we are redeemed, what is birth and what rebirth.”
From the age of five, I have been inexplicably drawn to and mesmerized by Tibetan mandalas.
Throughout my life, I have experienced external reality as a projective field. What we apprehend through our five senses, and our sixth sense, is a highly idiosyncratic construction.
This perspective motivated me to study anthropology and psychology in college. I wanted to learn how culture, language, memory and desire shape perception.
During graduate work in psychology, I investigated the physiology of perception. Concurrently I did research at Rockefeller University, on the localization of opiate receptors in the brain.
My interest in higher integrative functioning remained a passion throughout medical school. Inspired by Wilder Penfield’s “Mystery of The Mind,” I decided to become a neurosurgeon.
Three thousand miles (New York to San Francisco) and two years later, I had an epiphany: I truly wanted to be a psychiatrist. As the British psychoanalyst, D.W. Winnicott, wrote:
“Home is where we start from.”
The manifest context for my felt urgent need to choose psychiatry included an impassioned reading of Goethe’s Faust, a spontaneous total immersion in philosophical Taoism and a resurgent compelling interest in the life and work of Carl Jung. Jung’s autobiography, “Memories, Dreams, Reflections,” had made a searing impression on me as a fifteen year old.
The reading of a book, “The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self,” by the Jungian analyst Jean Shinoda Bolen, crystallized my decision.
Some years later, my connection with Tibetan Buddhism resurfaced. I was drawn to seek out teachings from a few Tibetan lamas, notably the Dalai Lama and Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche.
The twin principles of Tibetan Buddhism are compassion and wisdom, “like the two wings of a bird.” I have come to experience compassion as the life force, Henri Bergson’s “Elan Vital.” This force sustains me. It infuses my work.
As Santideva, an 8th century Buddhist, wrote in “The Way of the Bodhisattva:”
“For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then may I too abide, to dispel the misery of the world.”
How Does Psychotherapy Heal? Part III – Psyche, Soma and Spirit
Psychological growth and spiritual development are mutually contingent on one another.
This week, I would like to share with you a case that illustrates the interdependence of psyche, soma and spirit in the healing process.
Sophia is a 70 year old member of a religious order. She and I have been meeting in twice a week psychotherapy for the past four years.
Sophia’s father sexually abused her from her early childhood until puberty. Sophia’s mother was hypercritical, perhaps envious, of her. At age 20, following one abortive relationship with a man, Sophia decided to enter a convent.
During her early adult life, Sophia turned to alcohol to drown her sorrow. Some years later, she developed a bipolar affective disorder. More recently, she was diagnosed with insulin dependent diabetes, as well as with Parkinson’s Disease.
1. Psyche: Healing Early Trauma
Donald Kalsched, a Jungian analyst, has written a trenchant book called “The Inner World of Trauma.” In describing the work of recovery from trauma, he suggests “where there is an affect, look for an image. Where there is an image, look for an affect.”
With this advice in mind, I encouraged Sophia, a talented artist, to create artwork that would give expression to her childhood memories and feelings. She took to this process readily, with great creativity. There ensued an extended period during which Sophia would bring drawings, watercolors, paintings or poetry to each session. Through giving form to her experiences, Sophia was able to access and to express her feelings at a deep level.
These feelings included shame, rage, terror and sadness. She ultimately reached an experience of genuine compassion, for herself as a little girl, and finally even towards her parents. Her repertoire of emotions expanded dramatically. She came to revel in her own sensuality and sexuality. She came fully alive, before my eyes.
2. Psyche and Soma
Diabetes and Parkinson’s Disease have profound emotional effects. Reciprocally, emotional states have a major impact on the manifestations of these physical conditions. Much work in the therapy has had the goal of helping Sophia to maintain her physical and emotional homeostasis.
At times, I coordinate her care with other treating physicians. Doing so is both good medical practice as well as an opportunity to model appropriate symbolic parenting.
Psychotropic medications are utilized to stabilize Sophia’s mood.
3. Psyche and Spirit
Sophia’s sexual abuse, and more specifically her father’s perversion, led her to question her faith. She felt abandoned by God, the Father. She underwent a protracted “dark night of the soul” (St. John of the Cross).
As she healed her psychological wounds, Sophia’s spiritual life, has blossomed. She has developed a vivid, direct personal relationship with Jesus and Mary (the Divine masculine and feminine principles).
Sophia has internally reaffirmed her vows. She has rededicated herself to minister to those in need, within her community. She has found and is maintaining an appropriate balance between nurturing herself and caring for others. She experiences the indestructibility of her own spirit.
Last week, Sophia said to me, “Thomas Aquinas wrote that contemplation yields illumination only when one gives to the world.”
It was in this context that Sophia decided to authorize the dissemination of her life story. She prays that doing so might illuminate the path of healing for others.
Vacations Are Essential to Mental Health
When I was 15 years old, I had the opportunity to accompany a group of psychologists on a trip to the Soviet Union. Our group was given a behind the scenes tour of the Soviet mental health system. The first intervention that was offered to a stressed out worker was a two week vacation at a resort on the Black Sea. As a teenager, this “prescription” struck me as somewhat primitive. I have come to appreciate its wisdom.
No matter how much we might love our work, a periodic change of pace, and change of scene, are crucial for maintaining our psychic equilibrium. The human nervous system habituates to sameness. Both behaviorally and neurophysiologically, we get stuck in a rut. We cease to remain fully awake and alert. We begin to “go through the motions” of living. In the extreme, life can begin to feel “stale, flat and unprofitable,” in Hamlet’s words.
Christopher Bollas, an American psychoanalyst with a PhD in English literature, writes that a particular experience “sponsors” a specific state of mind, or “self state.” Thus, if we perpetually repeat the same routine day after day, for months at a time, we drastically circumscribe the experience of who we are. There is a tendency for us to think the same thoughts, and to feel the same feelings. This circumscription can lead not only to boredom with our lives, but as well with whom we are.
Vacations are the portal for new experiences, of the world and of ourselves. Among the many wonderful benefits that we can experience when we are on vacation
- Leaving the world of work for a time allows us to relax.
- Our body and mind uncoil themselves.
- We breathe more deeply.
- Mental focus expands.
- We think new thoughts, we perceive new possibilities.
- Vacations often provide the opportunity for inspirations that transform our lives in myriad ways.
Vacations are strongly associated with childhood memories. Most of us had more regular, more frequent and longer vacations as children than we do as adults. Vacations can allow us to contact our “inner child.” We become so used to suppressing this dimension of ourselves in the service of functioning as “mature adults.” How sad, what a huge loss, if maturity comes to preclude the qualities of playfulness and fun that make life an adventure. Cultivate a relationship with your inner child. Ask him or her what s/he would most enjoy doing. When your child and your adult selves are living life in dialogue with one another, you will feel continually refreshed and fully alive. On vacation, past and present can commingle, giving rise to new visions for the future.
For those of us who live in urban areas, vacations can offer a time to return to nature. The infinite sensory experiences of nature, e.g. the scent of pine trees after rain, are the best tonic for depression and anxiety. Opening up to nature promotes an expansive self state, in which we somehow feel closer, or indeed one with, the realm of spirit.
In this era of economic uncertainty and anxiety, it is all too easy to cut out all vacation spending as one means of saving money. Remember the words of Wordsworth:
The world is too much with us…
Getting and spending we lay waste our powers…
Penny wise, and pound foolish. If we are not mindful, we can end up killing the golden goose: namely, ourselves.
A Psychiatrist’s Journey
Central Park Bridge, New York City
My childhood experiences were highly influential in my choice of profession.
My mother, Susan Deri, was a psychoanalyst. Trained in Budapest, she immigrated to the United States with my father during World War II. My father, Otto Deri, was a fine musician, a cellist. My parents divorced when I was six years old. Two years later, my brother (currently a psychologist in New York City) went away to boarding school. I was left at home alone with my mother.
She was a brilliant, highly creative thinker and clinician. She read widely in the domains of psychology, psychoanalysis, philosophy and religion. From my earliest childhood, she used me as a sounding board for her evolving ideas about symbolization and creativity. She ultimately wrote a book with that title, which was published after her death (Symbolization and Creativity, International Universities Press, 1984).
Both of my parents taught me how to listen. My mother challenged my young mind through communicating both concepts and emotional experiences that were way beyond my comprehension. In order to have a mother, I was forced to develop a precocious intelligence. I had to listen for dear life. My father taught me how to listen to music as a musician, a priceless gift.
Claude Levi-Strauss, the French anthropologist, has written that “the psychoanalyst listens; the shaman speaks.” In my work as a psychotherapist, I listen very closely to my patients. When I speak, I am serving as a channel for an intelligence that transcends my own. I bring the totality of my life experience into every moment that I share with each of my patients.
I am greatly blessed to love my work deeply. I would be honored to share it with you.
A New Blog: A Work in Progress
The Psychiatry Blog is currently under development.
The blog will address a wide range of topics. The biopsychosocial/spiritual schema will provide the framework for the blog.
The spirit of the blog will be interactive. I encourage and will respond to your questions, comments and requests.
In the meantime, please return to, or visit my website at www.JohnDeriMD.com .