"Professional psychology has created a catalogue of disorders, known as the DSM IV, which is used by doctors and insurance companies to help diagnose and standardize problems of emotional life and behaviour with precision.....the problem is that adjusting to life, while perhaps sane to all outward appearances, may sometimes be detrimental to the soul." -Thomas Moore, Psychotherapist,1993
The world of assessment and diagnosis has lost contact with the idea of soul. The idea that within each of us something spiritual must take place in order for healing to be acheived. In over ten years of doing therapy the complaints I have heard everyday in my practice are emptiness, meaninglessness, vauge depression, disillusionment about marriage, family and relationships, a loss of values, yearning for fullfilment and a hunger for something spiritual. These Moore believes reflect a loss of soul. I agree. TJS
Come on, human beings! We are living on Earth, not in the Gardens of Eden. We can't always get what we want.
ReplyDeleteIn the past 20 years the science of psychology has more or less proven the connection between the mind and the body. Is there any real difference then between the connection of spirit and mind? The white world of psychology has much to learn from Aboriginal perspectives where our enviornment, spirit, body and mind are all part of a single interconnected entity. Society spends so much time on "what" to do we neglect "why" we do.
ReplyDeleteI was married to a man for 6 years. In those 6 years he was unfaithful, could not keep a job, horrible with money etc...It took me 6 years to realize that his three month cycles were so regular that I could time a calandar by him...When he was finally diagnosed with Bi-polar disorder it was too late for our marriage; however, his diagnoses helped me let go of the guilt I had for failing at making "us" work...His diagnoses did not in any way exuse the way I had been treated, but it offered me an explinaition so that I could let go of the blame I put on myself...Unfortunately for him it did not offer him that same sense of relization...He feels as if this lable makes up who he is, and sadly is finding it impossible to get past that point
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