Eastern psychotherapies

Dr.V.Veera Balaji Kumar

Limitations of Psychotherapy:

• There are five systems of psychotherapy that are being practiced and developed during the last two centuries in the Western world.

• They are:1: Chemotherapy 2: Electroplexy 3: Psychosurgery 4: Behavior therapy5: Psychoanalysis

Limitations of Psychotherapy:

1: Chemotherapy is the most popular and intensely used method of psychotherapy. Psychiatrists use chemicals or chemical compounds to create balance between the body and the mind of the mental patient.

• 2: Electroplexy is also a special therapy; only Psychiatrists can use it. The mental patients are given electric shocks of short duration from special electrical devices and they do not notice the psychology of mental patients.

• 3: Psychosurgery is the brain operation with a view to altering or normalizing certain behavior patterns of mental patients. This method is so dangerous to the risk of the mental patient that it has not been popular.

Limitations of Psychotherapy:

• 4: Behavior therapy: The behavioral scientists or social psychologists have used the advanced system of therapy in order to change or remove the symptoms of mental sickness so that normal behavior would be restored.

• 5: Psychoanalysis: According to Freud, Psychoanalysis is called depth psychology. Some techniques are used to help the mental patient to become aware of the causes of his mental sickness. It can be used to analyze experience and behavior of the depth consciousness of mental patients, especially with the discernment of the dreams and mental disorders that have the same character of neurotic symptoms

• The Freudian formal saying: "We are all somewhat hysterical". It sounds like an utterance of Buddhist introspection (Sabbe puthujjanā ummattakā) "All worldlings are prone to be mental illness."

• Psychoanalytic treatment has been proved to have three limitations such as: high cost, time-restriction and not good effect in many cases. In many cases the most it can do is to enable the subject to come to terms with himself and 'live with' his condition.

• The limited nature of its success is indicated by the need to resort to physical treatment for cases that have passed from neurosis to psychosis, such as electro convulsive therapy for acute depressive moods, insulin injections for the early stages of schizophrenia, frontal lobotomy for prolonged anxiety states and the use of the class of drugs known as tranquilizers

Early history of psychotherapy

• Patañjali (4th century BC) is the compiler of the Yoga Sutras, an important collection of aphorisms on Yoga practice.

• The Yoga Sūtras codifies the royal or best (rāja) yoga practices, presenting these as a eight-limbed system (ashtānga). The philosophic tradition is related to the school. The focus is on the mind; the second sutra defines Yoga - it is the cessation of all mental fluctuations, all wandering thoughts cease and the mind is focused on a single thought (ekāgratā).

The eight limbs or the propounded here are

1. yama, ethics, restraint and ahimsā, 2. niyama, cleanliness, ascetism, etc. 3. Asana, posture 4. Pranayama, breath-control 5. Pratyahara, sense-withdrawal 6. Dhāraṇā, concentration 7. dhyāna meditation, and 8. samadhi, oneness in quality of and Paramatma (but eternal

difference in quantity) with the Pranava of the Ishvara.

THE APPROACH OF ANCIENT HEALING

• Over two and a half millennium years ago what the Buddha taught during a period of forty- five years has been studied in various aspects by a long line Buddhist patriarchies down generations of master-pupils lineage, so it is possible to find out in the canon the aspect of Buddhist psychotherapy takes shape.

Dhammapada

• The following two stanzas which are opening of the Dhammapada, were spoken by Gotama Buddha more than 2,500 years ago.

• They elucidate the crucial theme of Buddhist teaching, the human mind.

Dhammapada

• Mind is the forerunner of all (evil) conditions.Mind is their chief, and they are mind-made.If, with an impure mind, one speaks or acts, Suffering follows one even as the cart-wheel follows the hoof of the ox

Dhammapada

• Mind is the forerunner of all (good) conditions.Mind is their chief, and they are mind-made. If, with a pure mind, one speaks or acts, Happiness follows one like his never-departing shadow

Mano

• The 'mano' here also signifies six-fold sense experience that is eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind episode.

• The happiness or suffering depends on the attitude of one's own mind: correct or incorect (yoniso-manasikāra vā ayoniso- manasikāra).

• If the mind understands in a good way, happiness arises.

• On the other hand if the mind interprets in a bad way, suffering is a consequent result and when the mind is out of control, at that time mental disorder takes place.

• Buddha was the first one to point out a disparity between mental sickness and physical sickness.

• “apart from those whose cankers are destroyed. (i.e the Saint or Arahants), beings who say that they have been mentally healthy for even a moment are rare in the world." (AN, Catukka-Nipāta, Roga Sutta No. 157).

Causes of mental sickness

• The three cardinal causes of mental sickness could be discovered more than 2,000 years in Charaka Samita.

• They are: 1: rajas: defilements; 2: thamas: darkness or confusion; 3: satva: the imbalance of mind, bile,

phlegm. • With the technique of analysis of the mind

contents, the mental cause have to be exposed either by the mental patient's knowing or seeing.

Concept of man in Buddhism

• Man is the most honorable creature in the whole world. All men are one's own brothers, as the members of the same great family of humankind without any discrimination of race, caste or rank.

• In another words, by mere birth it does not make man noble or ignoble but by three fold actions: bodily, verbal and mental actions

• Angulimāla was a son of a minister who became a notorious robber but when he was transformed into a disciple of the Buddha, he became an arahant - the noblest stage

man is the architect of one's own future or destiny

• According to Buddhist psychological aspect, the disposition of man is conditioned and nourished by the action of mind (manas) and as a result the personality and destiny of man are also likewise decided by the mind.

• Man is a psychophysical combination of mind and body (nāma- rūpa). Sensation (vedana), perception (saññā), mental formation (sankhāra) and consciousness (viññāṇa) are the non-physical factors in man collectively regarded as mind (nāma);

Elements• The four great primaries or elements (cattāri mahā

bhūtāni) have their characteristics as extensions (earth- pathāvi), cohesion (water- āpo), heat (fire- tejo) and vibration (wind-vāyo). These are the physical factors in man collectively regarded as body (rūpa).

• These five various groups (rūpā or material component on the one hand and vedanā, saññā, saṅkhāra and viññāṇa on the other) in which the psychophysical entity called man in analyzable are referred to in Buddhist texts as khandha (fivefold aggregate). It constitutes the basic so-called individual or personality.

• Man must be skillful in his own welfare but at the same time he should cultivate his spiritual life. A locality where there is no chance for a person to develop his morality is not suitable to choose for one's living.

• A man should have (kalyānamitta) a spiritual teacher to instruct him in the moral aspect, and should associate with and serve as his ideal. A locality where there is such a person to be found is a suitable to live in.

• Association with the wise may prevent one from having mental disorders to some extent and make progress in the spiritual life

Clinging to senses

• It should be also known that the distinction between the worldling and the arahants is clinging (upādāna).

• A worldling has been clinging to sensual and sexual desire, to his viewpoint as well as his own body; hence his fivefold clinging aggregate (pañcuppādānakkhandhā).

• Therefore he is subject to suffering (dukkha) mentally and physically.

• The paramount importance is eradication of these clingings (upādānā), in other words total absence of greed, hatred and ignorance

Concept of taghā in Buddhist Psychology and

its modern parallels • According to Psychoanalysis there are two

basic intuitions which hide behind the evident ego intuition and object intuition, namely, eros (the unifying intuition- positive wishes), the intuition that attempts for ever-closer union and thanatos (or the death with the destructive intuition- negative wishes) that results in the decay of what is living.

• The demonstration of the force of eros is named libido that comes from the Latin word for 'lust'.

• The Buddhist term for 'lust' is 'taghā'

Three kinds of Tagha

• There are three kinds of 'taghā' that are (Kāma-taghā): – craving for sense-delight, (bhava-taghā); – craving for self-protection and (vibhava-

taghā);– craving for non-existence.

• Thus kāma-taghā as explained in Buddhism accords with the libido of Freudian Psychology.

Love• Sigmund Freud says that the central part of

what is meant by love consists in sexual love with sexual union as its purpose that is inseparable from this certain affectionate and friendly stimulus.

• The love for parents and children, friendship, love for humanity and even the devotion to abstract ideals are manifestations of the same instinctive root.

• Craving for sense-delight as a demonstration of greed (lobha) and greed that is a fundamental root (mūla) rouses unhealthful state

Mindfulness and awareness• every human has potential craving (taghā) or

defilements (kilesa) the cardinal importance is how much one can be able to control oneself. The way to control oneself is nothing than mindfulness.

• Mindfulness and awareness in every rousing of the mind is their target. If one can be able to detect at the first moment of every response of one's mind, which is very useful to one's own cultivation and one's purification of mind.

• On the other hand if one fails to detect at the time of its rousing in one's mind, one can be carried away by verbal action and bodily action. Even in such a state if one is unable to control it, it means one becomes mentally ill.

Emotions - the root cause of mental

disorders • On the superficial aspect, a cause of mental

disorders is cosumerism that is ceaselessly stimulating and propagating desires which worldlings (puthujjanā) are unable to satisfy fully and become frustrated.

• However, according to Buddhist Psychology the worldling is identified by mental reactions of craving for states which are impermanent (aniccā), subject to suffering, devoid of reality and inherently impure.

• These one mistakenly assumes to be permanent, to engender happiness and endowed with self-existence.

Emotions – Buddhist viewpoint

• Accordingly in Buddhist Psychology mind is not just cognition.

• It embraces one's emotion as well as all unconscious mental-emotion reactive motifs. Emotions arise at the scene where mind and body encounter.

• It is the body's reaction to one's mind or reflections of one's mind in the body.

• For example, an antipathy thought will cause a process of energy in the body called anger. The body is getting prone to conflict

• Research has proved that robust emotions even cause fluctuation in the biochemistry of the body. The biochemical fluctuation exemplifies the visible aspect of emotion. Obviously, it is not usual to be conscious of all thought motifs, but it is beneficial to one if one can watch one's own emotions so that one can bring them into awareness.

• Failing to watch one's own emotions and often being carried away by unwholesome emotions such as: greed (lobha) or sensuous desire (kāmacchanda), hatred (dosa) or ill-will (vyāpāda), laziness and apathy or sloth and torpor (thīna-middha), agitation and hesitation or restlessness and w6rry (uddhacca-kukkucca) and mistrust or doubt (vichikicchā). In other words one may be captured by one of these five hindrances (nivaraṇa) and one's mind becomes disorder

• A good man and an evil thought cannot occur in combination. Therefore, at the time of knowing the sense desire (that was arising in the preceding moment) that sense desire no longer exists (but only the act of knowing)."[

• The more one is identified with one's thinking, one's like and dislike, judgment, interpretation and proliferation of mind, which is to say the less present one is as the watching consciousness, the stronger the emotional energy will be, whether one is able to be aware of it or not.

• The unhealthy emotional and motivational tracks become toughened by the incessant repetition of motifs of manners that escort their expression. A mannered shift at the level of overt expression of a person's emotion becomes needed in order to enfeeble or to root out the unhealthy emotion.

The power of mindfulness

• The healing begins when the mental patients come to know how to observe their own mind, how often they behave like unrestrained disputants steadily opposing each other and denying listening to the other side's arguments because of their lack of courage to accept their practical, moral or intellectual reasoning.

• If they continue to look into more carefully their mind more carefully, their thoughts or judgments, they will have to recognize that many of them are just the product of habit, led by prejudices of intellect or emotion, by their pet liking or disliking, by laziness or selfishness by unsound or cursory attentions.

Challenge of mindfulness

• The dark and untidy corners of the mind are the hideaways of one's most dangerous enemies and one can be attacked unconsciously and much too often defeated by them

• Nothing more challenging is needed than to acquire the practice of directing bare and pure attention to these elementary thoughts as often as possible. The simple fact should be known that two thoughts are unable to coexist at the same time: if the clear light of mindfulness is present, there is no room for mental dusk.

The process of the ancient healing- psychotherapy

• Psychotherapy is a psychological process that helps to change the mental patient's illusion or hallucination.

• That is the concept of 'I' and 'mine', happiness and permanence.

• With the guidance of the psychotherapist, this process helps the mental patient gradually understand and accept the three cardinal aspects of all things: anicca (changing, impermanent), dukkha (suffering) and anatta (non -self);

The process

• At the first session, the aims of mental patient and the psychotherapist are at variance. The psychotherapist should make the mental patient burst out his obsessive story and listen to him attentively without taking down notes in front of him.

• The psychotherapist should ask the mental patient some questions concerning the change in some visible things or persons around him. Gradually the psychotherapist helps the mental patient to be aware of the law of change...

The law of change - anicca

• When the mental patient comes to accept the law of change (anicca), with the delicate guidance of the psychotherapist, the mental patient slowly realizes how much suffering there is in himself as well as in his near and dear ones.

• The task of psychotherapy is one of reconciling the out-bursting emotions of the mental patient. It is hoped that the development of communication and relationship among the psychotherapist, mental patient and his family will bring him soon to the normal state.

The function of the psychotherapist

• Those who would like to help others by this approach needs first of all to become familiar with the technique and have much personal experience in Insight Meditation so that their radiation of wisdom and compassion (karuṇa) will attract the attention of the mental patient.

• Restoration of normalcy and mental health of the mental patients are the purpose of the psychotherapist.

Responsibility of psychotherapist

• All worldlings have their own mental defilements such as greed, hatred, conceit...and for a long time they can control themselves; such person are not in the domain of psychotherapist but those who are unable to control their defilements and violently or unconsciously carried away by them in their verbal and bodily expressions are in their real domain.

• The target of the psychotherapist is to help the mental patient be capable of managing their own defilements and to be active as well as understand with an average level of self- awareness.

Catharsis

• Making of cartharsis in the mental patients, the psychotherapist must not tell the carthasis of the mental patient to anyone and be a sensitive listener and base on that data to classify the temperament of mental patients such as:

1: Rāga temper: sexual lust driven temper2: Dosa temper: antipathy driven temper3: Moha temper: confusion temper4: Māna temper: those who always make comparisons between themselves and others.

• the psychotherapist should choose topics to converse according to their inclinations.

• The psychotherapist at the beginning of developing communication has to show his empathy to the mental patient with a great enthusiasm to know his situation and soothe him from suffering due to sickness by forgiving and letting go and opening revaluation for him.

• The psychotherapist is endowed with the understanding the four Noble Truths, and able to diagnose a sickness (Dukkha Sacca), designate its cause (Samudaya Sacca), say whether the sickness is curable (Nirodha Sacca) and trace the means of cure (Magga Sacca).

• Then, the psychotherapist should make the mental patient understand that every thing is subject to change therefore the mental patient's sickness also will be changed.

• Good communication has to be set up in the triangular relationship among Psychotherapist (P), to mental patient (M) and his family (F): from P to M, from (M) to (P); from (P) to (F), and from (F) to (M), from (M) to (F) and from (F) to (P).

Impediments

• Passing of the mental patient's emotions on the psychotherapist is a distinctive obstacle that all psychotherapists have to face.

• For instance, the antipathy or lust or even sexual thirst that exist in the mental patient, may shift such emotions on to the psychotherapist

Techniques • psychotherapist should ask the mental patient

to keep the eyes closed during the time of conversation about thirty minutes.

• After a break for drinking some kind of beverage, he should suggest the mental patient do breathing exercise with him either sitting on a chair or lying on a bed without pillow: breathing in and out normally five times and then breathing deeply and keeping the breath in the chest for a while and breathing out strongly.

• This exercise is good for blood circulation and many functions of internal organs

Patience • psychotherapist must practice patience on the

mental patient, carefully and attentively listen to the bursting words of the mental patient and have capacity to detect the character of the mental patient by noticing on their facial reactions and bodily behaviors.

• interpretation of the mental patient's dreams and find out its cause hidden in the unconscious.

• If he agrees, the psychotherapist should give an exact appointment and good expectation about the mental patient's neat and clean appearance and polite behaviors.