| Precis: The writer of this article is a psychologist who has long searched for a quick, safe, and easy means to help patients integrate various aspects of their mind into a healthy, unified whole. Much to his surprise, he discovers an answer in a new interpretation and use of a famous Qabalistic ritual, the Middle Pillar. Practical Psychology and the Qabalah By Dr. Karl R. Nitzke © Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd Posted 8/02 It would seem that at one time or another, everyone could make use of a psychologist, even if it is just as a friend to talk with about issues they're facing in their lives. Realizing this, I studied psychology and eventually achieved a doctorate in the subject. But if you think all psychology and psychologists are the same, you're quite wrong. There are biopsychologists, child psychologists, clinical psychologists, and cognitive psychologists. There are community psychologists, counseling psychologists, developmental psychologists, educational psychologists, engineering psychologists, and experimental psychologists. You will also find health or medical psychologists, industrial/organizational psychologists, personnel psychologists, psycholinguists, psychometric (quantitative) psychologists, psychotherapists, and school psychologists. There are social psychologists and even many social workers have studied the field. Each of these, and many more, have different duties and responsibilities. Even these people don't agree on the theories behind their practices. Most people have heard of Jungian and Freudian psychology, but there is also Gestalt, Reichian, Neo-Reichian, behaviorism, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, parts counseling, and numerous other techniques and philosophies. And the amazing thing is...they all work. Well, that's not exactly correct. Different psychologists have better or less success with various systems. For example, a therapist who is an excellent behaviorist in her practice as a developmental psychologist may have no success if she tries to use Freudian analytical techniques. Similarly, a patient may have great success with a psychologist who uses Neo-Reichian techniques, but no success with Jungian methods. After ten years of my own private practice, I began to wonder if there was something that I could do which could help everyone. Freud had said that his analytical system was designed to take a long time and cost a lot of money. I wasn't interested in that. I just wanted to help people get through problems both major and minor as quickly and as elegantly as possible. I learned several systems, but as I discovered, what would work with one person might not work with another. I spent a year trying to determine if there was a way to predict what system would be the best for a patient. At the end of the time, I analyzed my data and discovered that I was, in fact, just guessing. THE BASIC PROBLEM In my analysis, competing aspects of the mind cause most psychological problems that do not have a somatic cause, such as a brain injury. Some people refer to this as the conscious/subconscious dichotomy. Others refer to it as competing "parts." But the bottom line is that psychological problems often occur when a part of a person believes X and another part believes Y even though X and Y contradict each other. Let me give an example. Let's say you are a male and expect your wife to behave in a certain way (and let's say it's keeping the home clean to a certain degree) but she does not meet your expectation. Now, on one level, you want the house to be a certain way and you are not getting it. By the same token, you don't want to tell your wife what to do. You expect X but you won't do Y (tell your wife what to do) in order to get X. The split here is between what you want and giving your wife freedom to not do what you want. Unfortunately, most people don't deal honestly with these competing attitudes. Instead, they manifest it in different ways, from having a negative attitude about the marriage to internalizing the competing feelings resulting in anything from asthma or eczema to panic attacks or even life-threatening circulatory problems. The goal of the therapist is to help a patient find inner harmony so that the dichotomy ceases to exist. For children the problem is similar but not exactly the same. When a child is young it gets all of its needs met by parents, siblings, or other adults (or should get the needs met by them). The only thing the child needs to do is obey. As the child grows, it naturally seeks to become independent. This means not obeying (setting up one's own values and responsibilities) and fending for itself (rather than having its needs met). But the child usually wants both: freedom and having its needs met. In most cases, it can't have both. The child must find a balance between the two desires. If successful, the child matures into a responsible adult. This process (in Jungian terms, "individuation") usually is achieved to a greater or lesser degree by most people. But when a child can't resolve the desire for freedom from adults and having others meet its needs, problems can develop. In the cases of both children and adults, psychological problems (often leading to physical as well as mental problems) occur if a part of the patient wants one thing and another part desires something in opposition to that. Here's another easy example. Joan has been eyeing John for a long time. Even though they have never dated, she has found him to be "dreamy" and has many expectations of what a date with him would be like. Finally, he asks her out. On the date, he tries to initiate a sexual encounter with her. She refuses, and later comes to hate him and not want to have anything to do with any men. She becomes very unhappy and gains a great deal of weight. What happened here? First, she had an expectation of what a date with John would be like. He is completely unlike that, disappointing her. The first problem, then, was that her expectation and the reality were not congruent. Next, although she was very attracted to him and (as I discovered during counseling) she wanted to have sex with him, her personal values would not let her do so. The second problem, then, was that he brought up her inner desires, which were in conflict with her moral values. Finally, although she was quite heterosexual, and she wanted to find a male partner, she had so idealized John and he had so failed to meet her expectations that she generalized the experience to all men, even though she could not possibly have a reasonable cause for this. By overeating, she created a defensive shield of weight so she would not have to confront her conflicting desires of wanting to have sex and a relationship with a man and her personal values which forbade a sexual relationship. Continued.... |