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Annoyance at the institution of psychology, some alternate modalities.

[Enneagram Type 5] 
726 views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  Nicholasjh1 
#1 ·
Something on another thread brought up something for me I'm passionate about, I felt like it deserved it's own thread (towards the bottom are some alternate forms of therapy that can help with emotional growth if this is TLDR):

September 8th:
Be aware of the transformational process, no matter what type you are. "Psychology without spirituality is arid and ultimately meaningless, while spirituality without grounding in psychological work leads to vanity and illusions." (Understanding the Enneagram, 366)



When I first started seeing all the "spiritual" stuff in certain enneagram writings I was really turned off, but I feel like I have more of a connection to this side of things. I've always been interested in spirituality and not religion, but I find too often the two are used interchangeably. I don't really feel this way as much in regards to the Enneagram though - I've always enjoyed zen quotes about connectivity but I think I always thought they were kind of hokey. I feel like I understand them on a different level now.

Sitting quietly, doing nothing,
Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.


Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.

Clear mind is like the full moon in the sky. Sometimes clouds come and cover it, but the moon is always behind them. Clouds go away, then the moon shines brightly. So don’t worry about clear mind: it is always there. When thinking comes, behind it is clear mind. When thinking goes, there is only clear mind. Thinking comes and goes, comes and goes, You must not be attached to the coming or the going.

There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or the hand. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes in the summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in the sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of work. For the most part, I minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and low, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished.
Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so I had my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest.
- Henry David Thoreau, Waldon

Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that
is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand
or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness,
I can wait.


Be strong then, and enter your own body;
there you have a solid place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don't go off somewhere else!
Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are.
-Kabir
Actually I enjoy spirituality and psychology, but this view of psychology pisses me off, mostly because it's true the way the mass amount of psychology is used. Because of worries about being charged with a law suit the psychology "guild" has set up a scenario where the main psychology in use is "cognitive" based. The funny thing about this, particularly for 5's is that most 5's are already cognitive experts. Normal psychology is not going to do much for a 5. emotional psychology is what is needed, but most psychologist practice a cognitive form (CBT, DBT). The main reason spirituality is so important is that psychology fails so utterly at freeing and training the emotional side in most cases. Though I do think that as a culture having a spiritual practice would be better for us all. It's a great failing of today's culture that it does so little to train us emotionally.

Here are some of the emotional forms of therapy for those interested

Psychodrama,
intuitive experiential therapy,
NLP or Neural linguistic programming,
EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (be careful with the practitioner on this one as it can actually teach you to repress emotions)
Shadow work (Jungian)
 
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#3 ·
now see.. I tried to start at the cognitive and slide gently into the emotional with you, but you didn't want to go there. Does that say more about me, or something about you? When, as human beings we process what we see into how we feel about it, and feel what we want to see, no? Perhaps those people failed to pave those avenues... but, whatever.
 
#4 ·
The problem is that they may want to talk about the emotional stuff, but the "basic" psychologist does nothing to help you process it emotionally, so it can easily be a zero sum game, processing emotional stuff cognitively isn't even as good as masturbation. It's like trying to get off by imagining sex. If you had an experience with a full emotional processing of emotional stuff as you put it, it's doubtful to me that you'd feel that way. Just my opinion.
 
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