Psychotherapy today and tomorrow - A Buddhist Perspective

Jörg Fitz

2012

FOREWORD

This essay is a written and developed version of a lecture held at Linköping University on May 5, 1998, by the undersigned. The essay has been linguistically polished and slightly revised in 2012.

Jörg Fitz

PSYCHOTHERAPY TODAY AND TOMORROW

A Buddhist Perspective

The Meaning of Psychotherapy - Some Characteristic Glimpses 

'Psychotherapy' can refer to different forms of activity, depending on one's experiential and knowledge-based frame of reference. Let us initially briefly characterize some variants, more or less mentally-linguistically or physically oriented, forms of psychotherapy that are applied today.

An existentially oriented psychotherapist will approximately understand 'psychotherapy' as promoting development regarding increasingly reflected human existential consciousness, especially concerning questions about life's whence and whither, choices, transience and death, the function of spirituality, and the relationship between consciousness and reality and being.

A Jungian-oriented psychotherapist or analyst will with the term 'psychotherapy' mainly refer to an activity that actively seeks to promote a transformative 'individuation process' towards an increasingly richer self-realization, especially during the second half of a person's life, whereby one uses, among other things, 'meaning amplification' of dream images and experienced symbols.

A Freudian-oriented, or post-Freudian 'psychodynamic', psychotherapist or analyst will with 'psychotherapy' mainly refer to the promotion of 'catharsis' and enrichment of insights regarding etiological conditions (here primarily the personal history's childhood-oriented living circumstances) that have causally contributed to the emergence of various problems and symptoms, and thereby understandingly experience the connections between these parts, among other things with the help of free association and interpretation of dreams, projections, and so-called 'transferences'.

An Adlerian-oriented psychotherapist usually means something else by 'psychotherapy'. For them, it's more about using active social cultivation or training to correct someone's disturbed attitude and psychological dynamics - for example, compulsive feelings of inferiority or psychopathic exercise of power - and thereby seeking to 'straighten someone out along some general human or cultural normal trellis' in a civilizing manner.

For a psychosynthesis therapist, a branch mainly of Jung's psychology initiated by Assagioli, 'psychotherapy' is usually a matter of mental exercises aimed at promoting a humanistic and spiritual healing to who one 'is assumed to actually be'... a gradual "self-realization" in roughly the Jungian sense, whereby one is however more focused on a branch of Jung's collective store consciousness tree, which has rather maternal chords.

A cognitive behavioral therapist has something else in mind when the term 'psychotherapy' is used, to the extent that the term is used at all here. Here one has a more pragmatic-manipulative view, where therapy is seen as a set of methods with which one systematically seeks to restructure, for example, 'reinforcement contingencies' or cognitive approaches/"schemas" in order to bring about changes, through which one seeks to alleviate relatively definable symptoms (e.g., specific phobias). ACT is a contemporary branch of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) where they have also now begun to open up to such therapeutic procedures as allowing oneself cathartic experiences of emotional release... something that has existed in most other psychotherapies for a long time.

A Gestalt therapist means by 'psychotherapy' either mainly individually intrapsychic (as with Perls and followers) or interrelational (as in experiential family therapy à la Kempler) to promote the development of a not too extensive dynamic holistic consciousness at an existential here-and-now level. Non-conceptual perception or sensation and emotional relating are emphasized and focused on, often confrontationally and in the absence of interpretations, to achieve the manifestation of more presumed authenticity.

From Grof's LSD psychotherapy, 'psychotherapy' becomes something else entirely. Here, perinatal experiences and the 'condensed memories' formed and unprocessed during this period are considered to a much greater extent than in other schools as causal determinants of our current living circumstances and problems. Psychotherapy thus aims to dissolve these deep-lying 'complexes' within us, something that usually cannot be done easily without the help of the very experienced use of LSD in psychotherapy (or through meditative methods, which however have not been studied by Grof).

We now also have many more methodically body-oriented psychotherapies in which one approaches therapeutic work both (i) from perspectives other than the mainly linguistic ones (such as psychoanalytic psychology) or primarily mental ones (e.g., dream image therapies à la Leuner's 'katathymes Bilderleben') and (ii) from other methods. Lowen's 'Bioenergetics therapy' targets approximately moderate 'character disorders' where problems have more or less become fixed in defense patterns in the body, which in therapy one seeks to dissolve with rather intensive body-oriented methods to thereby achieve a freer energy flow in the body. Additional such intensive catharsis-oriented psychotherapies belonging to this group, where one primarily works with more or less severe 'character disorders', include Janov's primal therapy, Casriel's identity therapy, and therapy forms that use 'liberating breathing', e.g., so-called holotropic breathing.Other body-oriented therapy methods are methodically more based on massage and physical touch combined with an intuitive and healing presence. Rosen therapy is an example. Psychotherapy here is more a matter of using more meditative or intuitive soft massage to release, among other things, traumatized memories, blockages, and repressed emotions stored in our body. So-called 'intuitive massage' also belongs to this category.

More directly mental forms of psychotherapy are e.g., dream image psychotherapies, such as more or less freely used forms of so-called 'hypnagogic dream image journeys' or 'symbol drama'. Such variants of psychotherapy are well suited for certain personality types (e.g., 'introverted sensation types' in Jung's functional classification) with not too severe problems. Psychotherapy here becomes a question of more direct mental transformation processes using symbols that the psyche creates. This type of psychotherapeutic method is also used in freer form within Jungian psychotherapy, here called 'active imagination', and in a more advanced way within tantric Buddhist meditation. Within this latter psychotherapy method, however, one has goals that go far beyond what the other psychotherapy variants mentioned above have. We will return to this below.

Still other forms of psychotherapy primarily consider dynamic relationships, for example family patterns, and are more 'system-oriented' therapies. Psychotherapy here becomes a question of reorganizing, shifting emphasis, regulating, and in various ways changing larger or smaller 'systems' or wholes, and the dynamic relationships between the parts in these, to achieve more balance, and thereby better health and functionality. In family therapies, one works with the entire family present. Psychotherapy here is not a question of individual intrapsychic processing as is the case in e.g., psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Within school medical psychiatric therapy, one has a radically different approach to psychological problems. Here one wants to correct the whole by manipulating primarily the chemical level in humans. Moreover, one desires to preferably also use as few medical substances as possible to achieve this regulation towards symptom relief - something that is actually determined by the need to experimentally and measurably seek to 'evidence-base' knowledge and avoid including any of the other thousands of variables that are always present.

In homeopathic therapy, on the other hand, one aims to, among other things, use small amounts of medicines to stimulate the development of and strengthen the body's own natural defenses and regulatory systems, and hereby seek cure without becoming dependent on medication. One does not directly seek to reduce symptoms, but instead wants to activate more natural mechanisms and functions to help the body restore normal activity. Indeed, one often adds diluted amounts of precisely those substances that contribute to producing the disease symptoms.

Within natural medical therapy ('naturopathy') the basic principle is somewhat different. Here the central vision is to always seek to achieve dynamic and relevant balance. An experienced naturopathic doctor or therapist uses as many relevant variables as possible - in both diagnosis and treatment - to achieve desired goals. An example of an elaborate form of natural medical therapy combined with spiritual psychotherapy is Tibetan/tantric medicine.

Of course, there are also many combination variants of the above-mentioned therapy forms and many overlap each other more or less.

Some important Dimensions in Psychotherapy

Physical - Linguistic - Mental

As mentioned briefly above, one should be clear about which methodological sphere one primarily works in and how it relates to others. The mental, linguistic, and physical mediums are the most relevant and fundamental for all therapies working with people. Some more inclusive and holistically-oriented forms of therapy consciously seek to integrate all these three dimensions (for example dharma-tantric psychotherapy and meditation). Other therapy forms tend to seek to reduce these mediums primarily to one of them (such as Lacanian psychoanalysis which sees the psychotherapeutically relevant dimensions as being linguistic). In the present context here, the mental medium will come to the foreground, since the subject is precisely 'psychotherapies' and not primarily for example 'linguistic conversation therapy' or 'body therapy'. The mental dimension is however more fundamental than the others... without it, it becomes pointless to work with the linguistic and physical dimensions.

Reductionism - Creativity

Reduction is a strong tendency in us humans, which is found in most out- or insights, not just psychotherapeutic ones. This tendency is as strong and common as the manifestation of regressive reactions, for example a tendency towards childish reaction patterns or generalizing routinization in all possible contexts. Most people like to empirically simplify, banalize, trivialize, reify, minimize, quantitatively concretize, fundamentalize, etc. Such reductive tendencies are found even as maxims in scientific theoretical and research methodological contexts; sometimes skillfully hidden as in the principle that one should not use 'unnecessarily many' explanatory variables, or the 'simplest' among several alternatives (the so-called "Occam's razor" principle).

And there's really nothing wrong with that... it's a very important principle... but with reductionistic tendencies, one doesn't distinguish between significance-aware summarizing to facilitate integration and restricting to maintain one's ignorance. The Occam's razor principle is also not fundamentally supported by the intention that one wisdom-oriented has to razor one's way to the clear nature-consciousness of being.

Experimental positivism as applied in behavioristic learning theory, for example, is an example of extreme scientific theoretical reductionism. For a while - a handful of decades ago - in some areas of academic learning psychology, one mostly studied the behaviors of hungry mice in mazes, whereupon one then sought to draw far-reaching generalizations to human behaviors. Today, many experiments with mice are still done in medical research.

But even intelligent people like Einstein couldn't resist falling for the temptation to search for the universe's final explanatory formula, without explicitly including the paradigmatic significance-consciousness that composed this formula - something that was scientifically theoretically conditioned by the fact that he - like most academics - reduced scientific vision to being based on an objectivistic-realistic ontology and epistemology. Psychologically, in such formulation, it may have been about trying to, in a deductive spirit, integrate all knowledge at a more abstract and inclusive level. And nothing wrong with that, if one can put it in a creative more inclusive and enlightenment-oriented paradigmatic context and not just reduce...one simply consciously pedagogically summarizes to facilitate understanding and integration.

A person with creative significance-aware holistic view finds it to be restrictively one-sided - yes, impossible - to view 'objectivity' and 'realism' (in scientific theoretical sense) as something independent, without always also having 'subjectivity' and 'instrumentalism' included. These dynamic aspects must always dance together, whereby one as psychotherapist, conscious human and researcher must learn to live with the enigmatic zone between consciousness and "reality," which contains the significant basic chords in fruitful creativity matrices.

For a creative and reasonably holistically conscious person, one dimension cannot manifest itself without the 'other side' - and more besides - being included in the whole. This relationship is analogous to right-left, up-down or outside-inside... if one were to look more holistically conscious and beyond-academically at e.g., big bang-becoming from the side, one would discover that there are many more big bang-inhalations and black hole-exhalations in our multiverse. Below we return more extensively to the characterization of creativity.

Additional Development Dimensions

Perhaps the most urgent development dimension relevant to an analytical consideration of psychotherapy is precisely the one we mentioned above, namely the development from reductionism to significance-aware creativity.

This applies to:

(1) the theoretical and methodological aspects of psychotherapeutic systems, (2) underlying philosophy of science, and to the highest degree

(3) human development in general - in this context not least both client and psychotherapist.

Psychotherapists who have integrated a creatively versatile vision with relevant knowledge and experience will certainly be more beneficial for patients than psychotherapists who have a reductionistic view.

Some other closely related fundamental dimensions with which one can characterize, compare, evaluate and understand both the different psychotherapy systems and all the other variables mentioned above (theory, method, philosophy of science and the existentially conscious human's evolution) are e.g. the following:

(i) extroversion - introversion 

(ii) restricting - expanding 

(iii) superficial restriction - expanding deepening 

(iv) marginalization - relevance orientation 

(v) muddying - clarifying 

(vi) impoverish - enrich 

(vii) materialize - spiritualize - enlightenment-orient 

(viii) static dimensionalize - 'holodynamically' process-orient 

(ix) meaning-reduce - significance-consciousness-enrich

Each of these dimensions could naturally be subject to detailed and thorough analysis. However, this would take us too far here, so we'll content ourselves with some overarching brief definitions of some basic chords involved. From these, understanding of the other less inclusive dimensions will eventually follow. Thereafter, we should be reasonably prepared to concisely and fruitfully address the main subject of this essay.

By breadth here is meant how much is contained in a system or a person's consciousness. Extensionality can here be given a motherly semantic energy chord. By depth is meant here (more or less) explanatory power. A system that can explain even the phenomena used as explanation in another is deeper than this latter. If, for example, a system can explain certain symptoms with reference to, say, traumatized childhood experiences, and another system can additionally explain these by, for example, referring to underlying etiological and/or social-cultural conditions, then this latter system is deeper (and also broader) than the former. If then another system can also explain these deeper etiological and social-cultural conditions by, for example, referring to first individual and then collective so-called karma, then this latter system is even deeper.

Many scientific systems lack the causal explanatory level where one refers to 'karma'. This applies also to most god-centered views. Religious and scientific myths have in the background much more in common than one is currently willing to recognize. With the help of an enlightenment-oriented system - which is broader-deeper - one can however see this. Ever deeper explanatory power can here be given an intentional-fatherly semantic energy chord - which is by no means separate from the motherly extensionality. The reverse naturally applies as well.

When we speak of holarchically deeper-broader levels, we mean development levels that - compared to less inclusive ones - have integrated more knowledge and experiences in both fatherly depth-hierarchical and motherly extensive network aspects, whereby one has both left behind and transformed elements from less inclusive levels and also integrated new dimensions.

This multidimensional variable can be seen as a basic understanding matrix with whose help one can not only describe and explain different development levels in theories and methods but also human growth from fertilization to spring dance and summer maturity and autumnal aging. A, let's say, "summer-mature" person is generally holarchically at a more developed level than a teenager. This in turn in analogy with, say, the relationship between a fully grown and fruit-bearing apple tree and a seedling. There are of course exceptions, but we disregard these here.

Note however the trap one can fall into here if one reductively begins to search for "underlying", simple, unchangeable and objective regularities that one might desire to generalize to a principally final explanatory maxim. This signifies neither a deepening nor broadening in a knowledge system. Within psychology in particular, it will always be a futile desire to search for a few explanatory formulas that may constitute the general laws under which all phenomena can then be subsumed. An example of such a desire was Behaviorism's attempt to reduce all behavior to variants of so-called reinforcement contingencies. This represented in Skinner's case even just a probabilistic mode of explanation. Other behaviorists later included also a deductive subsumption. The logical structure of this explanatory model was formulated within positivistic scientific theory most explicitly by Hempel ("The Hempelian model of explanation"). Certain branches within psychological research and in psychotherapy desired, and to some extent still do here and there, to emulate such a reductive-deductive-hierarchical view of natural science research. This research method is not notably found even among natural scientists themselves. A contemporary post-postmodern quantum physicist would empathically smile at such "scientifically" oriented psychology researchers' efforts in this regard....and perhaps jokingly ask the psychology researcher: "are you investigating particles or waves or both?..the rules of the game are different then!"

Regarding materialistic-spiritual-enlightenment oriented matters, we return to these areas (partially implicitly) below. Let's conclude this section about psychotherapy and fundamental matrices that help navigate this ocean by clarifying the meaning of 'holographic', which is relevant here.

A holographic worldview here refers to consciousness that includes these elements:

(a) One always experiences dynamic wholes, where partial spheres appear as variants of dynamic reflections of both parts and whole, and vice versa...in continued dance.

(b) All reification tendencies, i.e., tendencies to objectify reality and living beings, are dispersed in such consciousness.

(c) Nothing is experienced as having inherent existence, i.e., independent/autonomous being. In holographic experience, nothing in the relative world exists autonomously. Everything exists continuously due to various conditions. When this isn't experienced, and objects and phenomena appear autonomously existing, this is explained by our unconscious ego-grasping, limiting conceptualizations, and similar factors. One often fails to recognize so-called objective phenomena as reflecting projections.

(d) One continuously perceives cyclic change - growth and impermanence - in non-dualizing, space-like, clear consciousness.

(e) The holographic reflections are qualified with heartfelt sincerity, which can have many levels of subtlety, clarity, lovingness, etc.

(f) In summary, we're dealing with entirely non-static, non-reifying, non-limiting, non-reductively concretizing, mutually holodynamically reflecting and heartfelt sincere whole-reflections and experiences...which can be paradigmatically tuning-fork-stabilized when needed using a diamond-like beacon at the center.

Let's use a tree analogy to enrich our understanding of holographic reflection. Say we're sitting on a tree branch having a dynamically holographic experience. We will then more or less simultaneously experience:

(i) The branch we're sitting on having essentially the same nature as the whole tree and its surroundings

(ii) This branch being a branch and not a tree (i.e., not unrecognizingly experiencing complete identification with one's branch and generalizing this perspective)

(iii) Being able to mirror each other's character variedly both on one's branch and everywhere in the tree and other branches

(iv) Besides (iii), simultaneously seeing the special personality traits or properties of each part in the wholes...being recognizingly aware of one's colored glasses and how they filter and tone reality-vision and experience of people and phenomena characteristically

(v) One's dynamic identity experience of a "self" potentially containing the whole's conditions and qualities, and in development increasingly holarchically expanding, deepening, enriching, clarifying, heartfully internalizing and integrating this vision to successively include more whole-awareness

(vi) That - in our analogy - the tree with all branches couldn't exist for a second without soil, water, light, suitable temperature and many other living conditions that everything and everyone depends on

(vii) The tree continuously undergoes changes... coming into being, maturing and eventually dying in the inevitable cyclic dynamics of impermanence process for all composite phenomena

(viii) Relations between the tree (and its parts) and other wholes and conditions constantly undergo changes...certainly all these have different characters but always continue, thereby reflections and recognitions change character more or less

(ix) The essential nature of both the tree and all other formations and conditions is ungraspable...it can be made conscious through non-conceptual and clear-naked awareness, but not grasped or measured

(x) All involved variables are mentally colored - more or less intentionally consciously - by varying nuances, focuses, emotional tones and among other things heartfelt sincerity and

(xi) All these dynamic experiential aspects and the heartfelt sincere feeling-energy chords exist in some interplaying composition simultaneously in holodynamic consciousness and development at more advanced levels can be understood through holarchic expansion-deepening including more co-dancing simultaneities and qualities mentioned above.

Through this characterization, we have now prepared sufficiently to open ourselves to viewing psychotherapy today and (especially) tomorrow from a dharma-oriented perspective.

Buddhism's development

Let's briefly characterize Buddhism's development before merging different streams into one sea, which hopefully can serve as a suitable medium to discuss our future evolution related to psychotherapy in its broadest sense.

Buddhism as a whole is an incredibly rich collection of experiences, principles, procedures, methods, and meditative and psychotherapeutic systems whose main purpose is to guide people to development levels free from suffering and ignorance (regarding causes of our suffering and gaps in human knowledge about our development). Buddhism isn't a religion, i.e., not a god-centered view. Yet it's often unknowingly called a religion and viewed as a faith-based system rather than enlightenment teaching...despite most of this being documented in writings and methodological instructions. In Buddhism, one gradually disperses beliefs and, through meditation among other things, gains direct insight into life's unliberated and liberated conditions.

Initially, 2400 years ago, Hinayana began developing, aiming to realize individual liberation from suffering and achieve a fairly static peace where many attachments to cyclic existence are cut off...but where in this nirvana variant (there are five) one isn't insightfully freed from latent attachments to existence.

Around half a millennium later, from about the 100s, Mahayana began developing on Earth. The vision here differs: seeking to realize a Buddha-enlightened state for all beings' benefit. In Mahayana - which is holarchically more inclusive than Hinayana - merely securing one's own well-being isn't enough; one should actively cultivate an altruistic approach. Doing this fully means consciously and continuously living as a bodhisattva, seeking to realize the intention of becoming a fully awakened Buddha for everyone's benefit. Using our analogy - it's like aspiring to become a mature tree that eventually with all its fruits (especially wisdom, loving compassion, extensive methodological knowledge) can contribute what humanity greatly needs.

Again roughly half a millennium later, during the 700s, Vajrayana, Buddhism's tantric form, was introduced in Tibet. Over another millennium, methods and conditions enabling intensified human development toward enlightenment developed here. First came the Nyingma tradition, then Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelugpa. In the 1600s, the Rime movement began developing, ecumenically seeking to integrate the four main tantric traditions like an oak becoming more aware of its four main branches and whole entirety. For the tantric Bodhisattva, life's meaning is seeking to realize Buddhahood as quickly and easily as possible, simply put. They differ from sutra-Mahayana-bodhisattvas by using more transformative approaches in practice. With exceptionally favorable karma and conditions, one can - for example within Dzogchen,

Nyingma's most inclusive level - realize a tantric Buddha's creative and fully awakened state in one lifetime. Such an enlightened tantric master can optimally benefit all who are motivated and have suitable conditions. Buddhism's tantric form has begun spreading globally in the past 50 years (after Tibet's Chinese occupation in 1959) to countries with sufficient freedom.

Psychotherapy Today

from a Buddhist Tantric Dharma Perspective

The Nine Buddhist Vehicles

Tantric Buddhism's psychology, methods, and evolutionary vision are highly relevant here. Important to understand it doesn't exist independently from other dharma systems. The nine Buddhist vehicles (two Hinayana branches, one sutra-Mahayana, and six tantric levels) are holarchically related: Atiyoga, the deepest-widest, contains and transcends Anuyoga, which transcends and includes Mahayoga, which includes Yogatantra, which includes Karyatantra, which includes Kriyatantra.

Enlightenment

From awakened Mahayana eyes, these vehicles' development isn't linear. An essentially fully awakened consciousness has always existed, being beyond-temporal. With awakened Buddha-consciousness, one easily exists in an omnipresent we-all-being, without beginning or end, beyond time and space. This essential, ultimate reality-awareness enables (not 'creates') cyclic existence. All individuals and phenomena are thus born and die in this non-illusory reality, which for an enlightened being is essentially our liberated home and refuge sphere. A Buddha-conscious being perceives unobstructedly, continuously and simultaneously all three time aspects while having non-cyclic clear consciousness inseparable from time-space dimensions. We're all potential Buddhas. Different individuals and groups simply have more or fewer obstacles to such perception of timeless-spaceless reality simultaneously united with relative world conditions.

This may initially seem paradoxical but becomes clearer as attachments and ignorance disperse. Less consciously awakened humans experience substantively and autonomously existing objects against nothingness, motivated by instinctive survival mechanisms per Darwin's descriptions of animals and non-karma-conscious humans. Humans in this vision are often controlled by unreflected desires for security, pleasure, honor, praise and winning, avoiding insecurity, displeasure, dishonor, blame and loss.

The more awakened and significance-consciously recognizing humans develop creative holodynamic reality awaresness from insightful responsibility, experiencing ultimate existence base more clearly and omnipresently. Phenomena and people appear more transparent, experiences more lovingly empathetic and heartfelt. A Buddha - having perfected awakening potential - perceives all three time aspects simultaneously as one non-linear/cyclic present whole, explaining some extraordinary abilities like precognition, telepathy, clairaudience, clairvoyance, simultaneous presence in multiple places. "Holiness" becomes demystified through such consciousness.

The point of maturing to full awakening is optimal benefit for all beings. A Buddha solely benefits the Whole and all beings' development toward enlightenment, not resting as an inactive deus otiosus in eternal peace, but fundamentally unable to develop "their own" consciousness further, having no ego-logical unknowing consciousness remaining as obstacle. An awakened isn't a "Buddha" but "is" oceanic presence in each particularity, immeasurably benefiting all not turned away or otherwise blocked from receptivity. Seeking Buddha-consciousness is thus everything's meaning - an unsurpassable trip for all. Any better ideas?

Psychotherapy Today

Let us now look at psychotherapy today through the cognitive lens we outlined above.With these on, it becomes quite clear that many forms of psychotherapy today in several aspects lack:- significant insight into the breadth, depth, and relevance regarding their own and other systems- comparative knowledge about content richness and relevance regarding their own and other systems- holarchical comparative level awareness in relation to their own system and between different other systems- clear understanding related to awakened states- qualified holodynamic holistic view- the deeper ontological and epistemological premises on which the psychotherapeutic systems are based.From this, it does not follow that the currently existing psychotherapeutic systems would not be beneficial to us. That is naturally not the case. Most psychotherapies today do a great deal of good with far-reaching consequences. But: they do not do the good that they could do.

With tantric Buddhist glasses, after certain essential knowledge, one can understand and recognize most forms of therapy. One can also see that most lack recognizing knowledge about the scope of their own system. Most generalize reductively their own views and know little about others, against which they are often on an argumentative counter-course, i.e., they sometimes act out their own unrecognized shadow sides, if we express ourselves in elementary analytical terms, which can easily be noticed in the tone of critical statements. The examples are legion. The debates between e.g., advocates of behavioral therapy and psychoanalysis are well-known in Sweden. A psychology professor can today critically write page after page in the daily press about psychoanalysis's shortcomings without needing any experience of what he writes about and apparently also lacking self-knowledge. A shame that it is too often left aside in the background with a smile, even if it is understandable considering that one generously and pedagogically often does so in relation to children who are busy at daycare.

Psychoanalysis's ignorance towards e.g., Jungian analysis is also obvious. The reverse relationship does not exist to the same extent because Jungian psychology is holarchically more inclusive than Freudian psychoanalysis, even though Jungian psychology doesn't have much detailed to say about the initial years of our lives. A Jungian analyst can of course very well "amplify meaning" of an analysand's experiences by referring to childhood experiences and how these are transferred today to all sorts of things. However, a Freudian analyst will hardly inspire their analysand to experience expansions containing archetypal pattern dynamics in our collectively unconscious dynamic layer consciousness (which is a better term than the representational and substantivizing terms "the unconscious" or "the subconscious," which instead should be used more significantly as adjectives).

Adlerian psychotherapists' cognitions are thoroughly colored by their attention to power dynamics at the expense of much else. Incidentally, Adlerian psychotherapy is a form of therapy that would be very important to develop - integrated with other systems - in today's world, considering the too widespread preoccupation with power. A psychosynthesis therapist practically doesn't have the same space for analysis of regressions, and for example, early symbiosis experiences can be extensively generalized without being placed in a broader context. A Gestalt therapist usually dislikes - at least in principle - intellectual interpretations and a researching attitude.

Systems that are primarily intended for "neurotic" problems are often not fruitfully applicable to people who don't have the ability to use interpretations and make recognitions (for example, so-called "borderline" or "narcissistic" personalities). Certain psychotherapies, such as the tantric methods, presuppose that the practitioner has a deep understanding of symbols and how we create these. Many people lack this ability and first need to develop such an experience and insight level before mental symbols can be directly used in psychotherapeutic work (as for example in dream image psychotherapies). For some, it will be a waste of time and resources to seek to remedy problems through symbol interpretation. For others, it may be the only thing that inspires them to develop. For some, it is more fruitful to simply talk about what they should do to correct their lives, rather than waiting month after month for some idea to emerge in the client's psyche that might not lead anywhere. Many even completely lack, during periods of their life, the prerequisites for deepening their insights; just look at disharmoniously impulsive children! They need something else.

Psychotherapy today is developing in countries and cultures that have reached a certain level of freedom and where living conditions are sufficiently favorable. It is difficult to find time for psychotherapy for people who are in religious wars, threatened with death, and lack food and fundamental survival necessities. A psychotherapeutic approach can of course also be beneficial for such people. But, an unprofessional, humane, normally healthy and compassionate attitude is naturally more adequate in such contexts. Often one only needs to empathetically and humanely put oneself in another's situation, and the principal measures fall into place.

Psychotherapy in Scandinavia today is developing along many branches. Now there are several long-term training programs in, for example, different body therapies, dream image therapies and spiritually oriented therapies, CBT and branches thereof, such as ACT. Psychodynamic approaches have branched in several directions and found different premise levels and perspectives. The diagnostic categories have undergone changes and certain psychotherapeutic variables have ended up in the background and some in the foreground (such as the psychology of "self"-experience and methodological process orientation - even if this latter is still absent in many contexts).

For several decades, the so-called "New Age" movements have also developed in some directions. Certainly many of these are teenage-like therapy forms, but a rich psychotherapeutic system should also be able to understand, explain and handle the New Age phenomena. It's not enough to busily and scout-like devalue them and point out their shortcomings, without having comparative distance to one's own frame of reference used in the critical evaluation. The New Age movements emerged during the 1970s from the spiritual poverty that adheres to most of today's psychotherapeutic as well as exoteric religious systems and also as a balancing reaction against the worldliness-oriented bias on our earth - politically and economically - that humanity has today. Viewed from this holistic perspective, the New Age therapies constitute important, health-bringing, balancing development currents. A mature handling of teenage dynamics can sometimes vitalize the world in a pleasant way.And with that, we arrive at reflections concerning psychotherapy's future.

Psychotherapy Tomorrow

viewed from an enlightenment-oriented perspective

In the following, we will mainly approach the question of tomorrow's psychotherapy primarily from an enlightenment-oriented perspective. This implies here that psychotherapy in different variants should going forward become conscious of its relation to serving people with the purpose of promoting their development toward realizing their most valuable potentials. And preferably not just to become conscious of this relation in terms of knowledge, but also to actively and successively cultivate the development of experiential understanding of what an enlightened state means and how one's psychotherapeutic methods must adapt accordingly.

One might object that this is an unrealistic project to work with and that the gap between the vision of an enlightened state and the questions and problems one confronts psychotherapeutically in daily practice is too great. Yes, in a certain sense this objection is justified. There's no point in teaching a 3-year-old differential equations or getting them to understand different logical structures of explanatory principles in various research disciplines. But: even an acorn has a potential 300-year-old oak within it. That is, the potentiality is always there. This is what a psychotherapist should learn to keep alive in their consciousness, even if it never becomes expressed even once during many years of analytical psychotherapy.

The mere conscious and active cultivation of such an approach in a psychotherapist will be of immeasurable benefit to many - not just for the psychotherapist themselves, the patients, and the analysands.

By an awakened state, we mean here in summary that one has a creatively holographic or holodynamic perception of reality and people. This means, to complementarily repeat moments characterized above, a non-conceptually conscious oceanic presence that does not principally exclude any single living being and which one as a psychotherapist seeks to see as a potentiality - a possibility to realize - in every patient, even if this never becomes explicit in some. One will thus naturally become more beneficial in promoting people's potentials in an analogous way as good soil, adequate rain, suitable weather, and significant cultivation promote the growth of potatoes.

In the creative holodynamic cognitions, all manifestations created by one's thinking, intentions, and feelings must also be viewed as reflections in a mirror-like mental space, which means that they are not something to grasp for and seek to hold onto - something that is not possible for too ego-centered persons. It is precisely the ego-operations (with primarily its ignorance, hatred, desire, envy, and pride) that cause perceptions of different more or less disturbing variants of autonomous existence. To strive in psychotherapeutic or evolutionary contexts to realize more and more autonomy, which is common, is equivalent to gradually aiming more and more in generalized form at meaningless isolation, limited ego-preoccupation, and impoverished solitude. It's like gradually painting oneself into a sectarian corner and becoming increasingly ignorant of even realizing that this corner can never exist without infinitely many conditions. The whole thing can, for example, result in a pathetic nodding life whose character can be camouflaged with clever statements at a "high" level.

From what has been said above, it naturally does not follow that, for example, children would not need to become more independent in relation to symbiotic life and all kinds of other dependencies. But if these independence strivings are not in due time subordinated to responsibility and awareness of how all one's actions contribute not only to one's own future life but also to the continuous creation of the whole and the relationships between individuals in this whole, then it will eventually only have deplorable consequences - both individually and collectively.

To help someone become freer through analytical psychotherapy means, in the dynamic "end," to promote the dissolution of conceptual operations that too coarsely restrict and darken one's holodynamically conscious presence. This consciousness should then also always be qualified with variants of love, compassion, and heartfelt sincerity. To love means to bring happiness.

Compassion means to mirrorlike and empathetically coexperience someone else's situation. Qualified compassion means to simulatively experience someone else's suffering within oneself as if it were one's own and to spontaneously adopt a healing approach to this suffering. A living psychotherapist's eyes water every day - also as a result of shared joy, laughter, or perplexed amazement. To believe that psychotherapeutic professionalism means mostly being a neutral sounding board interpreter implies that one will invite one's analysand to a joint departure away from the spiritual scent of human nectar and humanly meaningful kinship experiences. But, sometimes such a neutral mirroring approach naturally has relevance.

With a significantly conscious qualified holodynamic presence, the more or less emotionally experienced tone of kinship with all people will always be there. Yes, this is the very essential bouquet in the holodynamically conscious presence. If a person has just once intensely experienced connection with all others in such a way that one simultaneously both recognizingly experiences oneself in all others and likewise all individual others in one's own mentality, then through this experience alone one has contributed something particularly precious and meaningful to the whole's continuous creation of itself.

This also leads us into a dynamic in our time that we all, and especially responsible psychotherapists, will not be able to keep away from; namely, the development of global consciousness. We live in a time now with refugee flows across national borders, global economic dynamics, internet communication, global awareness of diminishing natural resources combined with accelerating population growth, global disease spread, etc. Our mental world is no longer just our personal or familiar sphere. This globalization of our consciousness affects everyone and is a significant dynamic factor today and needs to be available in the background in the psychotherapist.

From the reasoning so far, it follows that primarily existentially oriented psychotherapies will need to become the superordinate umbrella systems going forward. Now, one can refer to different reference spheres with such a designation. In this context, something more qualified than psychotherapy based on existentialist philosophy, phenomenology, and psychology is meant; even if these views constitute important branches on the tree that will here be proposed as a vision that hopefully can be worth keeping in mind for psychotherapy's development going forward.

Here we advocate the idea that the trunk of the total psychotherapeutic tree (with all humanistic therapy variants) should going forward be the intention to realize enlightenment. This is probably the only fruitful view that meaningfully and generalizably can coordinate all anthropological - not theo-logical or ego-logical - psychotherapy variants.

Some therapy forms will devote themselves primarily to the "roots" of the tree, others to some "branch," still others mainly to the "trunk"/"spine," others to the "fruits," others to the conditions around it, others to seeking to integrate parts of or the whole entirety, etc. This tree appreciates the value of everything from giving advice to someone about how to dare cross a large square, or enriching someone's analytical insights through interpretations, to learning in meditative states to recognize - for example - "heavenly nightmares" in different symbolic dream image manifestations. A qualified meaning of the intentional thought to realize an awakened state can hereby serve as a unifying matrix and also constitute both the trunk and heart in one's vision.

Egocentric and sectarian outlooks will certainly either oppose or ignore such a thought. The risk thereby becomes, however, that one cuts off some branch on which one then becomes isolated. The final consequence becomes the usual: the branch dies away, sometimes under dramatic, sometimes under barely noticeable, circumstances.

Let us summarize. Going forward, it will be needed - according to the present view - that most humanistically oriented forms of psychotherapy are coordinated through a meaningful and holodynamically sufficiently spacious creative principle or intention. The enlightenment thought in a qualified sense can serve such a purpose. A better alternative - in ecumenical and evolutionarily fruitful aspects - will currently be difficult to procure. Such a generalizing intention will, however, not in the first instance be able to be readily affirmed by, for example:

• reductively materialistic views,

• god-centered perspectives, since in an enlightenment-oriented vision, creation is not reducible to just one God's activity and the dynamic goal and meaning of life is not "salvation" but enlightenment, i.e., becoming Buddha-awakened, and

• sectarian views.

Objections will certainly also include arguments that such a thought would become an too demanding element in psychotherapist training. This can be an attempt to turn to the neurotic person and seek to lure them away from developing an increasingly relevant existential consciousness, to instead spend much time (of one's precious and very short life) on, say: "frame factors," criticism of "Freud" or "Jung," meaninglessly-answering-unthought-through-questions-and-filling-in-boxes-to-then-set-up-histogram-research, or discussion of whether phobias can be seen as symptoms or problems, etc., etc.

Some might consider that the enlightenment thought has a, holarchically, too inclusive view, in a similar way as say the thought that our earth should be cared for as if it were our only beloved child has no relevance for how forest harvesting in Norrland should be managed. The thesis here is however: yes, it does have relevance - both in this, and in all other particular cases, where the handling of parts of our earth is actualized. Nowhere should we in our simile ignore the empathic intention to relate to our earth as if it were our only beloved child or our precious dwelling. This is an example of applying the holodynamic approach. It is not that this view is irrelevant or unrealistic. We are just not used to thinking and feeling so responsibly and meaningfully. We are however naturally capable of it - thanks to the fact that we humans are conscious of our existence. Perhaps an important aspect of analytical psychotherapy going forward will be to seek to promote the demonstration of precisely those restricting and irresponsible habit patterns that prevent us from consciously contributing to an enlightenment-oriented more meaningful human life? It need not become so difficult to directly recognize our ability to influence our psyche and everything else.

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