Psychotherapy Without Soul Can Fuck You UP

4 mn read

Without an appreciation of the soul’s radical desires, psychotherapy can interfere with psychological and spiritual maturation and promote a non-imaginative normality that merely supports people to be better-adapted cogs in a toxic industrial culture’

Bill Plotkin

There is a marvellous moment in Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships by the pioneering Buddhist psychotherapist John Welwood when a client finally hits the ground of infinite possibility. The truth is, she says, that right now I am a completely fucked up human being and cannot be otherwise. This revelation was no doubt preceded – as it is for many of us – by years of therapy and workshops, potions and pills. From that moment of crystalline authenticity doors began to open as she sank into the richness of her own being without judgment or concept.

One of the cavernous blind spots that snag the seeker lies in the poisoned nature of the ground in which she seeks healing. Without the soul as companion too many therapies are simply confounded by what is presented. How can that which is devised within the confines of ‘toxic industrial culture’ – that which fails to incorporate blessings and curses, ancestral hand-me-down wounds and individual karma – bring cure to what ails?

Again and again I have seen clients struggling under the weight of a geis, or what I call conditions on the soul, failed, inevitably, by systems that don’t get them, don’t want them and finally throw up their hands in confused failure offering another diagnosis by way of compensation and to save professional face.

Soul sickness does not respond to that which is soulless. It does not seek a fix, although the personality which accompanies it will. It cannot be touched by much in this world. For what has taken root in a human being, what has found a home there, is both incurable and a reflection of what is not right in contemporary culture. This sickness comes from being separated from the beauty that has been lost and which the soul now desires as a matter of urgency. The individual holds both the illness and the answer for that which lies outside the Self.

It is almost that after the soul’s journey over many lifetimes the pressure builds to a point where only death or breakthrough matter. It has to be one or the other. Nothing else will do. I am either going to find the beauty within or I will return to it in the Otherworld, the realm of the ancestors. The mood is pressing and the initiatory circumstances both more terrifying and exciting.

In Zen, it is said that the nature of dilemma is like having a red-hot coal stuck in the throat. It can neither go down nor out. You can neither cough it up nor swallow it. This stuckness or impasse is common in both individuals and society, and as Jung said it represents a preparatory period before significant breakthrough, even an evolutionary leap.

We are too quick to want to get out of this wasteland. In these days of sound bites, quick fixes and instant communication the thought that the soul might have its own agenda and desires is abhorrent. That it might want you to grow sicker and sicker until you are beyond human aid is unpalatable. This is where insight into the mythological level of life is critical. Without understanding and accepting the soul’s need for slowness and to sink into its own depths it is too easy to think a life is no longer worth living.

But the soul is calling you down, deeper than you would go on your own, farther than seems necessary to the conscious mind that only wants to ‘get on’. It takes a long time and much flailing about looking for ways out of our dilemma before accepting, like the client above, that perhaps there is no cure, at least none that we can see. If you study mythological tales, this image of the fall from grace, the wasteland, and the kingdom once abundant now in ruins is everywhere. And it is a necessary part of being alive.

For the sickness pulls us down into territories of great learning, a brush with death, and strips us of all we have known thus far until all that is left is the vision with which we were born and which has been forgotten. ‘The only way to treat the condition,’ says mythologist Michael Meade is to get everything out of the way and allow the sickness to speak for itself. It can only be heard when all the possible cures have been eliminated and its incurability has been admitted. The soul sickness needs permission to be the strange story that it declares itself to be.’

The only way at such times is to understand we have ingested soul sickness, that it is purposeful and contains great gifts, and to go further into it. In other words we have to follow where the sickness leads and where it leads is often to a threshold we don’t even want to see let alone cross.

In modern times, I see this happen most often in relationships. Everywhere I turn I hear people stuck on the horns of dilemma: should I stay or should I go?; I love him but I’m not in love with him; I just don’t feel anything any more. As soul, that feelings of passionate aliveness, most often enters us in western culture through our romances, small wonder that is where we will feel its absence.

People stay miserable within these dilemmas for years, for the sake of the children or a myriad of other sensible reasons. Yet soul is not interested in common sense or material security. It just keeps pressing in on you until you give it its due and it won’t let up until you do, ever. That does not mean the solution is to break with relationship. That may or may not be the case. It does mean you have to find a way to attend to your deeper life or get sicker.

In a sense, the more soul sickness you’ve imbibed the better equipped you are to heal what is within and without. In turning towards what is dark within the Self and the culture we increase the possibility of bringing some of the beauty trapped in the Otherworld back over the threshold. It is as if we have to risk death to step over and beyond ourselves, but what we bring back can alone illuminate that which has fallen into forgetful chaos.

Join Us Today!

Subscribe to our newsletter and be the first to get our offers and the latest updates.

0 thoughts on

Psychotherapy Without Soul Can Fuck You UP

  • Sally Turberville Smith

    I agree with the essence of Simon Heathcote’s words. As a Transpersonal Integrative therapist my intention is always to ‘hold’ a space for the soul. For me it is about helping my clients re-connect with their ‘heart-minds’ which we can only do when we are still – not caught up in our ‘head-minds’. This is increasingly difficult in a world which is always ‘on’ and where we expect to get our needs and desires met instantly. What is so often needed is an awakening of the heart and the qualities of compassion and patience combined with a dedication to a daily spiritual practice of meditation or ‘quiet time’. The soul needs to know you have the time and are ready and wanting to hear its messages. Ultimately effective Psychotherapy honours both psychological and spiritual integration.

  • Zak Jane Keir

    Oh FFS no! The problem most people have is far more simple than a load of superstitious nonsense – they have no money, no job security and are worried about being able to keep the roof over their heads. Some therapists are finally getting to grips with the fact that they would be better off giving patients advice that’s both practical and political, rather than encouraging them to shove their heads even further up their arses. You won’t get rid of the misery and stress caused by racism, misogyny, homophobia and a toxic right-wing government if you witter on about woo-bollocks and encourage patients to think that what’s wrong with them is purely internal rather than an entirely rational response to the world they live in.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Why register?

Comment on articles

Join the conversation. By signing up you can leave comments and show your appreciation to our talented contributors.

JOIN OUR REGULAR SUPPORTERS

Go on, help us continue to create this life-changing dialogue around ageing. Donate whatever you can!

Join our Facebook Group!

Get involved in the conversation...

Sick and tired of the outdated stereotypes of older people?

We are out to challenge the media narrative around ageing and host lively conversations in which you are welcome to participate!

Our Facebook group has a rapidly growing community of people sharing, commenting and supporting each other.

Come join us!

Startup School for Seniors

Unleash your inner entrepreneur

Turn your business idea into reality in just 8 weeks! If you have an idea, don't sit on it - explore it!

Visit our Startup School

The Shop

Wear what you are...

Get the latest in strictly senior street wear! We have hoodies, t-shirts, caps and more!

Visit our A of A Shop

Cemetery Walks

Take a walk on the wild side...

Discover walks in the neighborhoods of London's most fascinating cemeteries. Then have a drink!

Discover the Walks