If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!: The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients(S2528)
Registered by SAMMY-SAMSEL of St. Louis, Missouri USA on 3/23/2006
This book is in a Controlled Release!
This book is in a Controlled Release!
1 journaler for this copy...
Pre-numbered label used for registration.
hardback
180pp including notes
published, 1972
Chapter 1 Pilgrims and Disciples
In every age, men have set out on pilgrimages, on spiritual journeys, on personal quests. Driven by pain, drawn by longing, lifted by hope, singly and in groups they come in search of relief, enlightenment, peace, power, joy or they know not what. Wishing to learn, and confusing being taught with learning, they often seek out helpers, healers, and guides, spiritual teachers whose disciples they would become.
The emotionally troubled man of today, the contemporary pilgrim, wants to be the disciple of the psychotherapist…
…the patient’s ‘longing’ for growth is the central force of his pilgrimage.
The psychotherapist needs only to be aware of this force, in his patient, and to keep it within his vision. Then he may enjoy his work, and need never bog down in boredom. His task is simply to watch, as the person in front of him wrestles with well-nigh paralyzing conflict, for the emergence of what he knows is there: man’s inherent longing for relatedness and for meaning. The therapist is an observer and a catalyst. He has no power to “cure” the patient, for cure is entirely out of his hands. He can add nothing to the patient’s inherent capacity to get well, and whenever he tries to do so he meets stubborn resistance which slows up the progress of treatment. The patient is already fully equipped for getting well… since the [the therapist] is not “responsible” for the cure, he is free to enjoy the spectacle of it taking place.
Of course, like everyone else (including the therapist), the patient is too often inclined to act out of fear, rather than out of his longing for growth. If not, pilgrimages would always begin out of an overflow of joy, rather than (as is more often the case) being conceived in pain and turmoil. People seek the guidance of a psychotherapist when their usual, self-limited, risk-avoiding ways of operating are not paying off, when there is distress and disruption in their lives. Otherwise, we are all too ready to live with the familiar, so long as it seems to work, no matter how colorless the rewards.
hardback
180pp including notes
published, 1972
Chapter 1 Pilgrims and Disciples
In every age, men have set out on pilgrimages, on spiritual journeys, on personal quests. Driven by pain, drawn by longing, lifted by hope, singly and in groups they come in search of relief, enlightenment, peace, power, joy or they know not what. Wishing to learn, and confusing being taught with learning, they often seek out helpers, healers, and guides, spiritual teachers whose disciples they would become.
The emotionally troubled man of today, the contemporary pilgrim, wants to be the disciple of the psychotherapist…
…the patient’s ‘longing’ for growth is the central force of his pilgrimage.
The psychotherapist needs only to be aware of this force, in his patient, and to keep it within his vision. Then he may enjoy his work, and need never bog down in boredom. His task is simply to watch, as the person in front of him wrestles with well-nigh paralyzing conflict, for the emergence of what he knows is there: man’s inherent longing for relatedness and for meaning. The therapist is an observer and a catalyst. He has no power to “cure” the patient, for cure is entirely out of his hands. He can add nothing to the patient’s inherent capacity to get well, and whenever he tries to do so he meets stubborn resistance which slows up the progress of treatment. The patient is already fully equipped for getting well… since the [the therapist] is not “responsible” for the cure, he is free to enjoy the spectacle of it taking place.
Of course, like everyone else (including the therapist), the patient is too often inclined to act out of fear, rather than out of his longing for growth. If not, pilgrimages would always begin out of an overflow of joy, rather than (as is more often the case) being conceived in pain and turmoil. People seek the guidance of a psychotherapist when their usual, self-limited, risk-avoiding ways of operating are not paying off, when there is distress and disruption in their lives. Otherwise, we are all too ready to live with the familiar, so long as it seems to work, no matter how colorless the rewards.
Journal Entry 2 by SAMMY-SAMSEL at -- Mail or by hand-rings, RABCK, meetings, swap etc, Missouri USA on Sunday, June 7, 2009
Released 14 yrs ago (6/7/2009 UTC) at -- Mail or by hand-rings, RABCK, meetings, swap etc, Missouri USA
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