Psychoanalysis

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KristenM
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by KristenM »

Johnny Dangerous wrote: Sun Oct 21, 2018 1:54 am
TharpaChodron wrote: Sun Oct 21, 2018 12:41 am Why exactly is talk therapy useless?

It's not helpful for everyone, but there are many people who benefit from it. Such as people who experience a trauma which they didn't recover from, where their experiences were denied and negated by others, especially family members. It happens all the time.

I see where unresolved trauma was never addressed appropriately and then people recreate (unconsciously perhaps) the same patterns in their adult lives and it goes on.

I think if one merely thinks of talk therapy as something only privileged people who have not experienced serious trauma engage in, then it might seem frivolous, but it can be helpful for abuse victims.
People retain this antiquated idea that "therapy" means sitting with someone for long, painful talks about your mother, when in fact things have been moving away from that direction for many years, as i'm sure you know.
Yeah, that's what I thought. Every form of therapy has to include some talking and communication. Or else how would the therapeutic relationship begin? Just staring silently at each other? You get what I'm saying.
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Simon E. »

fckw wrote: Mon Oct 15, 2018 4:11 pm Every practitioner should learn the basics about psychoanalysis. Projection and counter-projection between therapist and client happens equally between teacher and student. This stuff should be common knowledge.
This is the OP.
The conflation which then develops in the thread between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy can be traced back to its lack of clarity.

Projection, denial, introjection, etc are not the language of psychoanalysis. They are part of a group of concepts called collectively mental mechanisms. As J.D. pointed out psychoanalysis talks instead in terms of transference and countertransference which is not the same thing at all.

The mental mechanisms can be observed in action any hour of any day of the week in oneself and others
You are feeling ok or neutral. You walk into a room and someone you know says you look annoyed/tired/pleased. That may be projection. It is they that are feeling annoyed/tired/pleased. This is something we all experience. It's not a mystery. It is useful to see our own tendencies towards that.
We all experience denial. That thing we know we are rationalising which we really need to address...

I trained as a Jungian psychoanalyist. I quickly realised that it was helping no one.It provided a narrative for bored and privileged people. A kind of religion substitute.
I then became a CB Therapist. It works. Not always for everyone. But frequently.
I moved from psychoanalyst to therapist.
CBT will not result in Enlightenment. But it might just address some the ways that affliction works in some people. Thus freeing them to buckle down to practice.
“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by weitsicht »

If his karma destines him to be reborn as a man, he will fall in love with his mother— to— be and will find his father hateful and digusting. Conversely, the future daughter will be highly attracted by her father— to— be and repelled by her mother. The European passes through this specifically Freudian domain when his unconscious contents are brought to light under analysis, but he goes in the reverse direction. He journeys back through the world of infantile— sexual fantasy to the womb. It has even been suggested in psychoanalytical circles that the trauma par excellence is the birth— experience itself— nay more, psychoanalysts even claim to have probed back to memories of intrauterine origin. Here Western reason reaches its limit, unfortunately. I say ‘unfortunately’, because one rather wishes that Freudian psychoanalysis could have happily pursued these so called intra— uterine experiences still further back; had it succeeded in this bold undertaking, it would surely have come out beyond the Sidpa Bardo and penetrated from behind into the lower reaches of the Chönyid Bardo. (...) A very justifiable fear of metaphysics prevented Freud from penetrating into the sphere of the ‘occult’. In addition to this, the Sidpa state, if we are to accept the psychology of the Sidpa Bardo , is characterized by the fierce wind of karma , which whirls the dead man along until he comes to the ‘womb— door’ In other words, the Sidpa state permits of no going back, because it is sealed off against the Chönyid state by an intense striving downwards, towards the animal sphere of instinct and physical rebirth. That is to say, anyone who penetrates into the unconscious with purely biological assumptions will become stuck in the instinctual sphere and be unable to advance beyond it, for he will be pulled back again and again into physical existence. It is therefore not possible for Freudian theory to reach anything except an essentially negative valuation of the unconscious.
C.G.Jung

Karma-glin?-pa. The Tibetan Book of the Dead : Or, the after-death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, According to la¯ma Kazi Dawa-Samdup's English Rendering, edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 2000. ProQuest Ebook Central

Western Psychoanalysis luckily is more than just Freud.

And classification helps in no realm of life further than for the superficial.

The best medical treatment is the prophylactic, for body as-well as mind. Hence we are all well advised to look at our minds ourselves with scrutiny and continuity. "Just looking, looking" as my first teacher used to say.
Ho! All the possible appearances and existences of samsara and nirvana have the same source, yet two paths and two results arise as the magical display of awareness and unawareness.
HO NANG SRI KHOR DAE THAMCHE KUN ZHI CHIG LAM NYI DRAE BU NYI RIG DANG MA RIG CHOM THRUL TE
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Grigoris »

fckw wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 10:23 amIt's very simple, really: The student projects his/her beliefs and needs onto the teacher. Rather than seeing the teacher as s/he is, the student mainly perceives his own imaginary fantasies. Typically, after some time (might be years for some particularly immune students) the student realizes that the teacher is really a different person than fantasized. The student becomes disillusioned at this point. In a positive outcome the student corrects the mistake and comes up with a different set of fantasies that are more healthy and grounded in reality. (There is no situation where the student has absolutely no fantasies, because that's how our mind constructs an impression of reality.)
In a negative outcome the student cannot bear the disillusion and leaves the teacher. Often these students then look for another teacher with whom they repeat more or less the same cycle. They do this so often until they finally manage to work through them. In other cases they start with negative talk about the teacher blaming him/her for all sorts of things - both real and imagined.

It all is really comparable to how intimate relationship with a spouse or husband work.

Now, what few people seem to notice: The teacher does more or less the same with a student. Even very mature persons do so. I cannot say if a "fully enlightened teacher" would still do the same, because I don't believe there is such a thing as "full enlightenment". (If there was, it would imply a person does no longer change at all. Or we would have to come up with all sorts of clever reasoning why the person is fully enlightened yet still doex X, Y and Z and seems to have A, B, and C. You see this type of reasoning all the time in this forum.)

So, the teacher goes through similar cycles of building up fantasies and disillusionment. As I said, for very mature persons the cycles are typically not very spectacular, and often they have developed a good sense for their own projections. Nevertheless, as long as there are any blind spots left (i.e. as long as one is alive in this form body) there will be situations where a projection goes unnoticed.

So far all of this is just too common. But there is an additional problem here: unresolved narcissism. Fundamentally, everyone is narcissistic to a certain degree. It's part of growing up, whether we like it or not. Life usually beats us until we resolved the more acute parts of it. First, let's look at "relatively normal levels" of narcissism, not the really unhealthy ones.

A person who is narcissistic and for the first time encounters the idea that "enlightenment" is possible, has a high chance of falling for it. Most people are not narcissistic enough to dream of getting enlightened themselves (in their fantasy it's some kind of super-state where there exists no more pain and when unicorns fart there are rainbows all around), but they are narcissistic enough to believe that just exactly the teacher and organisation they have chosen is so much better than any other teacher or organisation. As with all things, quality of teachers and organisations probably follows a normal (Gaussian) distribution: few really bad ones, plenty of okay-ish ones, few really good ones. Same as with football clubs. (Or basketball clubs, for all ya US folks out there. Or cricket clubs for all ya Indian folks out there.) Given this distribution, most people who follow any teacher and join any organisation have a, let's say, 95% chance of following an okay-ish teacher and organisation, not a really good one. But in their personal view of course they see it differently. They find plenty of justifications to believe that just exactly their teacher and organisation are the best ones, which is really a pretty ridiculous belief if you think about it. Really same as with football clubs and their fan base. Also teachers tend to believe they are better than others, whereas in reality 95% of them are really just okay-ish, and only few are either really bad or really good.

If practitioners and teachers alike would be more conscious of this whole game they play with themselves and with others, then together we could at least stop climate change, if not bring back mammoths and get rid of poverty once and for all. You get my point.

But for some people narcissism constitutes a real problem. These are the ones that are truly and severely narcissistic. One has encountered them already: They are the ones claiming to be tulkus when nobody recognizes them. They are the ones with golden toilet seats financed by their followers. They are the ones claiming to be super avatars and what not. Some of them (not all) are truly and genuinely abusive. The problem with truly narcissistic teachers are: As pompous as they may seem to outsiders, for those few people who share nearly an identical fantasy of grandiosity, i.e. narcissism, although to less degrees, these people are the ones in danger of falling exactly for this sort of narcissistic gurus. The problem is that some of these gurus are actually not only highly intelligent, but they have - for whatever reason we don't need to discuss here - developed highly charismatic personalities. It's not that they are just stupid charlatans, they are actually extremely successful in what they do. Imagine what these personalities are able to achieve when they systematically develop their skills further with the help of, let's say, tantric protector practice. Typically, these people create a core team of inner-circle members who protect their dark side from leaking out to the wider sangha. Why do these inner-circle members participate? Shared narcissism usually, status through proximity to central teacher figure, co-profiting from money and power inflows etc.
These situations are actually really dangerous, because that's where practitioners can get really harmed psychologically and/or financially. Or even physically, as we have seen enough times.

So, what I am saying is: This cannot be prevented fully in the future. It will happen again, and to many people. But if in our practice we would start more openly talking about these or similar mechanics of projection, fantasies, narcissism etc., then this could help prevent a few things. Note that all these terms - projection, fantasies, narcissism - are terms that have been very well researched in Western psychology and especially psychoanalysis. We don't have to fall back to Freud and Jung, but Western psychology was much more precise than for example Buddhism in recognizing and describing these patterns. It is no coincidence that quite a few Western meditation teachers are also therapists trained in Western psychology. There are many good books now out in the market who in intelligent ways enable practitioners to enrich their Buddhist practice with insights from modern psychology and by doing so getting even more out of it.

That was my point.
Excellent explanation but it raises an important question for me: Why would you want to bring back wooly mammoths? Personally, I prefer my Elephantidae naked! :tongue:
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Grigoris »

Malcolm wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:57 pm
Anders wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:37 am There is an active complex mental life happening in all humans that most people are largely unaware of
Nope.
Yup. It is called karma and karma vipakka...

and/or

Tahagatagarbha...
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
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"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Grigoris »

smcj wrote: Sat Oct 20, 2018 12:55 amIf so then psychotherapy is an attempt to make samsara comfortable and is therefore doomed to failure.
Sorry, but I am having to call this one.

If one is not functional (comfortable) in samsara then what chance do they have of realising Nirvana?
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Malcolm »

Grigoris wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 1:44 pm
Malcolm wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:57 pm
Anders wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:37 am There is an active complex mental life happening in all humans that most people are largely unaware of
Nope.
Yup. It is called karma and karma vipakka...

and/or

Tahagatagarbha...
Nope. Tathāgatagarbha, is not a consciousness, unless you take Lanka-avatara point of view and consider it to be the ālaya-vijñāna, And even here, the ālaya-vijñana does not engage in any mental operations at all. It is merely a name for consciousness in its role of a repository of traces.

There is no "subconscious" in Buddhadharma. Derived karma are actions which result from conscious volitions— and there are no such a thing as unconscious volitions, at least, not in Buddhadharma.
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Grigoris »

Malcolm wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 3:58 pmNope. Tathāgatagarbha, is not a consciousness...
I didn't say it was.
There is no "subconscious" in Buddhadharma.
I didn't say there was.
Derived karma are actions which result from conscious volitions— and there are no such a thing as unconscious volitions...
I didn't say there were.

Karmic propensity, arising from past karma and it's outcomes, is (largely) not a conscious process. We are 99% unaware of why we think or act like we do because we are unaware of the Tathagagarbha and karma viapkka. So it would be a lie to say that our current thoughts and actions are not (unbeknownst to us) influenced by our inherent capacity for liberation, or the effect of past karma.

This is not the same as saying that there is a sub-conscious mind, but it is the same as saying:
Anders wrote:There is an active complex mental life happening in all humans that most people are largely unaware of...
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

It seems like we need to clarify terms and meanings here.

If we use the Lankavatara idea of habit energies accrued from beginning less time, in some sense those habit energies are "subconscious", in that our correct view of them is obscured by our ignorance of their reality. It's true that they aren't "non-volitional" in the same sense the Psychoanalytic subconscious drives are, but it kind of begs the question, what is?

in a very general sense, ignorance of one's past lives and proclivities comes pretty close to "subconscious". Maybe not "non volitional", but it seems that by definition they are only partially volitional.
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Re: Psychoanalysis

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the reality of unconscious and subconscious is indubitable, in my view. Unconscious bias and even autonomic reactions can be shown to exist in any subject. However I think what Buddhism does, is provide a way of enlarging the scope of conscious attention, so that the subject becomes 'conscious of the unconscious' - in which case, it's no longer strictly unconscious in the way it previously was. But that is also why the path of awareness is dangerous and sometimes painful - bringing to light unconscious memories can be very challenging, as the ego expends considerable energy on keeping them buried. But I've seen it happen, and also experienced it.
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Malcolm »

Grigoris wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 6:01 pm
Karmic propensity, arising from past karma and it's outcomes, is (largely) not a conscious process.
It is entirely a conscious process.
We are 99% unaware of why we think or act like we do because we are unaware of the Tathagagarbha and karma viapkka.
No, we are do not know why we think or act as we do because our consciousness is contaminated with afflictions—desire, hatred, and ignorance—but none of its is subconscious or unconscious. Tathāgatagarbha is completely irrelevant here.
So it would be a lie to say that our current thoughts and actions are not (unbeknownst to us) influenced by our inherent capacity for liberation, or the effect of past karma.
In Buddhadharma, none of this is predicated on a subconsciousness. The whole idea of an subconsciousness is antithetical to Buddhadharma.


This is not the same as saying that there is a sub-conscious mind, but it is the same as saying:
Anders wrote:There is an active complex mental life happening in all humans that most people are largely unaware of...
Anders' statement is false. People are aware of what they do and they are aware of their mental life. They act as they do because of afflictions. But they are actually aware of those afflictions. When someone gets angry, they can tell you their state of mind is angry, etc.
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Malcolm »

Wayfarer wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 10:38 pm the reality of unconscious and subconscious is indubitable, in my view.
These things do not exist, and you cannot explain their mechanism.
bringing to light unconscious memories can be very challenging
There are no such thing as unconsciousness memories. If you are not conscious of a mental event, it is not a memory. That is just not how the brain works, if you like neuroscience explanations, and it definitely is not how Buddhadharma explains memory.
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Re: Psychoanalysis

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Malcolm wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 5:30 pmIn Buddhadharma, none of this is predicated on a subconsciousness. The whole idea of an subconsciousness is antithetical to Buddhadharma.
I did not mention a sub-conscious, I mentioned a lack of awareness of the basis of many of our actions.

Are you saying we are aware of everything in our samskara? I certainly am not.
Anders' statement is false. People are aware of what they do and they are aware of their mental life.
You have obviously never met a psychotic.
They act as they do because of afflictions. But they are actually aware of those afflictions. When someone gets angry, they can tell you their state of mind is angry, etc.
I disagree. Generally, when I get really angry, the last thing I think about is my afflicted mental state. In retrospect? I can analyse my mind state, what I felt, how I acted, etc... and call it anger. But when I am peaking...
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
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Re: Psychoanalysis

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Malcolm wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 5:31 pmThere are no such thing as unconsciousness memories.
What are you talking about dude? Have you met and talked to trauma survivors? Especially survivors of childhood trauma?

They don't remember shit. Their experiences colour their current mental state and yet they are in some cases completely unaware of the experience that formed the current behaviour.

People that suffer severe trauma can lose almost all memory of any details of what happened to them.

I recommend you read the book: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Malcolm »

Grigoris wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 5:49 pm
Malcolm wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 5:30 pmIn Buddhadharma, none of this is predicated on a subconsciousness. The whole idea of an subconsciousness is antithetical to Buddhadharma.
I did not mention a sub-conscious, I mentioned a lack of awareness of the basis of many of our actions.
You are not being precise. I am. Be precise.

What do you mean by lack of awareness? Generally, to lack awareness means to be unconscious, as in deep sleep, or under anesthesia. If you are awake, you are both conscious and aware. People do not accumulate action while they are unconscious.

Are you saying we are aware of everything in our samskara? I certainly am not.
What do you mean by samskara? Are you referring to the skandha or the link in dependent origination.
Anders' statement is false. People are aware of what they do and they are aware of their mental life.
You have obviously never met a psychotic.
Many in fact, and they were all quite conscious at the time, aware of what they were doing within the constraints of their delusions.
They act as they do because of afflictions. But they are actually aware of those afflictions. When someone gets angry, they can tell you their state of mind is angry, etc.
I disagree. Generally, when I get really angry, the last thing I think about is my afflicted mental state. In retrospect? I can analyse my mind state, what I felt, how I acted, etc... and call it anger. But when I am peaking...
Everyone knows that they are angry when they are angered, desirous when they desire, and ignorant when they don't know something.
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by 明安 Myoan »

Malcolm wrote:ignorant when they don't know something
Can you unpack this for me, Malcolm? My impression is that one of the many reasons samsara is perpetuated is because people DON'T know that they don't know. :thanks:
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Malcolm »

Grigoris wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 5:53 pm
Malcolm wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 5:31 pmThere are no such thing as unconsciousness memories.
What are you talking about dude? Have you met and talked to trauma survivors? Especially survivors of childhood trauma?
These are not unconscious memories. If there is a memory, it is in consciousness.
They don't remember shit. Their experiences colour their current mental state and yet they are in some cases completely unaware of the experience that formed the current behaviour.
That is not memory.
People that suffer severe trauma can lose almost all memory of any details of what happened to them.
Yes. of course.
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Malcolm »

Monlam Tharchin wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 7:11 pm
Malcolm wrote:ignorant when they don't know something
Can you unpack this for me, Malcolm? My impression is that one of the many reasons samsara is perpetuated is because people DON'T know that they don't know. :thanks:
Ignorance is actually a kind of knowing, a mistaken knowing, if you will. It is never, however, an unconsciousness state.
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by 明安 Myoan »

Thanks!
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Re: Psychoanalysis

Post by Malcolm »

Monlam Tharchin wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 7:18 pm Thanks!
In Buddhadharma, there is nowhere any discussion of an unconscious mind which performs functions below the level of awareness. This is a modern idea from modern psychology. It comes originally from the 189th century German philosopher Schiller, was taken up by the poet Coleridge, and placed into its modern usage by Freud.

Brentano rejected the idea, as well as Satre, Fromm, Searle, etc.
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