Arquivo para March 2nd, 2020
Self-help, spirituality and psychology
02
Mar
The difference is quite large, but for many, including bookstores, these issues are in
the same session, making a joke I would say that the first one gives the idea that you alone resolve yourself (self-help) and the second you need a professional, so it is more expensive. However, the issue is deeper and more serious.
Self-help has created a series of popular beliefs, for example, Rich Dad, poor son, so self-help suggests Rich Son, or Retired Young and Rich or Poor Father for young people, anyway the list is immense, if it were true everyone would say the same, but life does not have these magic formulas.
So, the objective of every self-knowledge process, including psychology is one, can be effective if it is based on real experiences and facts of a person’s life, so it cannot have a general formula, and this is as old as epistemic thinking “Know yourself”, but this must not be a doxa, that is, a mere unfounded opinion.
Clinical psychology, just to give an example, has found that our symptoms, our problems, our suffering arise and grow from unconscious sources, this means that there is a layer that we consciously have little access to, that give rise to what we are.
However, today there is an even more serious problem where charlatans and false promises of self-help reside, spirituality without a personal and social context, “unspiritualized asceticism” as stated by Peter Sloterdijk, a kind of catharsis or self-help that leads to fanaticism without spirituality.
Even to call it spirituality is a mistake, it is self-help with a manipulated religion and unfounded beliefs, but true spirituality exists, and it is a way of providing balance and helping us with unconscious sources of problems or even solutions.
Anyway, it would be good to separate the three fields, personal, social and work self-help formulas, clinical treatment of psychological problems and true spirituality that does not co-exist in all three, a form of personal or community asceticism that leads to improved relationships and greater happiness conviviality.
