What kind of knowledge does psychotherapy give?

This Post is actually in response to a comment by Ron, but it seemed worth it’s own post.

 Ron asked me to expand on something I wrote in my introductory Post for this unit:

Now, you might reply by saying that the interior realm of the self–its’ needs, desires, and so on, is at the very heart of psychotherapy, and that many people are obsessively interested in just this kind of issue. The problem is this: If you have an insight about the self, you tend to make it into a statement about some “objectively existing” version of the self–about “me” instead of “I.” At that point, it loses its power.

Good ear, Ron: I felt as I was writing this that it was a bit too rushed.

In chapter 5 of LOK, Rinpoche writes that when we follow the technological model for knowledge, we divide the world up into the objective and subjective realms, and that subjective knowledge lacks the same legitimacy as objective knowledge. It’s a vital point.

 But it struck me that someone might reply (to take a hypothetical example): “Through psychotherapy, I have learned a great deal more knowledge about myself.” That knowledge is very important to me, and I have no doubt that it’s real, because now that I understand myself better, I see myself and the world in very different ways, and am able to be more effective, spontaneous, and free in my dealings with other people.” So I consider that form of knowledge very legitimate, and I imagine my psychotherapist would agree.”

Here is the expanded version of what I would answer: In psychotherapy, you are treating the self as though it were a very special kind of object, one to which you alone have access. You may approach the self as though it were the content of a narrative (“the story of who I am”). Or you may approach it in terms of its feelings, emotions, etc. In the first kind of therapy, you aim to change the story; in the second kind, you aim to restructure the experience of the self. (This is all pretty rough, since I am not a therapist and have limited experience with therapy, so my apologies to anyone out there who knows more.)

It may happen that telling a new story, recognizing for the first time the old story you have been telling, or discovering and releasing (for example) blockages in the body really do change the world of your inner experience. But if you try to explore how this happens, you come at a certain point to a mystery. Somehow the new story or new way of experiencing affects you at the interior level. But you don’t know how. The innermost self remains a mystery.

 To help clarify this, imagine that someone tells you that you are needlessly punishing yourself for something that is not your fault. You hear this, and you may agree. But it doesn’t change your inner sense of who you are: you keep feeling guilty. Then one day you connect this insight with some other fact about your personal history, or with a particular physical blockage, and suddenly it disappears. How did that happen? A mystery. The self is a kind of black box that we can’t really penetrate.

One more indication of this: in our culture, we cling to the notion that we should trust our own feelings and do what feels right. But no one would say we should act on every impulse. It is only those feelings that are authentic that we should trust. Okay, then: how can we tell when a feeling is authentic? Another mystery.

Jack