دار بيبليون
Notes from a lecture by Lwiis Saliba on Zoom, 12 June 2024:
Self-therapy of anxiety, phobia and OCD.
We started talking about a psychiatrist and psychotherapist from South Africa: Issac Meyer Marks. He saw the limits of psychoanalysis, took part in the development of behaviourism and specialised in anxiety, on which he wrote a major book. We’re going to do a 3rd and final session on this subject.
2 factors for overcoming fear: determination, patience title of the book: “Living with fear” You can’t erase it completely, but you can live with it, to prevent it from becoming an illness. Our chromosomes carry millions of years of fear. Non-fear’ is the state of realisation, as the Upanishads and Swami Vijayânanda say. Lebanese proverb: “Someone said to Patience: ‘How do we teach you?’ She replied: ‘Be patient’!” This does not come from a psychotherapist or a pill. For this eminent psychiatrist, the only therapy is to cope. He criticises the psychoanalysis method of treating anxiety: it takes too long, can last for years, and is not effective in certain cases of anxiety, unlike behaviourist methods. This is too long for people who suffer from anxiety, particularly major anxiety.
To develop a ‘counter-phobic’ attitude, you can use your imagination, particularly visualisation in a meditative state. Films can also be used. Buddhism makes great use of the faculty of visualisation, as can be seen in the book L’enseignement de Tenzin Palmo, expliqué par elle-même (The teaching of Tenzin Palmo, explained by herself). According to Tenzin Palmo, you can go back to a memory where you were angry, and revise it by experiencing it in a peaceful state. This could also be behavioural.
Laughter or humour yoga can also be used: when the patient starts to laugh at the symptoms of neurosis, this helps enormously to heal them. The behavioural method is the most suitable therapy for phobias, obsessions and fears. It consists of exposing yourself to the sources of fear so that you can get used to them, and avoid what you are afraid of…
The most important thing is to face up to your fears, and to do so through visualisation, as the sources of phobias are often unavailable.
What should we do if we fail? We try to treat ourselves without medication, and even without the help of a psychologist. Failures are part of this learning and self-treatment process, so it’s a matter of accepting them and carrying on. This is also said in spiritual psychology: failure should not irritate or discourage us; failures are challenges.
Instead of running away from the bodily expressions of fear, we accept them, observe them calmly, without being afraid of fear…
“Always remember that this self-treatment is quite difficult and tiring work. It takes a long time, but it gets to the root of things, which is why it’s worth doing.
There is no alternative to this self-treatment.
Jacques Vigne:
Vijayânanda tells us: “The best psychology is that which you do yourself on yourself through meditation”.
General framework: don’t be afraid of fear, don’t desire desires, don’t be angry at anger, see the story of the sparrow and the ogre.
Formula with correct posture: face/relax/find your/balance in 2×2 or 4×4.
The immobilisation of non-avoidance leads to respiratory activation, like the louder whistle of a well-closed pressure cooker.
Look at our mistakes, which can be the cause of anxiety.
Compare Tenpaî Nyma with the warrior who thinks he is challenging you to a duel.