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Namah Notes on counselling
habits often get reinforced by psychological that a mental will or suggestion can cure the
conflicts and repressed issues. In chronic pain illness of the body (1).” The Mother took
syndromes, pain becomes for all practical the exploration of this body-consciousness
purposes an obstinate habit and even though to great depths. One normally describes
exaggerated by psychological conflicts, all that a harmonisation of the discordant
our high-sounding psychotherapeutic or parts of one’s being needs a surpassing of
counselling techniques can do little except the ego which handles emotions, desires
to act as palliatives and adjuncts (not much and ideas in a skewed way. The Mother
different from antioxidants and pregabalin!) in her extensive exploration of the body-
that at best help one to bear the pain. consciousness also surpassed the physical
ego which is the entity that holds the
Any deep psychotherapy would ask this physical frame together so as to maintain
pertinent question — can mental will-power individualisation without the ego’s limits;
be used to give a suggestion to the body? We in a way “what we may call the raison d’être
find this happens typically to infants who [of individualisation] comes back, and without
immediately accept the suggestions of their the ego’s limitations (2).” It was a very risky
mothers and forget pain. An infant, who task as it needed to be executed in a state of
has learnt to walk, tumbles over and gets transition between the zone of life and the
hurt but the mother rebukes the floor and zone of non-life which she described as “a
tells the child that nothing has happened moment when it’s neither this nor that, and
— a suggestion that like a guarantee is that moment is critical (3)”. An activation of
immediately accepted with conviction the body-consciousness while surpassing
and faith. In adults such a situation can be the physical ego made the body susceptible
transiently created for remedial action during for transformative and mutant effects that
hypnotherapy but here also the suggestion automatically carried self-healing prowess.
comes not from the affected subject but from
the therapist. There are hathayogic exercises The vital plane of consciousness
where one learns to give suggestions to one’s
own body but these suggestions are generally The physical plane of consciousness is animated
aimed to improve health; they are not used by life-energy or élan-vital that holds the
directly to heal ailments. A new integral repertoire of our emotions. Emotions modulate
approach to consciousness expounded by our pain perception and pain behaviour and
Sri Aurobindo takes up this challenge and some subjects with chronic pain develop
works its way to unveil a latent and dormant concomitant depression. Conversely, some
body-consciousness in the subtle physical types of pain can also be a manifestation of
plane. This subtle body-consciousness can depression. We still do not actually know
actually be activated which can then be used if depression is initially caused by pain or
for healing oneself or others. Sri Aurobindo whether depression increases pain. It is
asserts that “there is a body-consciousness very interesting that anti-depressants are
which can do things at the mind’s order, but used in the treatment of chronic pain even
if depression is not present. We of course
has to be awakened, trained, made a good and still do not know whether anti-depressants
conscious instrument. It can even be so trained
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