Page 28 - NAMAH-Jan-2020

Namah Vol. 27, Issue 4, 15th January 2020

the envelope of material science, arguing that clients. He had no interest in establishing a
if empirical methods were the foundation new science or convincing the entire scientific
of its methodology, why wouldn’t human community of the veracity of his techniques.
experiences be considered empirical? We
trust our senses and ascribe a reality to the Well-being itself is an open-ended state of
rainbow. We trust our measuring instruments being. It has equivalents in different people’s
and believe Jupiter exists. Similarly, our pain worldviews. In Carl Jung’s language it is
is real when we are ill-treated, our joy is real individuation, in Abraham Maslow’s language
when we see a happy dream. Feelings are as it is self-actualisation, in Martin Seligman’s it
real as sensations because they have an effect is happiness, in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s it
on us. They follow the cause and effect model is Flow, in Zen: Satori. Each religion has its
of Newtonian science. In psychology we trust shade of difference — some will not define
someone else’s experiences, just as we trust it, some will leave it open to each individual
an instrument to measure far objects, small to define. A person who is operating from
objects, entities invisible to our limited vision. a higher order of knowledge, should not
Statistics — legitimised by science with the misbalance a person in a lower order, because
advent of quantum mechanics — would then the latter may not be ready to burst his bubble.
be used to categorise experiences of human On the other hand, if someone is struggling
subjects. Modern psychology research relies against the boundaries of the bubble, which is
heavily on collecting first-hand experiences compromising his well-being, then he should
of people in large numbers — both for be led to see a higher order of knowledge.
quantitative and qualitative research. This is what Hillman wants therapists to do
with their patients, understanding deep-seated
Jung tried hard to remain within the scientific struggles, and not the lesser struggles that
boundary, which was also necessary for his show up as symptoms.
livelihood, since his times were what they
were in the mid-1990’s. It took him decades A new psychotherapy
to open up the field of psychology, gradually
winning the confidence of the community Hillman is opening up the field of psychology
with his empirical studies and their positive to a new order in the knowledge-system. He
results. Hillman could venture further out is inviting in the magical, the mythical, the
in the field because he came of age as a vast realm of the unconscious, the undefinable
psychiatrist after the cultural revolution of the world of dreams, the unending fields of soul-
1960’s. The orthodoxies in education systems space. This new psychology may be resisted
were falling apart, especially in America, by those who have found a sure footing with
Hillman’s native country. Jung, a Swiss the past body of experimental psychology.
man, worked in the heart of Europe, within a They may say, “We know Prozac works for
more conservative establishment. Hillman’s depression, why question it? If you waste time
proof of the pudding was in the eating. If a pondering, the patient may die”. A Hillmanian
method works, it is legitimate. If his flavour would answer, “What you diagnose as
of psychotherapy brought well-being to depression, is not depression. It is a malaise of
his clients, then it was legitimate — for his the spirit that the patient is unable to articulate.

28