new details about a counter example

[Guest guest]

FYI, here is an intesting observation about the rareity of psychotherapy

among those from the Orient:

 

Psychotherapists of Asian descent are extremely rare in Britain, as are

patients. Almost none of Phiroze's patients have been other Asians. Even

middle-class Asians are unlikely to consider practicing or entering

psychotherapy, a discipline intimately linked to the core of Western

intellectual culture, to its art and literature and high drama, to

representation and abstraction, to the enlightenment ideals of

self-fulfillment and the pursuit of personal ahppiness. Immigrants of his

background, Phiroze surmized, had little patience for these concepts and

were uncomfortable discussing feelings and the self, particularly sexual

feelings. The admission of rage and resentment toward one's parents would be

unthinkable in many Asian families, and spending money to talk about oneself

would be an unacceptable self-indulgence. (Berlinski 77)

 

Berlinski, Claire. *Menace in Europe: why the continent's crisis is

America's too*. New York: Crown Forum, 2006.

 

Further commentary is available at

http://www.siddhanta.com/2006/05/psychotherapy_a.html

 

 

On Fri, 12 May 2006 08:06 +0200, Tattvavit (das) ACBSP (BBT) <

Tattvavit.ACBSP (AT) pamho (DOT) net> wrote:

>

> Dear Devotees,

>

> PAMHO.

>

> I am in New Simhachalam (Germany) for the Nrsimha-caturdasi festival,

> where

> I was able to speak with two of the devotees we are discussing.

>

> Ajamila Prabhu wrote:

> > We know the ritviks are recruiting on some small scale, so I don't see

> > whats the point in posting such info here as to suggest they merit our

> > valuable time.

>

> Today I met the teenager I told you about. He said that D G pushed him to

> shave up and join a temple rather than waiting an indefinitely long time.

>

> Basu Ghosh Prabhu forwarded this accurate assessment:

> > > We know that the notion to join an ashram never occurs to

> > > the vast majority of people who go to a therapist, yet it frequently

> > > occurs to people who associate regularly with devotees. It is most

> > > likely that the boy has had sufficient contact with devotees in the

> > > past, and that because the course was taken in the association of

> > > devotees. That additional association was what he needed to inpsire

> him

> > > to join the ashrama.

>

> Yes. This teenager also said that although he grew up around devotees, he

> had become bored by their association; during the course, in the

> association

> of young devotees like himself from Germany and Austria, however, he began

> to want more sat-sanga.

>

> As for D G's course, this teenager said that the contents of it impressed

> him at the time, but now the course seems to him less valuable than he

> first

> thought.

>

> Babhru Prabhu wrote:

> > what specifically in DG's course does Parivadhi prabhu see as

> > violating "KC moral principles"?

>

> Today I sat with Parivadi Prabhu on a bus going to Passau for a big

> harinama, and he said that he meant mixing between the sexes. It seems

> that

> he took this as an effect of the course because, after taking the course,

> one married woman he knows approached him in a parking lot with open arms

> and hugged him. "This is unclean," he said with a special German sort of

> disdain. He elaborated a bit on this theme and said that Srila

> Prabhupada's

> movement is not meant to accommodate such open displays of physical

> intimacy, but nowadays we are seeing this.

>

> I should add that this festival here is wonderful. Please see

> >simhachalam.de< for photos of Sri Sri Prahlad-Nrsimha dressed in outfits

> made of (1) turmeric, (2) butter, (3) leaves, and (4) pavitras.

>

> --ys, td

>