YOGA vs Psychotherapy

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

First meditative state I experienced was at age 12 in the office of psychotherapist. Nice music, with an ocean sound… calm voice telling me to relax…call to feel my own warm hands…relax muscles of my face…think about that I’m safe in the world…

I was surprised 10 years later when during the shavassana yoga teacher made the same thing, almost using the same words. Made us relaxed and dissolved my mind in the cosmic consciousness (aka trance?), after that she made a statement ( that dropped in to my mind) such as: calmness, peace, acceptance of other, etc.

Anyone experience something like that? It looks just like a putting people in to trance and made an impression on their minds…

Your opinion?

#2

I think you are referencing a state which precedes meditation which may be called deep relaxation or “coming in to the body” or “bringing the mind into the body” or “the surrender of the mental force to the heart”. However these are not meditation per se. But a prerequisite for meditation.

#3

What do you mean by meditation. What do you experience?

#4

Dear CitMonk,

In a relaxed state of mind, the subconscious is more easily accessible. Just before coming out of savasana is a good time to make a positive resolution (sankalpa), repeating this three times. It is a well known technique in the art of yoga nidra. And this is a part of tantra that came into being long before the advent of psychotherapy.

By the way, there is a big difference between yoga and psychotherapy. One of my teachers stated this succinctly when he referred to his own teachings as “Yogatherapy is not about the contents of the mind.”

We know you practice asana. So your question is like “What do you mean by cobra pose? What do you experience?” You can only truely answer this question by getting into cobra pose and experiencing this yourself.

That is why zen teachers, when asked about zazen meditation, may just sit down and show you how they sit.

If your thinking mind still needs “food”, be aware that there is no one answer to your question. On the one hand you may experience the “monkey mind”, and see how the mind incessantly jumps from one thought to the next. At the other end of the scale you could see the world as it really is - ephemeral, imbibed with suffering and without an independent self (according to the Buddha). Beyond this there may arise infinite compassion for all sentient beings (“Big Heart”) and the capability of acting spontaneously (with much less ego-sense) in the world. I hope this paragraph also anwers your other post.

Your questions are good, but they can only truely be answered through practice and this involves more than the thinking mind.

#5

Willem thank you for the reply. I do make positive suggestion at the end of teh practice and I know that it works great. [QUOTE=Willem;31003]Dear CitMonk,

By the way, there is a big difference between yoga and psychotherapy. One of my teachers stated this succinctly when he referred to his own teachings as “Yogatherapy is not about the contents of the mind.”

.[/QUOTE]

I’m not sure that I got this one. Please explain what you mean by contents of the mind.

ps. I’ve asked Inner Athlete what he experiences in meditation, because he said that what I’ve experienced is not mediation but the state before meditation. But for me the state of dissolved and thoughtless mind is meditation. Just wanted to make sure that we are on the same page.

#6

You’re welcome.

I think you would have to ask Inner Athlete what he meant. I think he was referring to the difference between relaxation and meditation, relaxation being a prerequisite for meditation. I’ll leave it that, because it is so difficult to define meditation. I would not say that it is (always) a dissolved and thoughtless mind.

Your other question is about the workings of the mind. Yoga philosophy states that the mind has a reservoir of impressions and habit patterns (samskaras). These are overcome through the process of meditation - watching them arise and letting them go. This is process oriented. The accent is not on the characteristics of each samskara, which would be content-oriented.

A crude example: If you were afraid of big black dogs, their image may appear and reappear during meditation, and you would let go of the image again and again until it finally dissolved. On the path of psychotherapy, you might discuss black dogs, find out how they were related to your childhood experiences, and try to change your thoughts and behavior when confronted with such dogs.

I’m not saying that one approach is necessarily better. Sometimes meditation helps, sometime psychotherapy helps. Sometimes a combination.

#7

What do you mean by psychoterapy?
There are a lot of them

For example I experienced Bioenergetic, which is also a good system to work thtow the body to “fix” the mind.
Howevwr there are many kinds of psychoterapy, like EMDR which I tried but without any evidet result.

I’ve read Moola Bhanda teh master key, wrote by Swami Buddhananda.
In this book he compares the moola bhanda tecnique with some kind of psychotherapies…always he explains that moola bhanda and meditation with it are more powerful than every kind of western therapy.

I do TM, and IMHO I find this meditation very simple and powerful at the same time, but I think that some people need a good yoga master to understand meditation, above all if we talk about people with mental problem, depression o others disorders.

#8

Why yoga[I][U] versus[/U][/I] psychotherapy? Why not yoga as a part or function of psychotherapy?

#9

This was just the title given by the original poster, who actually discussed the similarities between the two.

The two can complement each other nicely. E.g. yoga and mindfulness techniques have been applied succesfully for depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, and stress in general.

But the point remains that the goals of yoga and psychotherapy are inherently different. Psychotherapy attempts to “fix” the ego and make human suffering slightly more bearable. Yoga goes beyond the ego and attemps to eradicate suffering at its roots. Psychotherapy wants to improve the quality of life, whereas yoga aims at total liberation.

And, as said before, yoga does not deal with the contents of the mind. There are many anecdotes proving that this “bypass” is not always successful. Many a spiritual seeker has been off for years on a retreat to the East, and has experienced relaxation and total bliss. Only to discover that old conflicts and emotional issues remained unresolved upon returning home. As Ken Wilber states (in Integral Life Practice), the “shadow” component can be easily neglected. And that is where psychotherapy can really contribute on the spiritual path. Especially if the therapist is compassionate and has some experience with meditation.

So the two can be complimentary. But yoga is not a always a subsitute for psychotherapy. Nor is psychotherapy always a substitute for yoga.

#10

[QUOTE=machine gun yogin;31229]What do you mean by psychoterapy?
There are a lot of them

[/QUOTE]

I just mean that lot of yoga techniques reminds me psychotherapeutic techniques…relaxation, hypnosis, trance, I do not their names, but I experienced these states of changed consciousness both in some yoga classes and in psychotherapeutic chair.
Interesting, but origin of psychotherapy in the West correlates with the time when westerns started to travel to the West…

Also, this thread might relate too http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/f18/panic-attacks-5880.html

#11

[QUOTE=CityMonk;31298]I just mean that lot of yoga techniques reminds me psychotherapeutic techniques…relaxation, hypnosis, trance, I do not their names, but I experienced these states of changed consciousness both in some yoga classes and in psychotherapeutic chair.
[/quote]
But there are a lot of them, and they work in differnt way, with drugs for example, or by the use of the body, or by the use of eyes movement.

[QUOTE=CityMonk;31298]
Interesting, but origin of psychotherapy in the West correlates with the time when westerns started to travel to the West…
[/QUOTE]
…you ment to east?!

#12

you ment “meant”?!:smiley:

#13

[QUOTE=machine gun yogin;31400]But there are a lot of them, and they work in differnt way, with drugs for example, or by the use of the body, or by the use of eyes movement.

…you ment to east?![/QUOTE]

Well, that is the caviar that psychotherapy do not use drugs, but rather talk and hypnosis as a treatment method.

Yes, it utilizes little different techniques, but I suspect that their purpose is the same:

-[U]induction of trance-like state[/U] ( by repeating mantras, or listening to other rhythms including heartbeat, breath (!), special eye movements, etc… )

-[U]and making post- hypnotic suggestion[/U], (such as I’m not depressed, I’m healthy, I wish peace to all leaving beings, I will maintain healthy diet…etc

yes, I said that interesting fact that Physhoterapy as a science started to form just sbout the same tome westerns started to travel to east.

All of these make me think that some yoga practices are just a substitute for psychotherapy and vice versa.

#14

[QUOTE=CityMonk;30982]First meditative state I experienced was at age 12 in the office of psychotherapist. Nice music, with an ocean sound… calm voice telling me to relax…call to feel my own warm hands…relax muscles of my face…think about that I’m safe in the world…

I was surprised 10 years later when during the shavassana yoga teacher made the same thing, almost using the same words. Made us relaxed and dissolved my mind in the cosmic consciousness (aka trance?), after that she made a statement ( that dropped in to my mind) such as: calmness, peace, acceptance of other, etc.

Anyone experience something like that? It looks just like a putting people in to trance and made an impression on their minds…

Your opinion?[/QUOTE]
It’s a VERY interesting parallel you bring up.

In college I double majored in Psychology & Social Work. In my studies on anxiety in particular I found that hypnosis was particularly useful, so I studied on it for sometime. Hypnosis is an increadibly powerful tool in many instances and, in my opinion, has many similarities to Meditative states as found in Yoga and other Eastern practices like Chan/Zen meditation. Another interesting similarity exists between these and the results of many forms of bio-feedback!

Your Brother
John

#15

[QUOTE=Pesilat-Yogi;31533] Hypnosis is an increadibly powerful tool in many instances and, in my opinion, has many similarities to Meditative states as found in Yoga and other Eastern practices like Chan/Zen meditation. Another interesting similarity exists between these and the results of many forms of bio-feedback!

Your Brother
John[/QUOTE]

Do you think that message we receive after guided savassana can get into our subconsciousness just as post - hypnotic message?

#16

[QUOTE=CityMonk;32321]Do you think that message we receive after guided savassana can get into our subconsciousness just as post - hypnotic message?[/QUOTE]
it would make sense that would happen

#17

From my elementary readings on the yoga nidra practice,bihar school, it is suggested that you can make what they call a [I]‘sankalpa[/I]’ or inner resolve beforehand which, because you are so deeply relaxed or about to enter such a state,hence why you are lying down position but not asleep, is sown on a deep enough level in order to bear fruition and get realised.

How this differs from dropping sutras into inner silence(samyama ,prayer or siddhi cultivation etc) or indeeed hypnosos or self-hypnosis, iam not altogther clear on. I know that some of the dentists in Scotland, a mere handful at most perhaps, have trained themselves or been trained to anaesthetise their pateints without any pharmaceutical anaesthetic as such…They prepare the patient before the operation with hypnosis with a session which partly may deem how suggestible they are. And hey i saw this on t.v; the dentist pulled out a tooth and perfomred drilling work;something that would ordinarily be excrutiating for the subject/patient.It was more painful for the the person watching.The academic hosting the t.v programme was like a professor of medicine or science doing some kind of dicumentary series on the efficacy and validity of alternative medicine.It made one cringe just watching it.The doc. counted down and it was like through auto-suggestion, ‘you feel no pain, are deeply relaxed,content ,secure etc’, it was as if she was put into a trance of sorts…It almost seems to want toindiciate that the normal neural firing that occurs as a result of bodily pain, i.e C-fibre stimulation, or whatever occurs in the nervous sytem/brain, is not occuring.It is mind/body medicine used in a cllinical setting. Of course in China the medical doctors use acupunture i think it is alongisde western medicine as an anaesthetic to put them to sleep and for major invasive operations and surgery .