A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth
0743243153
M. Scott Peck
Notes
Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.
What are these tools, these techniques of suffering, these means of experiencing the pain of problems constructively that I call discipline? There are four: delaying gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing.
This feeling of being valuable is a cornerstone of self-discipline because when one considers oneself valuable one will take care of oneself in all ways that are necessary. Self-discipline is self-caring.
…we must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it. We cannot solve a problem by saying “It’s not my problem.” We cannot solve a problem by hoping that someone else will solve it for us. I can solve a problem only when I say “This is my problem and it’s up to me to solve it.”
…basically all patients come to psychiatrists with “one common problem: the sense of helplessness, the fear and inner-conviction of being unable to ‘cope’ and to change things” One of the roots of this is “sense of impotence” in the majority of patients is some desire to partially or totally escape the pain of freedom, and, therefore, some failure, partial or total, to accept responsibility for their problems and their lives. They feel impotent because they have, in fact, given their power away.
When problems of transference are involved, as they usually are, psychotherapy is, among other things, a process of map-revising. Patients come to therapy because their maps are clearly not working.
It is in the giving up of self that human beings can find the most ecstatic and lasting, solid, durable joy of life. And it is death that provides life with all its meaning. This “secret” is the central wisdom of religion.
One seldom sees patients, for instance, who are not basically healthier mentally than their parents.
We are growing toward godhood. God is the goal of evolution. It is God whom is the source of the evolutionary force and God who is the destination. That is what we mean when we say that He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
In my vision the collective unconscious is God; the conscious is man as individual; and the personal unconscious is the interface between them.