Pushkarmuni Abhinandan Granth

Author(s): Devendramuni, A D Batra, Shreechand Surana
Publisher: Rajasthankesari Adhyatmayogi Upadhyay Shree Pushkar Muni Abhinandan Granth Prakashan Samiti

Page 1094

Modern Psycho-therapy vs. Ancient Indian Psycho-therapy १६१ •
Modern Psycho-therapy V/s Ancient Indian Psycho-therapy
Dr. S. N. BHAVASAR, M. A., Ph.D. Yoga Vidya Dhama, Pune-411005 Modern Psycho-Therapy
Modern psycho-therapy is a branch of medicine. It is an outcome of classical psychology-previously a part of philosophy-Analytical, Behaviouristic, Gestaltic, Introspective, etc. Not only that its scope has widened to such an extent that an integration of all the different approaches and divisions, had to be contemplated, and accordingly a new movement of psycho-synthesis has been started all over the world as back as in first quarter of this century itself; it is yet widening and enriching its body.
This transition of psychology from a part of philosophy to the branch of medicine, almost an independent discipline to-day, so to say, historically speaking, is a very recent development. The factors that have contributed to the growth of modern psycho-therapy have mainly been industrial, scientific, and socio-political revolution in the last few centuries. The most important factor is the meeting of the East and the West, caused and made easy by means of modern transport and tele-communication, besides, the press and publicity. This change, however, is effected more from philosophical and cultural sides in the recent times, mainly through the ancient Indian tradition unique in its kind-it is Indian Culture.
Before the cultural and commercial transactions between the East and the West began, there was and is still continued to a certain extent a dispute between the philosophical view of the living being as a unit of Body, Mind and Spirit together as against a bio-physical and bio-chemical complex. It was thus a very fundamental issue as regards subjective and objective aspect of Life, Nature and the Transcendental. In a dispute between Science and Philosophy this is conspicuously present. Psycho-therapy, nay, medicine as a whole, being a scientific discipline, is affected by this tug of war causing such a heavy impact on psycho-therapy, that the very entity of mind, not to speak of soul, had lost its existence. In physical sciences Newton and others, Darwin and others in Biology etc., had given a radically different picture of Matter, Life and Spirit. Freud and his group on the other hand paved the way to Unconscious under the name Depth-psychology. There emerged, still side by side an opposite school of thought in psycho-therapy, through K. Abraham, Roverta Assagioly, etc., under the name Heightpsychology in search of higher and brighter aspects of mind as against the darker ones of the former. Though Freud had already noted this dimension of mind, and Jung too had recognised the same, it were Assagioly and others, who incorporated it practically in the body of psycho-therapy.
The conflict between subjectivity and objectivity in fact is of inverse and reverse sides of the same coin-on the one hand and the height and depth of mind on the other, continued for a long time till the first quarter of this century.
By this time psycho-therapy had made a great advance on its march towards solving the problems of mental health. Three factors, however-population, over-urbanisation and
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