If we have issues, when should we seek the support of a Psychotherapist and when should we ask a Spiritual Master to help us?

Question: 'I have a big emotional problem that is really interfering with my life and that seems to be getting worse as I grow up. As I feel I am a spiritual person, should I find  a Spiritual Teacher to take it to ( in Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, he says that their role is to eat up their devotee's karma!), or should I try and work it through with a Psychotherapist?

Serge. This is a very interesting question and it asks us to be clear about the different functions of the Guru and  the Psychotherapist. Basically we could say that  they address different levels of the psyche:  most spiritual masters  aren't so interested in our 'personal life' - whether we enjoy good sex or have healthy relationships, feel happy - all that stuff - but are more concerned with our spiritual or impersonal life - how close to God we are able to come. 

In a similar way, the aim of most psychotherapists is primarily to focus on our personal lives, on  what is 'wrong' with our personalities . As a generality, one  could say that the aim of the guru is to help us be better and  that of the therapist to help us feel better!

However,  many changes  are beginning to take place. Today, many Spiritual Masters are learning much more about the world of psychology and  are increasingly coming to recognise, for example, that if a devotee is still angry with their personal father, that this is bound to contaminate how they see their 'Heavenly Father'. In a similar vein,   many Psychotherapists are  also realising that many emotional wounds may only be properly healed if that person also recognises the  importance of honouring the spiritual dimensions of their lives. So the issue is not so much, an either/or one.

However, given the fact that at present you don't seem to have a Spiritual Master and that what you say about their eating up one's karma, only happens  rarely and only if the master is pretty enlightened and  only if you have been a disciple for a long time, I would say you were better off to go to a spiritually-oriented Psychotherapist who will be able to work with you in such a way as to link your emotional problem with your spiritual development and  perhaps help you see that far from it being an obstacle,  it  may actually be  an integral part of what you need to work through in your journey to come closer to who you are.

This does not mean that you do not continue doing whatever spiritual practices you might be doing at present, such as meditation, but do not necessarily think that meditation alone will  solve your problem. As this whole area  is the field in which I work, you can ring or email me and I might be able to advise you of someone who might help you, who lives in your area.

Many relationships fail because people hold naïve expectations about them or  feel they should be easy and that one shouldn’t need to ‘work’ at them.  I do my best to remind people that these  notions are myths and so try and help them work at their relationships together.

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