How does psychotherapy deal with Karma & Co? In conversation with Wolfgang Schimböck, Chairman of the Upper Austrian State Association for Psychotherapy.
OÖN: What do psychotherapists call constructs like karma, kismet or divine providence?
Wolfgang Schimböck: Viktor Frankl saw these things in the corner of the provisional attitude to existence; that man does not commit himself, but surrenders himself to a certain fatalism. You give in because everything is predetermined. In this fatalism one can make oneself comfortable.
If, as with karma, the consequences of actions extended beyond death, then personal freedom would be massively restricted, right?
These are all constructs that go back a long way in human history and had other backgrounds, for example to maintain some form of domination.
Would it be an exaggeration to say that fatalistic kismet is learned helplessness through religion?
Learned helplessness is a concept developed by the US psychologist Martin Seligman and describes the belief developed from negative experiences of having lost the ability to change one’s own life situation. This can be a direct route to depression because you no longer pursue meaning and values. You surrender to fate. It is difficult to break out of learned helplessness into real life. When someone holds on to this helplessness, it’s difficult to get them out of it.
Why are people prone to fatalism?
When clarity is lacking on the one hand and simple messages are being sent on the other, one is prone to fatalism. Not far away is fanaticism. Behind this are very simple explanatory models – also of a political nature. We are easily influenced with simple messages and no longer get to the bottom of the matter. Fatalism no longer questions anything and fanaticism no longer sees grey, only black or white.
Can belief in karma and acceptance of providence be understood as the opposite of an exaggerated individualism, the expression of which one can also criticize in our society?
I wouldn’t necessarily say opposite, but individualism can also be a kind of retreat, a cocooning. That means I weave myself in or just live in a small group. I agree with the religious philosopher Martin Buber, who said: “Man only becomes an I through you.” The I can only grow with the You, because we are social creatures. If I isolate myself, there is no exchange, no chance for personal growth. On the other hand, you can experience fanaticism in a large group, I just remember Adolf, who was standing on the balcony in Linz in front of a huge crowd. Elias Canetti described this phenomenon well in Crowds and Power. In any case, fatalism and fanaticism are two things that have a huge potential to lead people astray.
How would you define esoteric offerings that offer past life regression?
These are often promises of salvation that somehow invite me to remove myself from reality and excuses so that I can escape from the problems that are really at hand.
Is that charlatanry?
Yes, a lot of it. Whereby in psychotherapy we often choose paths that, at a cursory glance, do not differ much from this. We also invite you to meditate to show that people are more than just their bodies, they are not limited to the physical. You can step out of it and look at the landscape of your life from above, in a kind of helicopter view. We sometimes invite people to step away from themselves and look at themselves and their environment in a kind of self-distancing.
Does the concept of a collective subconscious according to the psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung coincide with that of a traditional, religious doctrine of providence?
Could be. But in today’s neuroscience, one sees more that things have been transported over generations, for example how to cultivate crops. Jung showed that some of these things live on without written records or oral traditions. We carry that within us. I once had a case in my practice where a man in his 30s met his father for the first time in his life. It turned out that the son chose the same hobbies as the father.
Was that due to the genes?
I can imagine thtat.
Source: Nachrichten
