What is psychotherapy today? I personally witnessed the death of 'Real Therapy" (it got done - only a little bit, but bit by bit, as you lay on a sofa and talked and talked) in the nineties, as molecules gained prominence and replaced it. "Prescription Therapy", it is called now.
I also personally witnessed that in a Psychiatric Research Institute, where 30 Psychiatrists and an equal number (each) of psychologists, social workers, nurses, life-skill workers and others, who provided the "so-called therapy", in the exit interview, 35% of the patients said they wanted a shoulder to cry on and so invented symptoms. The Psychiatrists knew this and acted accordingly (prescribed colored sugar pills). Many were personal friends and we invited each other for dinners at home. I ran a placebo effect study, double blind of course!
Now here's the clincher. I used to run a teaching basic yoga class after hours. Patients were not allowed to attend, only staff and their friends. But, knowing me, Psychiatrists used to phone me to make exceptions. So, in one class, I had two Obsessive-compulsive pupils, one a young man and the other a beautiful Scottish 30ish women, a real killer. After two months of introductory yogic, postures (aasans), breathing and reciting procedures, they wrote me a letter saying, among other things " . . . . they have partially recovered more in the last two months, than in the two preceding years of behavior modification therapy and prescriptions, administered by a senior staff Psychiatrist, Dr. John Lovett-Doust, a specialist in " treating Obsessive-Compulsive behavior patients", also a friend and a great believer in cerebral Rheographic evaluation.
The fundamentals of Stoicism are based on Vedic Yoga techniques, which is nothing more than a way of thinking and living. One does not do yoga, one lives it, in action and thought.
Need I say more!
