Fyodor Vasilyuk read for us the book “With and Without Himself. The practice of existential-analytical psychotherapy”.
“Life is a demand from the being of Meaning and Beauty” — this formula of the famous Russian physiologist Alexei Ukhtomsky could become the motto on the knight’s shield of the International Society for Logotherapy and Existential Analysis. The book contains cases from the therapeutic practice of European and Russian representatives of this psychotherapeutic school. Why are concrete stories the most intriguing genre of psychological literature? Strange thing: general things excite the few, private — all. What are the four fundamental motivations of human behavior — such a question is of interest to a narrow circle of specialists. But will the girlfriend of the capricious Mr. A. still agree to marry him, when, as a result of psychotherapy, he got rid of his narcissism, became sadder and warmer; whether a disabled person, whom doctors have long given up on, will be able to drive a car with a psychotherapist sitting next to him to the house — such questions, of course, concern every reader.
If life really is a demand from the being of meaning and beauty, then what is Frau Mayer to do? She was an attractive woman, lived in a happy marriage, she had a child. A tumor, several brain surgeries, a wheelchair, a disfigured, paralyzed face, loss of smell and taste, increasing deafness. The husband left with the child. What should she do, whose life is stricken with meaninglessness and ugliness? No answer. But there is Karl Rühl, a priest and psychotherapist (one of the authors of the collection), ready to enter the circle of her loneliness and hopelessness. He does strange things: he sits in her wheelchair and asks to teach him how to get to the bathroom, sits with her in front of the mirror and asks about every scar on her disfigured face. Time passes, and Frau Mayer opens the doors of her house.
Psychotherapy is not a theory and a method, it is a meeting with another who is looking for you in you
Psychotherapy does not undertake to save a person from suffering, it seeks to turn inhuman horror into a normal human tragedy. Tragedy is not at all a merry thing, but it has depth, meaning, and dignity. The main method that the authors of the book use in their practice is the method of phenomenological understanding. However, for the reader and the patient, psychotherapy is not a theory and a method, but an ENCOUNTER with the other. With another, who sometimes, in spite of you, is looking for you in you. Svetlana Krivtsova writes: «The second name of phenomenology is love.» The reverse is also true: the second name of love is understanding.”