Why should we be healthy?

Modern health care is based on a rational and scientific approach, and “health” for him means only guaranteed performance. That is, what allows a person to function flawlessly in the workplace and better meet the requirements of a pragmatically organized world.

“At the same time, the doctor and the patient are less and less likely to meet each other as a person with a person,” says Carl Dürkheim. Instead of a personal meeting, there is a relationship between the community of doctors, that is, a team of narrow specialists, on the one hand, and an organized community of patients, on the other.

Sometimes we adopt this view and consider our body as some kind of object alienated from us, the only task of which is to function perfectly. But if we look at ourselves as a person, and our body as a manifestation of this person, then we want doctors to treat us the same way: to be seen not just as patients, but as people. And then health care can no longer consider each of us as a medical “case”, as an object of treatment, and the desire to function smoothly in the everyday world can no longer be the only goal of treatment.

“Of course, a person also belongs to the ordinary world and must, if necessary, be able to deal with it,” remarks Carl Dürkheim. “However, the integrity of a person is something more than just a thing that can be “repaired” by the same material means. Man is also a person, he is a subject, and what can be understood in him and what can be treated “rationally” forms only a part within the whole of his life as a person. And, ultimately, even this “rational” can be seen and understood correctly only on the basis of this personal integrity.

Three dimensions of life

The life of a person as a whole person takes place not in one, but in three planes, says Carl Durkheim.

1. Lower, biological plane. It is connected with the nature of the body, which is subject to biological laws from birth to death. At this level, the task of medicine is to help the patient to carry on successfully and without disease in the ordinary world.
2. The second, personal plane. It corresponds to the nature of the “I”, the human personality. Here a person experiences pain and joy, success and defeat, seeks a painless, protected and happy life in the face of destruction and loneliness, and gradually grows, striving to incarnate himself. Such an “I” needs an understanding and helping human treatment from another person and expects a humane approach to his suffering from a doctor.
3. The highest, spiritual plane. In it, a person goes beyond the boundaries of his “I” and seeks to reveal his being in contact with a certain spiritual life.

The purpose of a person as a person, as the philosopher emphasizes, is fulfilled in the constant transformation from a person who lives only by his “I”, into such a person as he is conceived in his being from the point of view of a higher plan. And a look at a person as a person in the process of formation poses completely new tasks for the doctor.

He must understand that a person suffers not only from the fact that he cannot fulfill his duties at work, but also from the incompleteness of his spiritual essence. And in this case, a person no longer needs only care and understanding from the doctor, but is looking for guidance and support on the path of developing his personality. Personal medicine expands the concept of health to the concept of “healing”, to gaining the possibility of “being whole”.

Suffering as a Precondition for Growth

Any illness interferes with the implementation or even destroys the plan and the order that a person realizes as a natural “I”. But suffering, which we as “I” perceive as an obstacle, at the same time provides us with a chance to realize our essence.

When a disease invades our lives, our “I” tries to resist it. It strives to become healthy and successful again as soon as possible, but thereby prevents the action of healing forces, that is, leading us to gaining integrity, and remains deaf to the voice of the essence.

“The action of the essence is never aimed only at eliminating the interfering symptom,” the philosopher insists, “but always, simultaneously and above all, at the transformation and maturation of the whole person.” By striving only for the restoration of natural functioning, we may deprive ourselves of the opportunity for spiritual growth. Such health turns out to be aimless from the point of view of our true destiny.

Dürkheim considers illness as a consequence of the stuck on the self-affirmation of the natural “I” and believes that the doctor should make it his task to overcome this stuck. Using his medical experience and natural science knowledge, he must remember that his patient is a person who is constantly in the process of becoming, and contribute to this formation. Then a trust is established between them, which contributes to healing.

Neighbor in psychotherapy

In psychology, as in medicine, a problem arises: if the therapist addresses the patient as person to person, then how can he combine objective knowledge with human warmth and compassion? Does not human responsiveness prompt the therapist to not only recognize and treat the disease, but also emotionally participate in the fate of his patient, and isn’t this what we ourselves sometimes demand from our psychotherapists?

“The requirement that the therapist give credit to his partner as a person is often misunderstood as a requirement that the therapist participate in the therapeutic situation not only as a business-minded researcher, but also as a humanly helpful neighbor,” says Carl Dürkheim. But a face-to-face meeting is not the same as partnering with another person’s life and immersing themselves in their emotions. Fate unfolds in the second plane of human life: it belongs to the ordinary world, and the personal relationship that a person is looking for on the way to himself belongs to the third, higher plane: this, according to the philosopher, is a transpersonal connection in a transpersonal life.

If the therapist first of all pays attention to the suffering of another person from the blows of fate, he cannot comprehend the personal essence of the other. In this case, there is a danger: the therapist may want to intervene in his life, try to correct it and thereby limit the freedom of both his own and his patient. But if the therapist has the ability to look at the other person not from his “I” but from his spiritual being and direct his gaze to the metaphysical center of the other being, then there is a genuine meeting.

“Only then does a therapy become possible that is aimed at something more than just adapting to the world of a person who is not yet awakened to his essence and only restoring his natural abilities for pleasure, work and love,” Carl Durkheim is convinced. In this case, therapy also becomes a spiritual experience for us, leading to healing, that is, to gaining wholeness.

¹ For more details, see K. Durkheim “The Humanity of a Doctor”, Moscow Journal of Psychotherapy, 2009, No. 2

About the expert: Karl Friedrich von Durckheim is a count by birth, a philosopher by education, a psychotherapist by profession and a Zen Buddhist by vocation, one of the founders of existential philosophy, a major figure in psychotherapy of the 1932th century. In XNUMX he defended his doctoral dissertation in philosophy, and five years later he left for Japan. There, under the guidance of a Zen teacher, he mastered archery and other practices of Zen Buddhism. Returning to Germany after the end of World War II, he founded his own school of psychotherapy.