Daniel Lev Shkolnik
Next week I'm starting the second year of my masters degree in counseling at Loyola and after years of exploring spirituality I can't help but notice some of the limitations and blind-spots of modern psychology.
Mainstream psychology – in general – emphasizes the cognitive over our intuitive, emotional, physical, and energetic processes. In other words, it prioritizes the mind.
A tell-tale sign of this that I noticed in my first year of studies is that most theories and discourse in psychology never—or rarely—mention love.
They might mention everything around love—family, romantic relationships, children, friendship, self-worth, etc.—but rarely ever have I heard love talked about directly or with depth.
Maybe because love has little to do with the mind. Maybe because love can't easily be measured and would undermine psychology's bid to become a serious data-driven science. Maybe because psychologists themselves are wary that loving their clients might bring them too close sexing their clients—the great taboo of therapy, and perhaps its greatest shadow.
The near-absence of discussing and expressing love in psychology is ironic considering the power of love as a healing factor. Human connection and relationship at its deepest level is expressed as love. And it's love that allows us to hold room for the most painful, shameful, and outrageous experiences of other human beings.
Self-love—far from being the root of selfishness—is in fact the very thing that people with narcissistic personality disorder and superiority complexes lack. (Self-esteem they may have plenty. But not self-love.)
Fortunately, my psychology program is a little odd. We're required to take a philosophy course as part of our degree. And the books we read that semester were all centered on love in one way or another. (All About Love by bell hooks. Cultivating the Mind of Love by Thich Nhat Hanh. I and Thou by Martin Buber)
I'm grateful for that class. Though not once did love appear in my other classes. And I doubt if I'll see it much again in our curriculum.
Love is one of the healing powers that I believe spiritual and religious traditions have to offer modern psychology. And sharing love purely is one of the most healing things we can offer one another.
I've seen how transformative it can be for those clients I've worked with. And I hope to share love's healing potential with the therapeutic community in the years to come.
I love this, pun intended!