Elena Zolotukhina-Abolina (Russia)

The task of psychotherapy is not only to save people from mental suffering and adapt to reality, but also to inspire them to a meaningful and creative life. Different worldviews contain different psychotherapeutic potentials, and the therapist is far from always able to evade turning to metaphysical issues. If Christian psychotherapy requires faith, and unreligious-stoic equanimity, then esoteric philosophy gives a modern person a rather flexible toolkit for putting oneself in order and continuing an active life.

Firstly, it offers the idea of ​​a higher principle and the immortality of the soul in a non-confessional version, which eliminates the compulsion to rituality of a certain type. People are in contact with a kind of paternalistic force that you can rely on, but which does not look like a "picky heavenly father." The esoteric idea of ​​the eternity of the soul does not threaten anyone with eternal torment, giving the possibility of a purely positive perspective, which can be improved on their own.

Secondly, the idea of ​​reincarnation gained in the East in the Western version does not carry the threat of "dreary samsara", but makes sense of the possibility of a "repeated lesson", which can be learned with great success. Mental and everyday suffering itself is interpreted as a lesson, and not as a punishment for guilt. Having learned it, the next time you would not be afraid of mistakes. In modern sources, it is even a matter of a deliberately taken hard experience, and the memory of a personal decision to endure suffering helps him to survive with dignity.

Thirdly, in modern popular esotericism, the role of man himself, his free will and conscious decision is great. Consciousness and will are seen as instances capable of influencing external circumstances, desires are seen as "gravitating toward realization", these are forces with which one can work, which increases the role of a person's personal responsibility. All this has a pronounced therapeutic effect.