Philosophical counseling (true spiritual counseling), claims that our problems are due to a separation of the observer and the observed (see my article Philosophical counseling as an alternative to psychotherapy). In its practice it directs itself away from the observed, towards the observer himself. And its questions become of existential, conceptual, ethical, epistemological and metaphysical kind.
Psychotherapy is a branch of psychology, and therefore something scientific, which directs itself towards aspects of the observed, that can be empirical tested. Therefore it must not contain philosophical and/or religious theories. An example on such a scientific based psychotherapy is Cognitive Therapy, which also has shown to be the most effective kind of psychotherapy.
Today it has become an integrated part of management theories and the self-help industry, that they draw on the New Age movement. New Age is a name of a spiritual movement, which draws on many different religious traditions: Astrology, Shamanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, different techniques of Prophecy – which all are seeked integrated with Western psychotherapy. You may say, that psychotherapy, in this combinationform, has become a new religion for the modern Western human being – a religion, which the management theories adds the ideals about being a success. In fact the term New Age is today one and the same as a mixture of spirituality, management theory and psychotherapy. If you go into a bookshop, you can often see, how books about spirituality and management theory today stand on the same shelfs (see my articles Management theory and the self-help industry and Six common traits of New Age that distort spirituality).
An example: today most people within school, folk high school, continuing education and business community, have met the concept Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP). Both in education, as well as at work, you will almost unavoidably be forced to work with NLP-theories, which is a directly offence of the rights for people, who don´t advocate the New Age movement.
NLP is a therapeutic method, which picks inspiration from many different directions within psychology: gestalt therapy, hypnosis therapy, body therapy, neurology, shamanism etc. Some NLP-practicians claim, that it is a method, which is based on a scientific way of thinking, and refuse the connection with New Age. But this rejection is paradoxically enough a trait, which is quite typical for the New Age movement, where concepts such as research and science all too often become mixed with spiritual concepts. An example of the lack of ability to understand oneself as philosophy/spirituality/religion, and not science (see my article Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) and Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT)).
For example has there within the New Age movement almost gone inflation in the thought distortion Research has shown that… A phrase, which often is used to convince the listener about, that the one who speaks can substantiate what he says with concrete empirical proof. But this could be an example of subjective argumentation, a form of unethical manipulation (often based on wishful thinking), because it is extremely vague to claim that ”research has shown” anything, unless you can substantiate the assertion with specific details about the claimed research. Who has carried out this research? Which methods were there used? What exactly did they found out? Have their results been confirmed by others working within the area? (see my articles A dictionary of thought distortions and The Pseudoscience of New Age and reductionism).
However there are also NLP-practicians, who fully acknowledge the connection with the new spiritual movements. If you look at the NLP-consultants´ web pages on the internet, they often present themselves with a spectrum of educations, including astrologers, clairvoyants, shamans and healers.
Today you can almost draw such “spiritual” educations in an automat, if only you have money enough. They are typical taken in a few weekends, after which you get yourself some homemade title as coach, psychotherapist, therapist, shaman, healer, clairvoyant or spiritual teacher of one or the other kind. There almost seem to be speculated in creating new peculiar titles. But such educations can of course not give the sufficient competence, neither spiritual or educational, and there is no doubt about, that there on the grey, alternative market (including the whole of the circus of management theory and coaching) rules a wild growing, uncontrolled market of quackery and scientific/philosophical/spiritual misguiding.
If we for example take the title psychotherapist, then it is very important to be aware, that this title is not a protected title. Anybody can call himself psychotherapist, and one should therefore be on the alert with people who sign themselves psychotherapist. Competent psychotherapeutic treatment is usually in charge of University-educated psychologists and psychiatrists. For both of these groups of experts it is possible to achieve licence as psychotherapist. But on the so-called grey market there exists, as mentioned, a line of alternative forms of treatment with affinity with mysticism and religiousness, which do not live up to the professional demands, which lie in the authorization arrangements. These people also title themselves as psychotherapists, and it is a deep problem that precisely these people of the grey New Age market practically have patent on personality developing courses in almost all companies.
I will repeat: Philosophical counseling (true spiritual counseling), claims that our problems are due to a separation of the observer and the observed. In its practice it directs itself away from the observed, towards the observer himself. And its questions become of existential, conceptual, ethical, epistemological and metaphysical kind.
Psychotherapy is a branch of psychology, and therefore something scientific, which directs itself towards aspects of the observed, that can be empirical tested. Therefore it must not contain philosophical and/or religious theories. But this is precisely what New Age psychotherapies do, and in neglecting the observer, they are misguiding their clients philosophical and spiritual. New Age psychotherapies are for example therapies such as Rebirthing, Reparenting, Past life regression, Hypnotherapy, Alien abduction, Recovered memory therapy, Satanic ritual abuse, Primal Therapy, Gestalt therapy, Holotropic Breathwork. Also Nonviolent Communication, coaching, NLP and The law of Attraction, must be seen as kinds of New Age psychotherapies (see my articles Regression psychotherapies, Cathartic psychotherapies, Hypnosis, hypnotherapy and the art of self-deception, Nonviolent Communication is an instrument of psychic terror, The New Thought movement and the law of attraction).
A common thread is the belief that a person having problems is not likely to be responsible for those problems. This is due to their root in reductionism (see my article The pseudoscience of reductionism and the problem of mind). Another thread is the belief that the patient must discover the cause of his or her problem to be helped. These causes are built into the psychotherapy itself, and are therefore pure prejudice. It is causes such as inadequate parents, sexual abuse, satanic rituals, cannibalistic orgies, past lifes, alien abduction, possession by entities, etc.
In the best Sophist way the therapists are planting such causes in their patients minds. They give their patients books to read or videos to watch. They plant them during hypnosis, group sessions, etc., and then these planted causes are “recovered” and offered as validation of their therapeutic techniques and theories (see the thought distortion Communal reinforcement in my article A dictionary of thought distortions).
A third thread is the arrogance and incompetence of the therapists. They are very seldom educated psychologists, most often they are hopelessly uneducated. It doesn´t matter if they can show a diploma from one or the other private “New Age” education, which normally consists in a few weekend courses. As shown in a documentary by Ofra Bikel “Divided Memory”, they are oblivious to how they are demonstrating the monstrosity of their pseudoscientifical and self-deceptive work. They talk freely about how uninterested they are in the truth and how indifferent they are to the families they help destroy. They are uniform in their dismissal of critics as being in “denial.” Patient after patient is paraded forth by the therapists as evidence of their good work, yet none of the patients seem better for the therapy and many seem hopelessly ill.
This is due to the subjectivism and relativism in the New Age environment.
These therapists call themselves spiritual counselors. But the karmacially talk and experiences of these “experts” and “clients” remove their energy-investments in the actual reality. When focus is displaced backwards or forwards in time, then the collective time has taken over and spiritual seen there therefore happens an escape. None of these people and theories can therefore be said to work spiritual. And when they use the karma idea in that way, it is no longer a spiritual help, it is a collective displacement of the focus backwards in time and therewith out of reality and into the unreality of the collective time.
New Age psychotherapies are not just useless, they are harmful.
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