The many faces of 'Therapy'

 

Sometimes a theory and its critique are both valid. This is what is magical about life and knowledge about life - because it is multi-dimensional. For example, there can be meaningful spiritual and mythic as well as scientific theories about the origin of the universe, and both are true, only at different registers. 

I recently thought about how Freud's theories, those of Carl Jung who distances himself from Freud in many ways, as well as the somewhat controversial 'Logotherapy' are all useful approaches to make sense of human suffering, delusion or trauma, even though they are philosophically/ontologically? so apart. 

Freud tends to see the subconscious as a place of primitive, uncontrolled, dark desires, though also the place for creativity and sexual desire. His whole ouevre is about the struggles of modern man to deal with his neurosis - as a civilized being (typically male) he must suppress several of these primitive influences, though as a result they keep poking at him in dreams, unfulfilled desires and neuroses. Apart from this somewhat questionable macro-theory though, his discovery of the subconscious remains potent. How so many things we experience slide into the subconscious, and sometimes get trapped there in need of release. 

A simple fictional example I read in a period romance novel recently. A man who hurt his knee in a war in the early 1900s, still suffered from pain and stiffness in it, though the doctors had told him he had recovered, and would soon walk normally. Then one day, when he must rescue his lover, he is able to carry the man in his lap for a long distance, without his knee becoming a bother. He is shocked. His fiend tells him, that this is because after his injury, he felt both physical pain and mental pain, as he lost his position in the army and felt useless, unable to help. When the opportunity suddenly arose again, the memory of the pain also dissolved! though this is a fictional case, it is a typical example of the potency of psychotherapy as revealed initially by Freud. 

Carl Jung then, has a different take. He perceived the subconscious not as a dark place hiding bad urges, but as the creative well of the entire human civilization. His approach is linked with his religious-spiritual views. Colonial academics had two kinds of views of primitive times- either as dark pasts that need to be overcome, or a romantic, effervescent wellspring from when mankind was closer to the Gods, nature and the spirits, closer to his truer nature. Accordingly, Jung sees dreams and mythologies as teachers and guides, reminding us of who we are, bringing us back into balance, and telling us of our divine tasks and personalities. 

Logotherapy emerged in the controversial context of the Holocaust (developed by a Holocaust survivor), and seems sometimes like a positive motivational approach, rather than serious psychotherapy? Logotherapy also does not see the subconscious as the enemy. In fact rather than putting much store in the subconscious, it suggests that our problems may be more direct, existential struggles. For instance, I read a case in the popular book 'Ikigai' - Here, a political bureaucrat who is extremely unhappy with his job, underwent therapy for 5 years. He was told that he has a problem with authority, and so he must resolve his issues with his father, in order that things may improve at work. After five years of struggle he tried Logotherapy. It was instead suggested that he may not be in the career of his liking, and after making a change, he became steadily happier. Logotherapy, offers the useful corrective to over analytical academics and therapy which would like to always find a complex answer to a direct, lived problem. 

Jiddu Krishnamurti suggests that both the conscious and the subconscious minds, are really of one essence, and will remain in a mess unless an attention that is without judgment, a choiceless awareness is not fostered. Over my own life I have found that a combination of psychoanalytic, existential and spiritual angles have helped resolve matters. And in the remaining cases, all you need is a some good friends, some dancing, good food, a walk under the moonlight, maybe a drink! 

Romancing other ages and other places

I just finished reading the ‘A Charm of Magpies’ series by K. J. Charles. These are a m/m romance series by a British author, who also by the way is a woman. It is of course not uncommon for women to be writers of male romantic fiction.

Now mostly such romance is to be read for casual pleasure, much like a Mills and Boons, not to be taken too seriously, and with a certain awareness of its unrealistic romantic storymaking. Putting that aside though, I found something amazingly fascinating going on in this series.

 

This story is set in an imaginary Victorian England in which magic operates, and involves a love story between a ‘practitioner’ from a humble class background and a man who is an Earl from an influential family, but has returned to England after a rough 20 years spent as a trader and smuggler in China. A ‘practitioner’ here, implies someone who can do magic, that is control the ether - the energy fields that pervade everything, much like a shaman can manipulate ch’i. The practitioner can manipulate energy through his fingers, move things, touch people and influence their thoughts, hurt someone or heal them, sense negative energies, trap and free spirits, perform some spells, spirits possessions occur, magical duels too. They are sort of like Merlin the warlock, except warlocks here are practitioners gone rogue and evil. Two people deeply connected in magic and affection, may even sense each other’s feelings. The practitioner who is our male lead, Stephen, has the role of a justiciar -  those who ensure that magical norms and ethics are being followed by others like them.

 Anyway, what is of interest here is that Stephen’s, love interest is Lord Crane, who lived freely and openly as a man’s man (i.e. as gay) all those 20 years in Shanghai, a land where no one cares two hoots about all this. He now hates having to be stuck in the niceties of high society Victorian England and further having to hide his sexual preference in a time when people are sent to prison for it. The East is presented with some typical orientalizing gaze, it is crude, rough, lawless, but also freeing, not priggish and open to gay life, lively and never boring. Lord Crane misses that life, but also wants to stay in England as the man he loves - Stephen - is here. Won’t go into the details as that is not the point of this piece.

In England too, the community of practitioners are not that strict about men being with men, as they are of pagan faiths, though they may use such secret knowledge to blackmail people on and off. The Earl Crane’s forefather was a practitioner himself, and magical blood runs through Crane’s veins. While he himself does not do magic, he knows much about it from the openly practiced shamanic cultures of Shanghai, where again magic is openly practiced. Shamans are respected and feared, and are meant to practice simple lives and even celibacy. Stephen, his lover is fascinated to know about this unknown Eastern world where both magic and loving a man can be practiced openly. He wonder what such a life would be like! One of the novels also shows the temperance movement in London in those days, another conservative movement which sees drinking alcohol as evil. 

It is a fascinating twist to today’s age. I have read about gay couples in India who wish to move to the West where they can live more freely. It is also well-known how some people move to the West to move away from narrow-minded cultures (though many in India move more for ambition, jobs and status). To turn this around, to a Victorian age when Britain was far more conservative than some Eastern lands (where homosexuality was at least not a sin, though maybe not as free as depicted in this fiction) makes for a great twist. 

In the last of the books [SPOILERS] the two men have finally taken the leap to travel the world, to see the East. They go to Constantinople, to Shanghai, but finally land in Nagasaki. In this city which is cosmopolitan in those times, they feel a desire to settle. They can be openly together, they begin to learn the language. They enjoy how the peach tree blossom in season and people stop busy activity to admire them and picnic ad even drink under them. Public luxuries unknown in foggy and what priggish England of the age. They decide to live and work there for some years. Most importantly, Stephen the practitioner, begins to work with the magical community here. Here I made the most exciting discovery. While the practitioners in Shanghai were known as Shaman, those in Japan are the mahoutskai! This term immediately harked me back to that sweet Japanese m/m romance called Cherry Maho (those who see this sort of stuff will know). And suddenly I began to see K J Charles' work coming from this vast influence of Japanese, Korean and Chinese paranormal and m/m romance content. Of course that is not the sole influence. Cherry Maho is a quirky story about how men who stay virgin till 30, suddenly gain a magic power that lets them read the thoughts of anyone they touch. This power then (obviously!) helps the lead character find the man he can love.

Cherry Maho is not important I suppose, because mahuotskai might be a generic word for shaman type people and may exist in many other stories. It just happened that for me it was linked with Cherry Maho. There are some nice connections though - the association of magic with m/m romance is not new. Perhaps it is romantic and unreal - in the harshness of the real world. It is a bit like the Angels in America stuff, though that one has a more tragic past. Yet the links of magic with love, especially in male romance stories, whether it is China's danmei stories like Mo Dao Zhu Shi or Cherry Magic or a whole range of paranormal romance (even lesbian and straight) is a fascinating cultural phenomenon. In short the term mahoutskai suddenly brought these universes in contact for me. 

Somewhere in the story, having begun to settle in Nagasaki, Stephen realizes that he may not want to return to England having discovered the freedoms of this land. And recognizing the wanderlust of his lover. He reflects that, ‘it was a great deal easier to hold one’s country sacred if you didn’t have anywhere to compare it to’.

 This thought made me suddenly think so many things. I felt that KJ Charles may have (I’m speculating) felt the same kind of thrill and joy I have experienced in the past few years seeing some Asian dramas (the ones that are not too melodramatic), seeing/m romance, or with paranormal stories, or just simple children’s fantasy or stories with ghosts and mythological creatures from Japan. And she masterfully tries to weave some essences from this into her Victorian fantasy. It may not be true that the Eastern nations were actually that open to alternative lifestyles. But it is the concept of it. Perhaps it is the world that male romance stories and fantasy dramas from the East have conjured in our minds. And how they have suddenly opened out a different mythology, a different kind of television entertainment, so different the American and British content we grew up with in the past decades.

For me over my life, it has been amazing how everything from an Enid Blyton to now Asian dramas or British detective shows from the 80s and 90s, or Iranian films or an American show like Dr. Quinn Medicine woman (donno why I thought of that), have all widened my horizons, have been a forms of travel, have shown me parallels to my own country’s world. Sadly, it is rarely high cinema that moves me, but rather popular television and fiction. People in a different land having challenges similar to yours, and also not at all caring for some things that are big issues in your world, suddenly puts things into perspective. It is the most entertaining way to free oneself from dogma.

 It seems to me that in the past decade Asian content has opened new imaginations in the minds of people, the way perhaps Star Wars or Friends or Abba or the Beatles must have for the rest of the world in another age. I wonder perhaps does this bode of the rise of Asian countries as new superpowers. After all entertainment, runs closely with cultural dominance right? Yet it is so much more than that too. Miyazaki’s own Studio Ghibli films for instance were hugely influenced by European content and music. They carry the deep feeling for Japan and also for universal values, for happy and trauma free childhoods, for healing pain and loss, living through war etc. Don’t we all draw from the cultural depths of others as much as our own? And then it comes back full circle, to teach yet another generation in another land. 

Just the other day I encountered a fascinating YouTube talk. A pair of fathers in America- one of whom is a filmmaker and another a therapist -  were discussing Miyazaki’s film ‘My neighbor  Totoro’. It is a heartfelt film, which could be called a children’s movie, but really could touch anyone who watched it. The two men, were sitting on lazyboy chairs, having not ‘beer and sports TV’ but a detailed discussion on how the film is an fine example on the art of good parenting, how a father raises his two girls, responds to their fantasies an fears and constant excitement without being judgmental and balances his own anxieties. The two middle-aged American men are fascinated with this artistic and heartfelt Japanese film and analyze it thoughtfully. It was yet again a fine example, of how good content is culturally unique and yet belongs to the whole world, transforming anyone who finds it.

 Wow, did not know K J Charles’s m/m romance could take me in this journey of reflection!