We cannot change anything unless we accept it, condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. People forget that even doctors have moral scruples and that certain patients confessions are hard even for a doctor to swallow. Yet the patient does not feel themselves accepted unless the very worst of him or her is accepted too! No one can bring this about by mere words; it comes only through reflection and through the doctor’s attitudes towards himself or herself and his or her own dark side. If the doctor wants to guide another or even accompany him or her a step of the way, the doctor must feel with that persons psyche; the doctor never feels it when he or she passes judgement. Whether the doctor put his or her judgement in words or keep them to himself or herself makes not the slightest difference. To take the opposite position and to agree with the patient off-hand is also of no use but estrangers him or her as much as condemnation. Feelings come only through unprejudiced objectivity. This sounds almost like a scientific precept and it could be confused with a purely intellectual abstract attitude of mind. But what I mean is something quite different, if its a human quality a kind of deep respect for the facts, for the human who suffers from them and for the riddle of such a humans life. The truly religious person has this attitude, he or she knows that god has brought all sorts of strange and inconceivable things to pass and seeks in the most curious ways to enter a humans heart. The doctor therefore senses in everything the unseen presence of the divine will; this is what I mean by unprejudiced objectivity. It is the moral achievement on the part of the doctor who ought not to let him or her be repelled by sickness and corruption. We cannot change anything unless we accept it, condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. I am the oppressor of the person I condemn, not their friend and fellow sufferer. I do not in the least need to say that we must never pass judgement when we desire to help and improve, but if the doctor wishes to a human being we must be able to accept him or her as he or she is and he or she can do this in reality only when he or she has already seen and accepted themselves as he or she is. Perhaps this sounds very simple, but simple things are always the most difficult, in actual life it requires the greatest art to be simple. And so acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the acid test of ones whole outlook on life. - Carl Jung - Accepting the Darkness of Self and Others. youtu.be/FvgmyaSTosg
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 17:22:40 +0000
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