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Orthodox Outlet for Dogmatic Enquiries | Orthodox Psychotherapy |
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Orthodox Psychotherapy Road signs towards achieving in-Christ Therapy
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The term "Orthodox Psychotherapy" does not refer to specific cases of people suffering from psychological problems or neuroses. Rather, it refers to all people. According to Orthodox Tradition, after Adam's Fall, Man became ill; his intellect (called “nous”, the `eye of the heart') was darkened and lost communion with God. Death entered into the person's being and caused many anthropological, social, even ecological problems. In the tragedy of his fall man maintained the image of God within him but lost completely the likeness of Him, since his communion with God was disrupted. However the Incarnation of Christ and the work of the Church both aim at enabling the person to attain the likeness of God, that is, to re-establish communion with God. By adhering to Orthodox therapeutic treatment as conceived by the Holy Fathers of the Church, Man can cope successfully with his thoughts and thus solve his problems completely and comprehensively. All this therapeutic treatment or psychotherapy is closely connected with the neptic tradition of the Church and its hesychastic life, as it is preserved in the texts of the Philokalia, in the works of the Fathers of the Church and notably in the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas. Certainly one should not disregard the fact that the neptic and hesychastic life is the same life that one sees in the life of the Prophets and the Apostles, as described precisely in the texts of the Holy Scriptures. ********************
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