[Buddha-l] Personality disorders and anatta

[Dante Rosati]

the diagnosis does nothing. the practice of bodhicitta does everything.

On Nov 25, 2010, at 1:55 PM, Stefan Detrez <stefan.detrez at gmail.com> wrote:

> How would the diagnosis of self-obsession and mental illness help someone
> who has developed a personality disorder as a consequence of underage sexual
> abuse and exposure to extreme violence? People with such pasts have been
> known to have an unstable self image. Just a question.
> 
> Stefan
> 
> 2010/11/25 Dante Rosati <danterosati at gmail.com>
> 
>> low self esteem, like most forms of mental inbalance, is caused by
>> self-obsession. mental illness = narrowing horizon. generating
>> bodhicitta is probably the most immediately effective treatment,
>> although anatta meditations proabably wouldn't hurt either.
>> 
>> Dante
>> 
>> On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 1:36 PM, Stefan Detrez <stefan.detrez at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> Psychotherapy based on Buddhist understandings of the workings of the
>> mind
>>> look promising from a scientific point of view. However, I have often
>>> wondered how such therapeutic approach works on patients who suffer from
>> low
>>> self esteem, have no stable sense of a self, don't 'know how they really
>>> are', etc. Wouldn't the notion of anatta be 'nothing new' to them, or the
>>> very problem itself, being that the sense of the absence of a self IS a
>>> contributing factor to the existence of the personality disorder?
>>> 
>>> Thank you,
>>> 
>>> Stefan
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 'In some awful, strange, paradoxical way, atheists tend to take religion
> more seriously than the practioners' - Sir Jonathan Miller.
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