Introduction and Overview: Foundations of Chinese Psychotherapies

No matter where you live and what culture you belong to, you may encounter the four big questions of human existence. Where do I come from? Why am I in this life situation? Why do I suffer? How do I find salvation? Chinese cultural heritages store wisdom for how we can successfully cope with these four questions and become an ideal person with the most optimal self-functioning. This book is hoped to provide you the Chinese wisdom for solving these big questions. That is if you find your self-nature, you will find the answer. There are two different types of self in the context of monotheistic culture and Chinese culture: Self and self-nature. The maintenance/strength of self is a very core concept in Western psychotherapy and is particularly relevant to egoism, a process that mainly draws on the hedonic principle in pursuit of desires. Contrary to this, On the basis of Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist teachings, a self-enlightenment cultivating process is the very core foundation of Chinese psychotherapies aiming to minimize or extinguish the self and avoid desires, leading to egolessness or selflessness or self-nature state. To cultivate a transition from the self state to the self-nature state is termed self-enlightenment. The self-enlightenment process is the therapeutic process. The ultimate goal of therapeutic process is to attain the self-nature state, along with the authentic and durable happiness or total liberation. Western psychologists recognize the self as one of the basic motivations of the human mind. It is usually the desire for pleasure and aversion to the pain. The reasons for why the self is desire-driven and the cause of fluctuating happiness and suffering are presented. This is why we need the self-enlightenment cultivating process from the self to the self-nature state, with an aim to attain the authentic and durable happiness. Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are suggested not to be considered as religions only. They are psychotherapies. It is strongly suggested to gradually accumulate your faith in wisdom of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism via approving them by the two criteria: experimentation and logic of reasoning. A cultural systematic approach was used to develop the three self-enlightenment models of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. An overview of theses three self-enlightenment models, which are the theoretic foundations of Chinese psychotherapies, along with their key concepts and psychotherapies are provided. They are suggested to be applicable to every culture. The sources of the emotional disturbances and unhappiness, therapeutic goals, process, client–therapist relationships, and techniques are provided. Thirteen applications and five suggestions for using the book are presented at the end.