[Buddha-l] Personality disorders and anatta

[Stefan Detrez]

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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