Within myself and with individuals who attend for therapy or participate in courses I direct and, indeed, with colleagues and friends, I am frequently faced with questions about the relationship between psychological and spiritual work. Spirituality has long been a struggle for me, even though many who read my books or my attend courses say that my work is very spiritual. When they make such comments I find I am inclined to clarify my work by asserting that it is primarily psychological in nature and in practice, but that I can understand how some people come to see it as ultimately spiritual. I know that my fear is that individuals who are troubled and troubling – which includes all of us – may seek out spiritual practices as a way of resolving deep emotional issues. This practice has become known as spiritual bypassing. Having spent seven years in a monastery and undoubtedly having had several spiritual experiences, I still emerged from the cloisters as uncertain, insecure and vulnerable as I had been when I entered. Over my years in clinical psychological practice, I have met with several individuals who had gone the spiritual route to resolve their deep insecurities but emerged even more insecure.

Our nature is love but when as infants and children we do not experience an unconditional holding by the first woman in our lives, our mother, or the first man in our lives, our father, it becomes dangerous for us to continue to express the unique fullness and lovability of our nature.  In order to survive the utter tragedy of not being unconditionally loved, the child has to find some substitute means to attract his or her parent’s attention.  Whilst there is no substitute for the real thing (the unique person of the child), without a substitute means of attracting the parent, the child would plummet into the cold darkness of despair and, I believe, would die.  This can happen later on when as a young adult our substitute ways of gaining attention cease to work.  For example, it is not uncommon for a young man who is deeply insecure – so uncertain of expressing his true self – that following a breakdown of a relationship with a girlfriend, he takes his precious life.  In his girlfriend ending the relationship he unconsciously perceives it as a recurrence of the original abandonment by his mother (or some significant other) and suicide becomes the means of extinguishing the pain of this unbearable experience.  It is often the case that the ex-girlfriend may feel guilty and responsible for his death but the reality is that the young man’s dependence would have eaten into the heart of the relationship and, inevitably, the relationship would have broken down, or if it continued, be an unhappy and conflictual liaison.

n 2009 there was an alarming 25% increase in suicide and the provisional figures for 2010 expect that the 2009 figure of 520 individuals taking their own precious lives has not reduced. It is still men who predominately take their lives but this does not mean that men are more miserable and hopeless than women. Indeed, the fact that the rate of parasuicide is three to one in favour of women could suggest that women are in deeper emotional turmoil. However, when women attempt suicide they tend to use more passive means – like drug over-dosing – compared to men who use more aggressive ways – hanging, shooting themselves and car crashing.  When women’s attempts at suicide are, thankfully, not successful, there is a chance that they might get the help they need to resolve what are the hidden issues that would have led them to take their sacred lives. There is a cynical notion out there that some women attempt suicide to get attention, but the questions arises: how is it they would need to resort to such drastic measures to draw attention to their inner pain?