Mental Health

I am a psychoanalyst, but listening to the patients day in, day out, is driving me crazy. What should I do?

For a moment Jung was silent, and then he said, "You have lost it already. If you are so much afraid of being psychoanalyzed yourself, what kind of psychoanalyst are you?" And he was the father of psychoanalysis. He himself was never psychoanalyzed; he never allowed anybody to come that close. He was afraid really that if he came to know about his own unconscious he might never be the same man again. That's why we go on avoiding. But a psychoanalyst cannot avoid; hence your problem. You will have to learn to be so silent that rather than the neurotic assertions of the patient affecting you, your silence starts affecting the patient. You have to be more potential, you have to be more full of love and grace. And in fact, if you are full of love, that is therapy. that is healing. Love is a healing force. The…

Why do I continuously think of committing suicide?

In the old days, the authority was there to tell you what was right and what was wrong. You were not left on your own to decide. Things were clear-cut: "This is right and that is wrong." People followed the authorities. Now authorities have disappeared, the world is living in a kind of freedom. The more a society is free, the more people will think of suicide. the more a society is free, the more people will COMMIT suicide. In the East, particularly in India, the so-called religious saints feel very very enhanced by the idea that the suicide rate in India is very low compared to America. And they think America is committing suicide because it is materialist. They are utter fools -- America is committing suicide more because America has more freedom. America is more tense, in anxiety, because America is creating individuality. India is not yet that…

[A visitor said she had trouble becoming involved in the meditations here, adding that she could not stay much longer as she was a psychiatrist and had patients to see.] A psychiatrist needs to be meditative more than anybody else -- because your whole work is dangerous in a way. Unless you are very calm and quiet, unless you can remain unaffected by things that happen around you, it is very dangerous. More psychiatrists go mad than any other professional people and more psychiatrists commit suicide than any other professional people. This is something to be pondered over. The proportion is really too much. Twice as many people commit suicide. That simply shows that the profession is full of dangers. It is -- because whenever you are treating a person who is psychologically disturbed, in a mess, he is constantly broadcasting his vibes.

Especially sexually. Especially sexually. And in a way it is a happy society. There is no misery or destitution. Yet the suicide rate there is very high. More and more people are dying, committing suicide. They are dying by their own hand; no one is killing them. So they have raised this question: what is going on? And India’s sannyasins also raise it; they too say, “We are more peaceful and blissful. Look, we have fewer suicides. They are more unhappy and afflicted; they have more suicides.” This is completely wrong.

In truth, the very question of suicide can arise only for a happy person; never for an unhappy one. Understand this a little. As far as suicide is concerned, a miserable person cannot even think of dying; he continuously thinks only of living. The unhappy person keeps thinking: How can I live, how can I live, how can I live? If there is no house—how do I get one? No clothes—how do I get them? No wife—how do I find one? The unhappy person feels, “I’m in so much pain, and if I get these things—wife, house, car, money—then I’ll be able to live.” His whole mind is engaged in removing his suffering. Do you get my meaning? And to remove suffering, one has to live; otherwise, how will you remove it? Suffering cannot end today; you will have to make arrangements, make efforts—earn money, fall in love, build a…