Search results ({{ res.total }}):
The 'Nachas Ruach' Treatment Model
Excerpts from "Nachas Ruach: Torah-Based Psychotherapy and Tools for Growth and Healing"
Preface:
A Way Out of Addiction for Orthodox Jews?
From Internet addiction to marital and family problems, from "teens at risk" to the psychological challenges facing those who are frum from birth and baalei teshuvah, today's changing world can be a confusing one. The religious Jewish community is also not immune to many sensitive contemporary issues, which can no longer be ignored. Yet sadly, some people who need psychological advice refrain from seeking it, believing that contemporary psychology and psychiatry are antagonistic to Yiddishkeit.
This important work by well-known therapist Dr. Naftali Fish offers a solid conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between Torah and psychology - including the Twelve Step program - showing clearly where they are compatible and where they are not. Dr. Fish is uniquely qualified to bridge this gap, as an Orthodox Jew grounded in Torah Judaism and the wisdom of our sages, and as a licensed clinical psychologist living in Jerusalem, with over twenty-five years' experience working with a variety of clinical issues, including the treatment of addictions and healing the inner wounded child. Here he presents the Nachas Ruach Treatment Model (NRTM), an innovative, effective approach that integrates Torah values and spirituality within the context of professional psychotherapy and hypnotherapy, as illustrated by intriguing case studies.
This book is a must-read for all professionals in the field of mental health, as well as for rabbis, educators, students studying psychology, and educated lay readers. Blending theory and practice, this book also provides practical tools and exercises for personal growth that anyone can gain from in their daily lives.
Preface:
A Way Out of Addiction for Orthodox Jews?
From Internet addiction to marital and family problems, from "teens at risk" to the psychological challenges facing those who are frum from birth and baalei teshuvah, today's changing world can be a confusing one. The religious Jewish community is also not immune to many sensitive contemporary issues, which can no longer be ignored. Yet sadly, some people who need psychological advice refrain from seeking it, believing that contemporary psychology and psychiatry are antagonistic to Yiddishkeit.
This important work by well-known therapist Dr. Naftali Fish offers a solid conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between Torah and psychology - including the Twelve Step program - showing clearly where they are compatible and where they are not. Dr. Fish is uniquely qualified to bridge this gap, as an Orthodox Jew grounded in Torah Judaism and the wisdom of our sages, and as a licensed clinical psychologist living in Jerusalem, with over twenty-five years' experience working with a variety of clinical issues, including the treatment of addictions and healing the inner wounded child. Here he presents the Nachas Ruach Treatment Model (NRTM), an innovative, effective approach that integrates Torah values and spirituality within the context of professional psychotherapy and hypnotherapy, as illustrated by intriguing case studies.
This book is a must-read for all professionals in the field of mental health, as well as for rabbis, educators, students studying psychology, and educated lay readers. Blending theory and practice, this book also provides practical tools and exercises for personal growth that anyone can gain from in their daily lives.
Concept 2: Part 4
2. Taste and see that God is good. Happy is the man who trusts in Him - Psalms 34:9
The Torah's Position on the Pleasure Principle or the Pursuit of Happiness
Rebbe Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Peasetzna wrote the following concerning the need for pleasure:
The human soul relishes sensation, not only if it is a pleasant feeling but for the very experience of stimulation. Sooner sadness or some deep pain rather than the boredom of non-stimulation. People will watch distressing scenes and listen to heartrending stories just to get stimulation. Such is human nature and a need of the soul, just like all its other needs and natures. So he who is clever will fulfill this need with passionate prayer and Torah learning. But the soul whose Divine service is without emotion will have to find its stimulation elsewhere. It will either be driven to cheap, even forbidden sensation or will become emotionally ill from lack of stimulation.[1]
Finally, the Ramchal puts the issue of pleasure into a broader perspective.
We thus derive that the essence of a man's existence in this world is solely the fulfilling of mitzvos, the serving of God, and the withstanding of trials, and that the world's pleasures should serve only the purpose of aiding and assisting him, by way of providing him with the contentment (nachas ruach) and peace of mind (yishuv hadaas) requisite for the freeing of his heart for the service which devolves upon him.[2]
In this paragraph, which appears at the end of the first chapter of Mesillas Yesharimand deals with man's duties in the world, the Ramchal clarifies the correct Torah perspective concerning the role and nature of worldly pleasures, which is particularly important for the era that we are living in now. Pleasure is legitimatized as a means for creating the optimal conditions that allow a Jew to serve Hashem. Practically, this means that the way to clarify whether a particular pleasure is valid is related to the consequence that it has afterwards concerning a person's serving God (avodas Hashem). In my clinical experience, discussing and clarifying the role of worldly pleasures is often an important aspect of therapy, whether the person has dropped out or taken a "time out" in a negative way.
The Kuzari and Ramban both emphasize that the possibility that one can "Taste and see that Hashem is good" (Psalms 34:9), or to know God through experience and not primarily through the intellect, is potentially more possible in Eretz Yisrael, and particularly in Jerusalem, the Holy City, where Hashem's Presence or Shechinah is more accessible. Chazal also teach, in Baba Basra 158b, that the very "air of Eretz Yisrael makes one wise."
[1] Shapira, To Heal the Soul, p. 23.
[2] Ramchal, Mesillas Yesharim (Feldheim) p. 27.