Psychology: The Awe of Being Alive by Kirk Schneider

Existential therapy explores the darkest corners and craggy edges of the many-sided self.

存在疗法探索了多面自我中最为黑暗的角落和陡峭边缘

The result is true transformation

最终迎来的是真正的转变

Over the past 60 years, I’ve had the privilege to witness many poignant transformations. As a practising psychologist, I’ve witnessed them in state hospitals, in psychiatric emergency clinics, in drug and alcohol agencies, and in private practice; and as a youth I experienced them in my own intensive psychotherapies. There is little ‘pretty’ about these ordeals, but when they succeed they are profoundly gratifying: life-changing.

我有幸在过去60年中见证了许多艰难转变。作为一名执业心理医生，我在州立医院、精神病急诊室、毒品酒精戒瘾机构以及个人执业过程中目睹了这些转变。年轻的时候，我也在自己频繁的心理治疗中体验到了。这些苦难很少和“漂亮”搭上边，可一旦成功，便会让人满意欣喜，改变人生。

Poignant transformations emerge from the depths of despair, but they result, if one is fortunate, in the heights of renewal. Certainly this was true for me, and many of the people I’ve known or worked with. What could be more precious than the gift of liberation from crippling despair, of being freed to pursue what deeply matters? What could be more critical than participating in – really grappling with – the rescue of one’s soul?

艰难转变从绝望深处浮现，但如果幸运，会崛起为重兴的高峰。对于我、我认识的或者与之共事的许多人，确实是这样。还有什么比从残酷绝望中获得解放、去自由追求更重要的事来说更有价值的礼物呢？还有什么比真正去努力解救灵魂更紧要的呢？

Yet what I’m seeing today throughout our culture is an increasing tendency to skip over this grappling part of the equation and to shift abruptly to the transformational part. Not that there’s anything untoward about desiring to be rapidly transformed, it’s perfectly natural. When one is in distress, one seeks an instant remedy. I do that, my friends do that, and it’s a good bet that you do that also; it’s instinct. However, there are solid reasons to question instinct at times. For example, most people don’t punch someone just because they feel slighted. Similarly, most people don’t just blurt out whatever they feel just because they feel it. To the contrary, there is much to consider from the people you might hurt, to your conscience, to the setting and circumstances of the event.

然而在当今文化中，我看到一种趋势在增长，跳过努力的部分并且猛地转向转变的部分。不是因为想快速转变就存在不正常，这当然是很正常的。当人陷入困境，他会寻求快速解决办法。我这么做了，我的朋友们这么做了，很大概率你也这么做。这是本能，但有时也有充分的理由去质疑这些本能。比如说，大多数人不会只因为自己感觉被怠慢了就去对别人拳脚相加，大多数人也不会只因为感觉到什么就脱口而出，反而有很多需要考虑的因素，可能会被自己伤害到的人、自己的良心、事件的背景和情况等等。

I’ve seen many clients who initially want to assault someone who assaulted them; however, they rarely do. This is because through the course of therapy, these clients recognise that their assailant is often someone they can relate to – or perhaps even love – and they don’t, in the end, want their fellow human being to suffer as they themselves have suffered. There are many times when delay is much preferred to reacting, especially when it comes to emotions.

我见过很多来访者对于攻击他们的人，一开始是想要攻击回去的，但很少真的会去这么做。因为在治疗过程中，来访者经常发现自己可以理解发起攻击的人，甚至可以去爱他们，最终不希望他们遭受自己经历过的痛苦。很多情况下，尤其是情绪方面，延迟回应要比立刻回应更可取。

Emotions are wonderful signals – they alert us to danger and they mobilise us when action is called for. But they are also highly complex, variegated. For example, many people feel contemptible or unwanted at times, yet they don’t resort to suicide or drugs. They see that, despite their dark mood, they have a right to live and grow, just as others live and grow, and that they can become something more than the stereotyped messages about themselves, such as that of being a failure.

情绪是奇妙的信号，提醒我们警惕危险，促使我们采取行动。情绪也是非常复杂多样的。许多人时不时会感到别人瞧不起或不欢迎自己，可并不会去自杀或吸毒。他们知道，虽然自己情绪低落，但有权和其他人一样活着和成长，他们会变好，而不是一直陷在自己活得很失败这样的刻板话语里。

These are messages, by the way, that too often come from others who themselves feel contemptible and unwanted and who project those devaluations onto their unwitting victims. But such realisations, particularly if they are to endure, often take time, they take struggle, and they take encounters with larger parts of ourselves that go beyond our internalised oppression to a kind of conciliation.

而且这些话语往往来自那些自我轻视、觉得自己不被需要的人，他们将这些贬低投射到了并不知情的受害者身上。但是，认识到这些需要时间和努力，尤其是他们想要忍耐的话，需要去面对超越内在压迫走向和解的那部分。

In the end, depth and existential therapy promote a hard-won coexistence between rivalling parts of ourselves, parts that sometimes agonise yet in the long run shed light on the experience of being fully human: of being deeply and richly alive. Put more formally, existential therapy emphasises three major themes: freedom to explore what deeply matters to oneself; experiential or whole-bodied reflection on what deeply matters; and responsibility or the ability to respond to, act on, and apply what deeply matters.

最终，深度存在疗法促进了我们相互竞争的部分之间来之不易的共存。这些部分有时让人痛苦，但长期来看却展现了成为人的生命历程：深入而丰富地活着。更正式地说，存在疗法强调三个主题：探索对自己深度重要事物的自由；对深度重要事物的经验性或全身性思考；对深度重要事物做出回应、采取行动和予以运用的责任或能力。

Yet today it is all too easy to bypass such freedom, experiential reflection, and response-ability – such grappling with who we are and who we are willing to be. For today we are seduced by an avalanche of devices, formulations and machine-meditated transactions making it all too tempting to let others, including mechanical others, do the job. Whether it is psychiatric medication, psychotherapy apps, 12-session clinic appointments or the distraction of net-surfing, there are innumerable ways to surmise that our pain has been dissolved, that we have been transformed, and that life proceeds apace.

但绕开这样的自由、思考和能力，不去纠结我们是谁、我们想成为谁，放在现在太容易了。如今，我们受到大量由设备、公式和机器驱使的事情诱惑，这让所有人（包括机器）都愿意去这么做。无论是精神药物治疗、心理咨询APP、为期12次的咨询预约，还是网上冲浪的干扰，有无数种方法可以推测显示出我们的疼痛已经缓解，我们已经完成了转变，人生在快速前进。

But the looming and overarching question is: at what cost? At what cost is an externally or even cerebrally normalised life, a life of routine and regulation, elevated over a life that flops and flutters but also throbs? At what price is a life that sails over the many-sided intricacies of emotion and the ripples of discontent? Too often the price is death, both literal and figurative, and the statistics bear that out. Consider rising rates of depression and addiction, and the sense of isolation often linked to smartphones.

但首要问题是：代价是什么？让外部或甚至主观标准化的生活，一种循规蹈矩的生活，高于起起伏伏但也算规律的生活，代价是什么？让生活越过情感的错综复杂和不满的层层波浪，代价是是那么？答案往往是死亡，字面和象征意义上的死亡，统计数据证明了这一点，患抑郁症、成瘾以及与智能手机相关的孤独感，这些比率都在上升。

My earliest memory is a gauzy image of my parents weeping on the living room couch. That was when I was two and a half years old, and my seven-year-old brother Kelly had just passed away. It was 1959, and the combination of chicken pox and pneumonia proved too much for an otherwise radiant and vigorous child. The explosion of this event in the collective psyche of our family cannot be lucidly grasped. The most I can say is that the parents I knew before the event were dimly recognisable in its crushing aftermath. The warm and playful sibling I knew – the smiling leader – was vanquished, and in his place yawned an unrelenting void, a pit of rage, sorrow and terror.

我最早的记忆是父母在客厅沙发上哭泣的模糊画面。我两岁半的时候，我七岁的哥哥凯利刚去世。1959年那会儿，水痘加上肺炎对于一个本来活泼好动的孩子来说实在是太沉重了。这件事对家里每一个人内心的巨大震颤是难以言说清楚的。我最多能说的是，父母被击垮了，我很难再看到他们在这件事发生之前的样子。我认识的那个善良爱玩的哥哥，那个总是挂着笑容的队长被打败了，取而代之的是叹息着的无尽空虚、满腹的愤怒、悲伤和恐惧。

By three years old, I was imploding. My defences were all but expired. I had night terrors and I had tantrums. I was panicked and I was lost – floundering, tailspinning into a helpless and paranoid world.

三岁时，我崩溃了，所有的防御全部失效。我会夜惊，我会乱发脾气。我感到恐慌和迷失，挣扎之下被卷入了无助与偏执的世界。

Given that ordeal, I’m fairly certain that if I had the same experience today that I’d had in 1959, I would be hastily pacified by drugs. Instead, my parents sat with me back then. They did all they could to talk me through my battles and, eventually, at age five, they referred me to a psychoanalyst.

这段1959年的经历如果放在今天，我肯定会很快通过药物安定下来，但当时父母坐在我身边，竭尽所能地与我交谈，尝试帮助我走出挣扎。后来，在我五岁时，他们带我去看了一位心理分析师。

This psychoanalyst helped to turn my life around; for although I continued to have profound fears and outbursts, he helped me to work through rather than mask over these potentially restorative maladies. Greatest of all, he was a rock-solid presence who enabled me to say or feel anything. I was hanging on by a thread, but he remained a pillar, steadfast and supportive, until I passed through the storm.

他帮我扭转了生活的方向。虽然我仍有深深的恐惧，情感上也依旧会爆发，但他帮我走过这些可能具有恢复性的病症，而不是将这些掩藏。最重要的是，他坚如磐石的存在让我能够说出或感受到所有东西。那时的我摇摇欲坠，但他一直如同稳固的立柱支持着我，直至我度过这场风暴。

Yet today, how many children are encouraged to work through their torment – or even to supplement their medication with an emotionally supportive encounter? How many are granted the time and money to do so? Few, I would venture.

而现在，有多少孩子能被鼓励经历这些痛苦，或者把情感支持作为药物治疗的辅助？有多少孩子能有时间和经济能力这样做？非常少，但我会敢于去做。

But what most are encouraged to do is to ingest antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds and a variety of mood-stabilisers. While these remedies can at times be lifesaving, too often they are pushed by pharmaceutical companies and insurers more concerned with profit margins than the enduring care of people and people’s own resources to live the life they seek.

被推动最多的还是服用抗抑郁药、抗焦虑药和各种稳定情绪的药。这些措施有时可以救人生命，但其背后往往是制药公司和保险公司，他们更关注利润率，很少长期关注人本身，以及他们过上理想生活所需要的资源。

I wonder how I would have turned out if I had been treated by today’s standard. I wonder if I would have experienced the rigours of being alone, or being challenged, as I was by my analyst, to develop inner resources such as my creativity, curiosity and imagination.

不知道按今天的标准接受治疗我会怎样，是否会有我和分析师那样的体验，接受独自一人或者面对挑战的考验，去开发创造力、好奇心、想象力等自我内部资源。

He encouraged me to reflect on the bases for my fears and to move at my own pace. He respected me and my capacities, which in turn spurred me to create drawings, stories and thoughts about life’s puzzlements; or to venture out into uncertain terrains, relationships and ideas, which I eventually did after much tussling and even further therapy.

他鼓励我思考自己的恐惧根源，鼓励我按照自己的步调前进。他尊重我以及我的能力，这份尊重促使我去创作关于生活困惑的图画、故事和想法，或者是让我进入不确定的领域、关系和想法去冒险，经过很多次斗争以及进一步治疗后，我最终做到了。

The chief problem with many contemporary interventions is that they are one-dimensional. For example, psychotropic medications aim at making people feel calmer if they’re anxious, or more energised if they’re depressed. Cognitive therapies aspire to change so-called irrational thoughts (such as fear of flying or a sense of worthlessness) into rational, evidence-based thoughts. Behavioural therapies aim at reinforcing adaptive habits to replace maladaptive habits, and so on.

现在许多干预的主要问题是维度单一：精神药物让人在焦虑时变更镇定，抑郁时变更精神；认知疗法希望将所谓的非理性思想（例如对飞行的恐惧或无价值感）转变为理性循证的思想；行为疗法旨在强化适应性习惯，替代不良适应性习惯。

However, the problem with these strategies is that they work on a limited basis. If one wishes to live more efficiently along clear and culturally approved lines, then one is notably helped by such techniques. If one wishes to live a comparatively regimented and low-risk life, these remedies are appropriate. However, if one is among the sizeable and perhaps growing population that seeks more dimensionality in life – more meaning, more vitality, more personal and interpersonal richness – then something more challenging might be called for.

这些干预策略是有局限的。如果这个人希望按照文化所认可的明确路线更有效率地去生活，那这些技术还是很有帮助的。如果这个人希望过一种规划好、风险低的生活，那这些补救措施也是合适的。但是，如果这个人寻求的是更多维度的生活，更丰富的意义，更充沛的活力，更多样的个人和人际交往，那可能就需要更具挑战性的东西，这类人数量可观，而且可能还在不断增加。

After a lifetime of research, the existential psychologist Rollo May concluded that many of the most vital and creative people through history were strongest at precisely their most vulnerable points. In The Psychology of Existence (1995), a book I co-wrote with May, he included a chapter called ‘The Wounded Healer’, about what makes a good therapist. There, May gave the example of the renowned psychologist Abraham Maslow who was lonely and unhappy as a child but who formulated theories about optimal living and peak experiences. May went on to describe a host of well-known and lesser-known people who faced and integrated the sides of themselves they feared and, through that process, fostered creative and productive lives.

存在心理学家罗洛·梅（Rollo May）通过毕生研究得出结论，历史上许多最重要、最具创造力的人恰恰是在他们最脆弱的时期表现得最为坚强。我与梅共同撰写了《存在心理学》（1995年），他在“受伤的治疗师”一章中论述成为优秀治疗师的因素，举了著名心理学家亚伯拉罕·马斯洛（Abraham Maslow）的例子。马斯洛小时候很孤独，没有开心的童年，但他却提出了关于理想生活和高峰体验的理论。梅也讲述了许多出名或没有那么出名的人的故事，这些人直面他们所害怕担心的自我部分，并由此经营起富于创造力和生产力的生活。

May’s thesis is backed by a host of distinguished investigators, including Carl Jung, Silvano Arieti, Frank Barron, and Maslow himself, who described the self-actualiser – the optimal personality fulfilling his potential and life’s true dreams. ‘One observation that I made has puzzled me for many years but it begins to fall into place now,’ Maslow wrote in Toward a Psychology of Being (1962). ‘It was what I described as the resolution of dichotomies in self-actualising people … These most mature of all people were also strongly childlike. These same people, the strongest egos ever described and the most definitely individual, were also precisely the ones who could be the most easily egoless, self-transcending, and problem-centred.’

梅的论文得到了众多杰出研究者的支持，包括卡尔·荣格（Carl Jung）、西尔瓦诺·阿列蒂（Silvano Arieti）、弗兰克·巴伦（Frank Barron）以及马斯洛（Maslow）本人。马斯洛对自我实现者的描述是，实现人的自我潜能和人生真正梦想的最理想人格。“我多年来感到困惑的一种观察，如今却开始逐渐清晰。”他在1962年出版的《存在心理学探索》中写道：“我将其表述为，自我实现的二分法解决方案……他们最成熟的也最小孩子气，他们拥有最强大的自我、最以个人为主，恰恰有可能是最容易无私、超越自我和以问题为中心的人。”

The clinical psychologist and researcher Kay Jamison – the author of seminal studies on bipolar disorder and the book Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament (1993) – agrees. Bipolar herself, Jamison described dozens of artistic luminaries throughout history who appeared to fall on the bipolar spectrum, yet went on to forge exemplary contributions to society.

临床心理学家和研究者凯·贾米森（Kay Jamison）对此表示认同，其所著成果对躁郁症研究影响深远，她同时也是《疯狂天才：躁狂抑郁症与艺术气质》（1993）一书的作者。贾米森本人患有躁郁症，她讲述了历史上几十位可能存在躁郁症但仍为社会做出杰出贡献的艺术大师。

Now, granted, many of these luminaries lived very trying lives, and some even committed suicide, but many also had rich and invigorating lives with deeply gratifying results. Hence one of the chief questions for our age is what happens if we remove such life struggles, if we flatten the biology, if we remove the rough edges through technology and drugs? What happens if we bypass the need for people to confront their demons, their discomforts and their tears? Would the artistic creation that results be the emotional equivalent of one that was inspired by the pathos, perplexity and toil of the human artist?

诚然，他们中的许多过着异常艰难的生活，有些甚至选择自杀，但也有很多人的生活丰富而充满活力，并取得了满意成果。那么我们这个时代的一个主要问题是，如果去除了这种应对生活的艰难，如果攻克生物难题变得简单，如果技术和药物消除了挣扎的陡峭边缘，将会发生什么？ 如果我们绕开人迎战自身恶魔、困难和眼泪的必要，将会发生什么？继而产生的艺术创作在情感上是否还会与原来艺术家经由悲痛、困惑和辛劳启发的作品等同？

The most popular treatments today, such as medication and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), are often short-term and have a mixed record with regard to effectiveness. The emerging view is that they are helpful for relief of symptoms such as negative thoughts, poor appetite and phobias, but questionable when it comes to complex life issues, such as the search for meaning and purpose, and the struggle with love.

药物治疗和认知行为疗法（CBT）等如今常见的治疗方法通常是短期的，且在疗效方面好坏参杂。逐渐兴起的观点是，这些疗法有助于减轻负面思想、食欲不振和恐惧等症状，但涉及例如寻求意义和目标以及与爱情的羁绊等复杂生活问题时，效果尚存疑问。

Is the experience of a therapist or device enacting an empathic response the same as actually empathising?

由治疗师或设备发出的共情体验是否与实际共情的体验相同？

Other new remedies include the development of virtual reality (VR) exposure-based therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, the use of neurofeedback from fMRI data to guide therapeutic practice, and apps for everything from anxiety, to depression, to irritable bowel syndrome. The research on these devices is still very much evolving, but I have the creeping feeling that we are entering a brave new age where statistical and mechanical manipulation is replacing personal discovery and risk.

后来出现了一些新措施，包括为创伤后应激障碍开发的虚拟现实（VR）疗法，利用fMRI数据中的神经反馈指导治疗实践，以及针对焦虑、抑郁、肠易激综合症等各类应用程序。此类设备研究仍在继续，但我渐渐感受到我们在迈入一个勇敢新时代，统计和机器在取代个人探索和风险。

Is the virtual encounter with one’s anxiety – or desire, for that matter – the same as the actual encounter? Is an app the same as a human healer (let alone a wounded healer)? Is the experience of one’s therapist or device enacting an empathic response the same as him or her actually empathising? Is this performance of a relationship, based on manuals and statistics, the same as a personal evolving relationship, with all its angst and vulnerabilities, its challenges and surprises?

那么虚拟的焦虑或渴望体验会与实际的体验相同吗？应用程序是否与治疗师相同（更不用说经历过痛苦的治疗师了）？ 由治疗师或设备发出的共情体验是否与人实际的共情体验相同？基于说明和统计的治疗关系是否能有和个体不断发展的治疗关系一样的表现，存在所有那些焦虑和脆弱，挑战和惊喜？

I doubt it, and mounting studies uphold the value of person-to-person, genuine therapeutic relationships as well. Now, there can be much value to short-term ‘mechanised’ relationships. They can reach people where few human professionals live, or they can help anyone with disability who has difficulty travelling, or they can relate to young people schooled on hand-held devices. But are they the ‘be all and end all’ that so many in our society are embracing?

我对此表示怀疑，越来越多的研究也支持人与人之间真正的治疗关系所具有的价值。短期的“机器化”关系是有很大价值的，可以触及缺少专业资源地区的人，帮助行动困难的残疾人群体，或者接线通过手持设备接受教育的年轻人。社会上大多数人都欣然接受了这一点，但是，难道这就是最好的了吗？

It seems to me that we are moving headlong into the engineering quagmire that so many humanistic therapists have feared. This is an approach where the emphasis is on the device, technique or algorithm and not on the patient’s inbred capacities for revitalisation. It is a model that stresses standards of normalcy, regulation and calmness that are imposed from without as distinct from within the subjective and interactive energies of persons. Finally, it is a model that can rob many of us of the virtues – not just the anguish – of our many-sidedness.

在我看来，我们正朝着许多人本主义治疗师所担心的科技工程僵局前进。方法重点在设备、技术或算法而不是来访者自己天生的恢复力，模型强调正常、调节和镇静的标准，这种强加的标准与人的主观和互动能量脱离。最终，这种模型可夺走人多面性所具有的许多美德而非仅仅带走我们的痛苦。

Here is a list of sensibilities that I probably would have been ‘spared’ had I been drugged and plugged into devices as a child:

• the trial of being alone;
• the inertia of great despair;
• the terror of fragility;
• the bitterness of rage;
• the angst of great sorrow;
• the shudder of great fear;
• the distress of uncertainty;
• the panic of feeling lost.

如果小时候接受了药物和设备治疗，我可能会“免于”：



•孤独的考验；
•极度绝望的惯性；
•脆弱的惊恐；
•愤怒的痛苦；
•悲伤的焦虑；
•极度恐惧的颤抖；
•不确定性的忧虑；
•感到迷失的恐慌。

But here now is a list of sensibilities that I likely would not have developed had I been ‘drugged’ and ‘plugged’:

• the sensitivity of experiencing sorrow;
• the defiance sparked by fear;
• the possibilities opened by uncertainty;
• the curiosities prompted by disarray;
• the creativity of being alone;
• the mobilisation spurred by despair;
• the humility generated by fragility;
• the strength aroused by rage;
• the self-exploration, depth therapy and enquiry inspired by my entire ordeal.

但如果小时候接受了药物和设备治疗，我可能不会发展出：


•体验悲伤的敏感性；
•恐惧引发的反抗；
•不确定性开启的可能性；
•混乱推动的好奇心；
•独处的创造力；
•绝望触发的行动力；
•脆弱产生的谦卑；
•愤怒燃起的力量；
•由苦难启发的自我探索、深度治疗和询问调查。

It seems to me that one overarching property distinguishes human from mechanical existence. It is not consciousness, because artificial intelligence is already showing that mechanical entities can achieve a kind of signal detection that simulates awareness – consider robots that register temperature changes in the environment. It is not reflexive consciousness, which is the ability of consciousness to have some level of awareness of itself, because scientists are already working on machines that can readjust their calculations based on incoming data; and it is not even the capacity to experience emotions, because there are neural chips in development that will someday be able to replicate the biochemical processes that comprise, say, sadness or elation. (In crude form, this is possible today with psychotropic drugs.)

在我看来，将人与机器区分开来的首要特性不是意识。人工智能已经证明机器可以实现对模拟意识信号的探测，比如机器人记录环境温度变化。这不是自觉意识，因为自觉意识是对自我有某种程度意识的能力，科学家也已经在研究可以根据输入数据重新调整计算的机器。不是意识，甚至也不是体验情绪的能力，因为正在开发中的神经芯片未来某一天将能复制悲伤或喜悦等生物化学过程。（如今使用精神药物可以大致做到这一点。）

By contrast, the biggest if not insurmountable hurdle for artificial intelligence is a much more complicated problem – it is the experience of life’s paradoxes. As with the testimony of my childhood ordeal, it is the experience not of a single image, thought or emotion, but of the sublimely interwoven image, thought and emotion; each of which can both dovetail and clash with one another.

相比之下，人工智能面对的最大障碍，如果不是无法克服的话，那么会是一个更为复杂的问题，即生命矛盾的体验。如同我艰难童年所印证的一样，体验的内容不是单一的形象、想法或情感，它们深深交织在一起，每一个部分都可以相互融合冲突。

Such paradoxes include the sliver of fear in a loving relationship, or the hint of sorrow in a moment of glee, or the taste of envy in the most admiring friendships; and it is many more delicately nuanced combinations that lend life its zest, its pathos and its intensity: its awe.

这些矛盾包括恋爱关系暗藏的恐惧，快乐时光透出的隐隐悲伤，或者是最令人羡慕的友谊中生出的嫉妒滋味。细微差别的矛盾组合赋予生命以热情、悲痛和强烈感，以及它的敬畏。

Consider how each of these so-called negative emotions echo awesome ranges of awareness:

所谓的负面情绪如何映现众多意识：

Sadness comprises sorrow and despondency, the profound sense of bereavement and loss. But post-traumatic growth studies also indicate that sadness alerts us to the fleeting nature of life, the preciousness of the moment, and the need to have empathy for others’ woes. Conversely, it serves as a point of comparison with – and therefore can help to intensify – contrasting feelings such as unbarred joy, elation and delight. Finally, sadness can ‘go through the centre’ of ourselves, as Rainer Maria Rilke put it in Letters to a Young Poet (1929); it can bring something new, something life-altering. ‘Were it possible for us to see further than our knowledge reaches,’ he wrote, ‘perhaps we would endure our sadnesses with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown.’

悲痛包括悲伤和沮丧，深深的丧亲之痛和失落感，但创伤后成长研究也表明，悲痛使人意识到生命的短暂、当下的珍贵以及同情他人痛苦的需要。悲痛反而可以帮助加剧这种对比，比如对比无尽的喜悦、快乐和愉悦。最终，悲痛可以“穿越自我的中心”，正如赖内·马利亚·里尔克（Rainer Maria Rilke）在《致青年诗人的来信》（1929年）中所说的那样；它可以带来新的、改变生活的东西。“我们看到的可以超出知识所能达到的吗。”他写道：“也许比起喜悦，我们更能忍受悲伤。因为这是新事物进入我们的时候，未知的事物。”

Without anger, tenderness might be thin, the poignancy of kindness unnoticed

如果没有愤怒，温柔可能会变得单薄，仁慈的痛苦不会被注意

While fear diminishes and confines us, it also highlights that which towers over us. Certainly, fear can humiliate, but research suggests that it can also sober us about what can and cannot be achieved. Fear acts as a backdrop for courage. For, without fear, courage would mean little, and likely impact little in the course of our lives. Would we even seek to be courageous if we had no fear? Would we seek new fields and fresh thoughts, sensations or innovations without encountering some degree of fear? These questions are rarely asked by enthusiasts of so-called transhuman technologies.

恐惧削弱限制了我们，但也突显了凌驾于我们之上的地位。当然，恐惧可以使人屈辱，但研究表明，恐惧也可以使我们清醒面对可以实现和无法实现的事情。恐惧是勇气的背景。如果没有恐惧，勇气在我们的生命意义中影响很可能会很小。如果没有恐惧，我们还会追求勇气吗？如果不再遭遇某种程度恐惧，我们还会探寻新的领域、思想、感觉或创新吗？那些热衷超越人类技术的人很少会问这些问题。

Anger arouses danger, explosiveness and domination. It is a fiery blast, and an expansion that threatens decimation of others. But informed studies also show that anger is a way of standing up for oneself as in righteous indignation; it is an impetus to courage and rejuvenation of spirit. Invigorating revolutions have upwelled from anger, and so have personal liberations. Without anger, tenderness might be thin, the poignancy of kindness unnoticed.

愤怒激起危险、爆发和控制。爆发激烈，也会扩大威胁到其他人。但研究也表明，愤怒是一种为自己发声的公正愤慨，是勇气和精神恢复的动力。振奋而剧烈的变化因愤怒而起，个人的解放也是如此。如果没有愤怒，温柔可能会变得单薄，仁慈的痛苦不会被注意。

Coveting the qualities of another is the seedling of envy; obsessing over and fantasising about possessing those qualities is how envy blossoms. Envy arouses desperation to be something other than what one is; it is a maddening torment. But my experience as a therapist, and as a client too, has shown me that envy is also an aspiration, a prospect and a potentially life-changing breakthrough. We see the glimmers of our desires in those we envy, and thereby have some capacity to nurture those desires in ourselves. Envy contrasts with contentment and, by way of contrast, lends contentment its restorative depth.

渴望获得他人品质是嫉妒的种子，痴迷并幻想拥有这些品质让种子开花。嫉妒激起绝望，去变成并非自我的人。这种折磨令人抓狂，但我作为治疗师以及来访者的经验表明，嫉妒也是一种愿望、希望和可能改变人生的突破。我们在嫉妒中看到闪烁的欲望，从而有能力在自己身上培养这些欲望。嫉妒与知足形成对比，这种对比让知足具有恢复性的深度。

Guilt alerts us to words or deeds we regret. It is a hammer in the depths of conscience, and it pummels all forms of complacency. Guilt dims our acceptability and dashes our esteem. At the same time, as studies of psychopathy have shown, guilt – and its social counterpart, shame – jars us to improve, apprises us of our potentiality to do better, and moves us to heal others’ wounds. It’s hard to inspire change if we fail to encounter guilt.

内疚使人意识到我们感到遗憾的言行。这是良心深处的一把锤子，击打任何形式的自满情绪。内疚减弱我们的接受能力，降低我们的自尊心。同时正如精神病研究所展现的，内疚和社会层面相对应的羞耻让我们震动疼痛，让我们进步，让我们意识到自己有做得更好的潜能，让我们得以去治愈他人的伤口。如果没有罪恶感，很难激发改变。

The key to my own therapy, and indeed to depth-existential therapy as a whole, is that it supports the coexistence of emotional and intellectual contraries. I loved and I hated at the same time; I was terrified of death, and yet I was intrigued by its mystery, by the mystery of life. I was jarred by scary movies, and yet they opened me to alternative approaches to life, future possibilities and my own imagination.

我自己的治疗乃至整个深度存在疗法的关键在于，支持感性和理性矛盾的共存。我爱的同时也在恨；我对死亡感到恐惧，却也对死亡、对生命的奥秘着迷。内容恐怖吓人，但向我敞开了对生活、未来的可能性和我自己的想象的另一些选择。

By emphasising presence, depth-existential therapists make every effort to ‘hold’ the contradictions that naturally arise in the course of their relationships with clients, as well as within the clients themselves. In this way, depth-existential therapy becomes a staging ground for the humility and wonder, sense of adventure and awe for living that are the hallmarks of what we call a ‘whole-bodied’ transformation.

深度存在治疗师通过强调存在，尽全力“保持”那些在自己与来访者之间以及来访者自身内部关系中产生的矛盾。深度存在疗法成为预备场，准备着谦虚和惊奇、冒险意识、对生命的敬畏，这些我们所说的“整体”转变的标志。

As a client in therapy myself, I have moved from positions of abject terror, to gradual intrigue, to wonder about my life circumstances. For example, I have shifted from paralysis before the unpredictability of fate, to incremental trust, curiosity and fascination with what might be discovered. Through their abiding presence, my therapists supported me to feel safe enough to face my inner battle. They ‘held a mirror’ for me to see ‘close up’ both how I was currently living as well as how I could live, should I gradually step out of my cramped yet familiar world. Back and forth I swung between terror and wonder, and wonder back to terror; from quailing apprehension and incremental intrigue toward that which horrified; from social withdrawal to growing risks with my therapists and the world at large.

作为接受治疗的来访者，我脱离自卑的恐惧，开始逐渐好奇思考自己的人生境况。我从命运不可预知之前的瘫痪，逐渐信任、好奇、着迷那些可探索的事物。我的治疗师们长期陪伴着我，他们为我提供了足够的安全感去迎接我内心的战斗。他们会为我“举起镜子”，让我看到我现在的生活以及我可以如何生活的“特写”，我是否应该慢慢走出拥挤却熟悉的世界。我徘徊在恐惧和惊奇之间，惊奇着想退回到恐惧。从对恐惧的胆怯忧虑到渐渐有了兴趣；从社交退缩到接受治疗师乃至整个世界那些正在增长的风险。

The result was that, after several years of therapy, I was able to experience the fuller ranges of my thoughts, feelings and sensations. I, like many of the people I have worked with, was freed to attain goals but also a greater presence to my life and to life itself. The result was that I became less identified with the old and crippling parts of life, and more identified with the new and evolving parts – the parts that deeply mattered.

经过几年的治疗，我得以拥有更全的对思想、感觉和感官的体验。像我曾经与之共事的许多人一样，我获得了解放，去实现目标的同时也使我的生命以及生命本身成为更好的存在。我不再那么确定认同生命过去和脆弱的部分，而是更加认同生命崭新和不断发展的部分，那些深度重要的部分。

Any decision emerging from the therapy is energised by the whole body and that patient’s visceral core

治疗中任何决定的能量来源都是来访者自己的身体和内心

Personally, I practise what I call ‘existential-integrative’ (EI) therapy, which coordinates a range of useful modalities under the existential approach. As a therapist, I am available to work with the patient at the most immediate, affective, kinaesthetic and profound level of contact possible.

我开展我自己称其为“存在综合”（EI）的治疗方法，该疗法在存在主义下协调有效方式。作为治疗师，我可以与来访者以最直接、最有效、最动觉和最深刻的接触方式工作。

For example, when I work with a patient, I see myself more as a fellow traveller, as the existential analyst Irv Yalom put it, rather than the formal ‘doctor’ serving up a remedy. I attempt to be available as a person rather than an engineer; I attune to the needs of my human patient, not to a bundle of electrochemical processes or a diagnostic label. That doesn’t mean I won’t try to support that patient in whatever way might be helpful at the given time, for example, with a medical referral or a problem-solving strategy, but I will strive to be available to that patient to address the feelings, body sensations and images behind the words and explanations.

比如我与来访者一起工作时，更多地将自己视为旅行伙伴，就像存在主义分析师欧文·雅洛姆（Irvin Yalom）所说的那样，而非将自己视为正式的“医生”提供补救措施。我尝试以一个人而非修理的工程师出现，去适应来访者的需求，而不是依据一堆电化学过程或一个诊断标签去行事。这并不意味着我不会尝试在特定时间以任何可能的帮助方式支持来访者，比如通过医疗转诊或问题解决策略，但我将努力为来访者而在，去处理言语解释背后的情绪、身体感知和图像。

All this involves attention to process, not just content. The approach supports a ‘whole-bodied’ awareness of both what the patient desires, as well as what blocks him or her from what is desired, on the deepest of levels, often beyond words. In this way, any decision emerging from the therapy is energised by the whole body and that patient’s visceral core.

所有这些都需要关注过程，而非仅仅关注内容。这种方法需要建立“全身”意识，最深度地去意识来访者的需求是什么和阻碍了来访者需求的又是什么，这些通常是超越语言描述的。这样，治疗中任何决定的能量来源都是来访者自己的身体和内心。

Not every patient can or wants to work at that level, explaining my integrative offering; but for those who can and do, the approach provides the chance for a life-changing shift. This shift bolsters one’s capacity to experience the fuller ranges of one’s thoughts, feelings and sensations – one’s whole-bodily encounter with life. Based on that foundation, it’s possible to make bold, concrete, meaningful changes in one’s life. Put another way, such clients are able to cultivate a deep and abiding presence to themselves and the world, and through that presence, to experience humility, wonder and a sense of adventure toward living. This sense, for those who can really live it, fosters meaning, poignancy and awe.

也不是每位来访者都可以或想要在这种深度上工作，这也解释了我为什么会选择开展综合疗法。但对那些有能力并且愿意这么做的人，这种方法提供了改变人生的机会。这样的转变增强了人对各种思想、感觉和感官的体验能力，是人与生命的全身相遇。在这之上，一个人对自己生命进行大胆、具体、有意义的改变成为了可能。换言之，这样的来访者能够建立对自己和世界深厚而持久的存在，通过这种存在来体验谦虚、惊奇和对生命的冒险意识。对于那些真正活着的人来说，这种感受会滋养意义、深刻和敬畏。

The reason we need such therapy today is precisely because the awe-based is too often left out of our programmatic, medicalised approaches to life. We assist people to change, but increasingly the impetus for that change is expedience: regulating our emotions, stopping negative thoughts, sleeping better at night, becoming more efficient, living more rationally and so on. And while these therapeutic ends are by no means trifling, they are but ‘footholds’ for many people along a broader and deeper path – the zest, meaning and awe of being alive.

今天需要这种疗法恰恰是因为，敬畏的基底常常被排除在我们对待生命程序化、医疗化的方式之外。我们帮助人进行改变，但是改变的动力越来越多地变成权宜之计：调节我们的情绪、停止消极的想法、晚上获得更好的睡眠、让自己变得更有效率、生活得更加理性等等。尽管这些治疗目的绝非易事，但对许多人来说，这些只是对生命的热情、意义和敬畏这更广大、更深层道路上的“立足点”。