Othodox psychotherapy

[Bono Vox]

I was wondering if any of you have heard of the book called "Orthodox Psychotherapy".

I can't remember the name of the author because I left the book at work, but it is a pretty deep piece of work, but well worth the read. It is written by an Orthodox priest who compares us in Orthodoxy to patients in a hospital. We are sick people needing a cure, and being cured.

Orthodoxy is not simply a religion, but it is truley life!! We are in the process of being cured, according to the book, but some of the terminology and concepts are hard to understand.

He focouses on three points of salvation, so far. first is purification, the second is illumination, the third is deification.

He also talks a lot about the "nous". I am having a hard time understanding this concept. Do any of you have a way of explaining the "nous" to a dumb guy like me??

Thanks

Bagpiper

[Robert]

Metropolitan Hierotheos wrote that book.

It is most excellent, perhaps the best Orthodox book I have ever read.

I have read it several times, along with a few other of his books which I recommend heartily.

His writing has substance and seems to portray a clear goal.

I will defer discussion of the noetic elements to someone else, anastasios would be the man to ask.

Robert

[icxn]

You can read the book online too:

http://pelagia.org/htm/b02.en.orthodox_psychotherapy.00.htm

Check this page too:

http://pelagia.org/htm/index.htm

It seems that there are 4 volumes that deal with this subject.

icxn

PS. Nous is your mind or intellect when it is not using reason (or deductive reasoning), to comprehend things but rather intuitively or by means of immediate experience or simple cognition. (The Philokalia Vol. 1). And it continues, "This is the highest faculty of man, through which - provided it is purified - knows God or the inner essences or principles ... of created things by means of direct apprehension or spiritual perception." The nous is also the operative power of the soul which the Holy Scripture refers to as the heart.

(Quoted from: "Themes of the Philokalia: The Nous, Number 2." by Archimandrite Ioannikios Kotsonis)

[Αριστοκλής]

Metropolitan Hierotheos wrote that book.

It is most excellent, perhaps the best Orthodox book I have ever read.

I am in 100% agreement with your opinion, Robert. (And it's a much easier read than his life after death- that one twisted me up quite a bit!)

Demetri

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