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How divination is like psychotherapy: a thread on healing, culture, and colonialism.
(This thread jump off from my previous thread on how colonialist academic psychology denigrates astrology and divination as âmagical thinking.â) 1/37 https://twitter.com/500livesasafox/status/1259461245113192449
(This thread jump off from my previous thread on how colonialist academic psychology denigrates astrology and divination as âmagical thinking.â) 1/37 https://twitter.com/500livesasafox/status/1259461245113192449
Divination in pop culture tends to be viewed as a kind of failed science or hobby, yet ancient links exist between divination and healing. Greek diviners were said to have cured plagues, and were seen as practical healers and religious purifiers in addition to seers. 2/37
Ethnographers have extensively documented how medical/religious figures in non-European cultures employ divination in healing contexts and counseling practices, for instance among the Yolmo in Nepal, the Weyewa of Indonesia, the Nyole culture of Uganda, etc. 3/37
In Lucumi religion, cowrie shell divination is used in healing rituals to identify disease etiologies, as well as to provide prescriptions, which could include prayers, cleansings, sacrifices, etc., or just as easily referral to another diviner or physician. 4/37
Judy Pugh studied astrological counseling in modern India, where person-centered dialogue involved prediction/diagnosis and prescription. She concluded, that a âbroad scope of therapeutic skills [are] lodged in the divinatory profession in contemporary India.â 5/37
My own research showed that Tarot divination frequently involved querents in crisis who sought guidance, support, or help with thorny life issues. Seeking and providing validation was a key theme, and Tarot was recommended as an adjunct or alternative to psychotherapy. 6/37
Turning to the psychotherapy literature, we can examine how divination and psychotherapy converge. The âcommon factorsâ model of psychotherapy describes ingredients to psychological treatments that span theoretical orientations, such as empathy and client expectations. 7/37
Research generally supports that factors common to all approaches account for most of the improvement that patients receive from psychotherapy. In fact, itâs kind of an open secret that few treatments can demonstrate the empirical efficacy of their âspecific ingredients.â 8/37
In my dissertation research, querents expected readers to address their concern, readers endeavored to establish empathic bonds with querents, divination was a collaborative service with a shared aim, & validation & attention from the reader was a key theme. Common factors. 9/37
Over and above this, a more explicit and tight correspondence between divination and psychotherapy can be established. In their seminal work âPersuasion and Healing,â Frank & Frank described four *essential* factors common to all forms of psychotherapy. 10/37
First, psychotherapy involves âan emotionally charged, confiding relationship with a helping person.â Tarot readings, at least, necessarily involve the reader as a helping figure, and typically involve some ongoing dialogue about the querentâs concerns. 11/37
One aspect of divination in my study that is poorly attested in the academic literature overall was also the potential for readings to be highly affectively charged or even uncanny, and for lasting emotional reverberations to stay with querents long after the event. 12/37
On the flip side, readers typically noted how dialogue with querents about their concerns or about the reading was central to the process, and some readers underscored how Tarot reading was an emotionally taxing endeavor that for that reason merits compensation. 13/37
Second, psychotherapy involves âa healing setting.â Although divination may, in contrast to psychotherapy, occur in much more casual and less hermetically contained settings than the traditional psychotherapistâs office, divination achieves this function symbolically. 14/37
Phenomenologically, one of the divinerâs roles involves establishing a context for divination with the aim of creating a bounded, hollow space to enclose the emerging determinacy and revelation of the divination. This can involve ritual, performance, or collaborative play. 15/37
Third, psychotherapy involves âa rationale, conceptual scheme, or myth that provides a plausible explanation for the patientâs symptoms and prescribes a ritual or procedure for resolving them.â Note the language. Weâll return to that later. 16/37
Setting aside that skeptical folks may reject the conceptual scheme offered by the diviner, divination proceeds on the basis of a belief, supposition, or assertion that the divinatory objectâTarot cards, birth chart, etc.âcan be meaningfully interpreted to provide insight. 17/37
Although divination does not always result in or even aim toward resolving the querentâs concerns, it does aim to provide insight into and clarification of those concerns, which the querent is then entrusted to apply to their own life. 18/37
Many diviners do endeavor to provide explicit prescriptions or recommended actions to querents. One of the Tarot readers in my study, for example, noted that he would often give querents âreally specific advice, and sometimes be terrified that they would follow itâ! 19/37
It is intriguing to note that Frank & Frank explicit remark on the âimagination-catchingâ aspect of therapeutic rituals. Tarotâs evocative imagery, astrologyâs archetypal language, and the general air of magic around these practices inherently evoke imaginative engagement. 20/37
Fourth, psychotherapy involves âa ritual or procedure that requires the active participation of both patient and therapist and is believed by both to be the means of restoring the patientâs health.â 21/37
Diviners constitutively approach divination with the intention of illuminating a question with the belief that it will be helpful to the querent. Tarot readers in my research typically approached readings with an altruistic agenda and aimed to provide benefit or healing. 22/37
One reader conceptualized herself as a âpsychological healer,â and another aimed to free querents from âthe shackles that are hindering their enjoyment of life. Yet another aimed to enliven querents spiritually by connecting them to wellsprings of traditional wisdom. 23/37
While querents do not always believe divination will be helpful, and may approach readings casually or with skepticism, the same is true of psychotherapy. In fact, the modal number of sessions attended by new psychotherapy sessions is *one*! 24/37
Now, divination usually involves a single session, whereas psychotherapy is typically ongoing, but this difference is merely apparent: single session and walk-in psychotherapy has become recognized as a mainstream approach within the psychotherapy research literature. 25/37
I concluded in my research that Tarot divination shares structure and aims common to virtually every form of psychotherapy, and that the central factor separating Tarot divination from psychotherapy consists in its lack of cultural prestige. On that note⊠26/37
Divination could be framed as a folk medicine practice: defined by (1) possessing unofficial, marginalized status with respect to culturally dominant institutions & allopathic practices; and (2) transmission outside standardized print sources, usually via oral tradition. 27/37
Alternatively, divination could be seen as a âquasi-therapy,â a practice within a âpermissive, supportive social environmentâ that emphasize personal growth and encourage âpersonal and interpersonal re-integration and experimentation.â 28/37
âQuasi-therapyâ and âfolk medicineâ are academic terms that merit interrogation. The specialized language used to delineate non-professional, unofficial, culturally marginalized practices underscore how academic thought is invested in supporting colonial power structures. 29/37
Descriptions define and confine: divinationâs plate is set at the kidâs table when we stratify practices by how they are regarded in dominance hierarchies rather than grounding our understanding in the psychological meanings, functions, and effects of the practices. 30/37
Psychiatry has a grand tradition of separating out âculture-bound syndromesâ from ⊠syndromes. The not very well concealed message is that *we Westerners* know what disorder and healing are, and other cultures have limited, parochial systems of knowledge. 31/37
The segregation of âreal therapyâ from practices that are inherently Otherâthat are culturally different, marginalized, or unprofessionalâis not a scientific distinction, but a political one. It is colonialism in action, baked into the academic discourse on healing. 32/37
As the mainstream psychological literature tells it, astrology, Tarot, and divination are quaint, benighted practices, hobbies at best, and errors or scams at worst. I dug into this in depth in a previous thread on magical thinking. 33/37 https://twitter.com/500livesasafox/status/1259461245113192449
Viewed within the full breadth of historical and cultural scope, however, contemporary divination carries forward a tradition of insight and healing that bears remarkable similarity, when viewed impartially, to culturally sanctioned practices like psychotherapy. 34/37
Frank & Frank had it right: psychotherapy is itself a practice involving ritual, myth, and imagination, just like divination. And letâs be honest: all healing practices are culture-bound. How could they not be, except in a colonialist framework? 35/37
Letâs turn it all on its head: in my view, itâs not that divination should cozy up to psychotherapy to gain institutional prestige. Rather, we need to dismantle the institutions and colonized ways of thinking that generate these hierarchies. 36/37
So letâs not say divination is like psychotherapy, but rather that divination and psychotherapy each represent specific crystallizations of a single archetypeâthe sacred encounter between healer and patient, sage and seeker, helper and helped. /thread
