ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the conceptions and procedures of psychodynamic therapies are patterned after the Protestant methods of introspection and conversion. It describes that the relative ineffectiveness as well as the self-torturing nature of the past-oriented processes of traditional therapy can best be understood when viewed in their historiosophical context. The chapter shows that retrospective self-torture and repression of evil thoughts are forbidden, as a result of which neurotic guilt symptoms should be relatively absent. Retrospective introspection involves the egocentric weighing of sins against merits, which prevents one from the prospective-active worship of God. Thus, the most important and organismically involving principle in “prospective therapy” is the dynamic for producing energizing joy activities. The chapter also argues that it should be possible to conceptualize a future-oriented psychotherapeutic system that utilizes mechanisms producing joyful experiences to bring about effective change.
