The continuous flow of new self-help books proves that the growth of psychological suffering cannot be stopped by the methods and approaches practiced in most of these. The Self Beyond Myself: The natural way to end psychological suffering aims to revisit psychological paradigms to provide an alternative, that author Dirk de Sousa calls ‘Conscious Realization’. Using logical arguments, he busts several myths and constructs we make up to separate mind, body, and soul or to perceive it as a single entity. Know thyself. Who’s in control of yourself? Is it your body? Are we our brains? Can we effectively empty ourselves by commanding our mind to silence? Who’s commanding who? What is personality, the ‘I’ or ‘myself’? Will the I die when the body dies? How much of our behavior and decisions are consciously taken? The book covers interesting topics like memories, past, present, and future, life and death, happiness, and something bigger than scientists can prove. De Sousa calls this the Immense, since he chose to leave (a) God or religions out of his paradigm.
It is his belief that Conscious Realization is the only long-term and effective option for treatment of every form of subjective psychological distress symptom or behavior, and find real freedom and truth in love, beauty, astonishment, empathy, and contentment. While I was able to grasp and agree with the author in the main part of the book, his explanation of the process of Conscious Realization with two phases each consisting of three steps was a bit too abstract for me. Maybe I’ll need a second reading of the latter part.
About the author
Dirk de Sousa is an author and psychological counselor working in private practice in Switzerland. He is passionate about his desire to help relieve what he sees as an epidemic of psychological suffering in the modern world. His books look at the failings of our established view of the workings of the human mind. In it, he seeks to give a taste of the original process of ‘Conscious Realization’, which he has shown can help all of us in moments of psychological crisis but also, and more importantly, enable any one of us to achieve real contentment and even bliss.
In his seminars and workshops he conveys how to step beyond suffering in a natural way and at any time, how to raise children and awaken this consciousness in them, and how to create a long-term partnership founded on this new insight.
Many of his participants affirm a new competence in perceiving absolute contentment.
I received a free review copy from the author in exchange for my personal, unbiased review upon reading.
