Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos: On

Psychoanalysis
Posted by: Mode of Life January 22, 2015in Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos, Mental Illness &
Psychology, PASTORAL ISSUES, PATRISTIC TEXTS, WORKS & TEACHINGSLeave a comment

Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos was asked:

Elder, it is known that a percentage of psychiatrists considers continence during a young age as a
cause of psychiatric illnesses. What can we answer them?
He answered:
This viewpoint of theirs is mistaken and the explanation for this is very simple. All those who visit the
psychiatrist are ill. No one who is healthy goes to the doctor for no reason. So, because now a
percentage of these patients dont have physical relations, they reach the conclusion in combination
with Freudian theories that the cause of the neuropsychic disturbances is continence. I know however
dozens of youths who are continent and naturally they have wonderful health of soul.
What can we say about psychoanalysis?
Psychoanalysis started out with Freud, who held that disturbances of the soul are a result of the
repression of the sexual drive, of the genetic instinct of man. According to psychoanalysis: with
appropriate questions and hypnosis, they attempt to help the sufferer to draw out of his subconscious
old traumatic experiences of the soul and there discover the cause of his guilt which, of course,
according to them is related to the dissatisfaction of the sexual drive.
Our age, however an age unfortunately, completely unbridled loudly proved Freud false,
because according to his theory, since today there does not exist repression of the sexual
instinct, but its complete liberation and satisfaction, the psychiatric illnesses ought to have
decreased. However, precisely the opposite happens: the number of those with psychiatric
illnesses over the past few years, according to recent obtained information, has increased!
In other words, you would not urge someone to take refuge in psychoanalysis?
It is lost time and a waste of money, my child! Classical medicine, which implements a theory only if it
has shown therapeutic results without contradiction does not use psychoanalysis as a therapeutic
means, because to this day psychoanalysis has not managed to offer data which prove it has
therapeutic value.
From Counsels For Life: From the Life and Teachings of Father Epiphanios Theodoropoulos, p. 200-
201.