Soumitra Basu, Psychiatrist and Psychologist in Kolkata

Counselling through consciousness arises from the paradigm of Consciousness based psychology (Consciousness Based Psychology [CBP] — Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga and Whole Person Health by Dr. Soumitra Basu and Dr. Michael Miovic [in press]). CBP itself is a synonym for Integral Yoga Psychology or Integral Psychology as used by Dr. Indra Sen exclusively for the Aurobindonian perspective of psychology, decades before Ken Wilber patented that term for a different purpose.

CBP studies the being from different perspectives of consciousness as enumerated by Sri Aurobindo. There is a vertical perspective that runs from the Inconscience to Superconscience. (The Inconscience described by Sri Aurobindo is beyond both the concepts of Freud and Jung; it is however not an absence of consciousness but a domain where the Consciousness is veiled and dormant and waits to be released through the evolutionary process). There is a horizontal perspective that runs from the ego bound surface personality, traverses the inner or subliminal self that is connected to the cosmic or universal consciousness to reach the soul-space that holds the fourth-dimensional integrating principle.

In this structure of the being there are planes of consciousness-force where different behaviours arise and hence their remedial concomitants can be constructed accordingly. Moreover the inner being which supports the surface personality is the domain which has to be accessed for whole person well-being and health. The wholeness actually ensues when the myriad strands of the personality are integrated around the central principle that is the harbinger of integral well-being. A counselling through consciousness traverses this journey to the depths of the being, connects one with the cosmic consciousness and makes one fit to rise up to the higher echelons of consciousness.

Such a synthetic approach is compatible with all other therapeutic approaches as it integrates the essence of all other systems at one point or other in the holarchy of consciousness. One can start therapeutic work in other systems but each perspective can be extended to reach the inner being in some way or the other. Therefore subjects who have experienced working through their issues and conflicts in other systems can extend their therapy through working along trajectories of consciousness.

Counselling through consciousness based on CBP (Consciousness based psychology) is an adventure that calls for the twin development of both the client and the counsellor.

 

Dr Soumitra Basu, Psychiatrist

Dr. Soumitra Basu, MD, DPM is a Consultant Psychiatrist, dividing his professional time between Kolkata and Pondicherry. He has been working to develop consciousness paradigms in health and psychology from Sri Aurobindo’s perspective. He is one of the editors of the Journal of Integral Health, NAMAH (www.namahjournal.com), one of the Founder-Directors of the Sri Aurobindo International Institute of Integral Health and Research, Pondicherry, Director of the Institute of Integral Yoga Psychology, Auroshakti Foundation and Honorary Secretary of Mirravision Trust (a public charitable Trust dedicated to Sri Aurobindo’s vision).  He has been serially presenting chapter-wise discourses on the Life Divine (www.iiyp.net) and the Ideal of Human Unity (www.motsac.org) from the psychological perspective. He has been exhaustively working on the psychological insights in Integral yoga on a long-term research project initiated by Dr. A.S.Dalal and at present, together with Dr. Michael Miovic of USA has been constructing a module of Consciousness Based Psychology.  He conducts workshops on consciousness models of psychological growth and Stress Management in both academic and corporate sectors. He is a senior Faculty in Social Work, Vidyasagar University, West Bengal, India and extra-mural Faculty in Indian Psychology at Calcutta University.  He has authored numerous articles on the psychological, psychopathological and social  perspectives related to Sri Aurobindo’s Thought and his books include Integral Health, Integral Education, The Caste System of India — An Aurobindonian Perspective, Sri Aurobindo’s Political Life (Bengali) and Consciousness Based Psychology (co-authored by Dr. Michael Miovic, in press).

Mail : drsbasu2115@gmail.com