Overview

In Psyche and the Sacred, Samuel Bendeck Sotillos delivers a provocative call to restore sacred psychology and ancient wisdom to modern mental health. Modern Western psychotherapy presents itself as universal, yet its one-size-fits-all model often sidelines the deeper, time-tested ways humans have understood healing, meaning, and the soul. In privileging a narrow framework, contemporary psychology has silenced sacred and cross-cultural wisdom traditions that once formed the foundation of mental well-being. This book challenges the culture of Western psychotherapy by asking a deeper question: what has psychology lost along the way? Moving beyond surface calls to ""decolonize"" therapy, it offers a clear-eyed diagnosis of the field's spiritual and metaphysical blind spots. Sotillos offers examples of the power of psychological healing when grounded in the tenets and methodologies of indigenous traditions as well as Abrahamic religions, establishing a wide tent for the spiritually curious. By reclaiming a pluralistic, sacred understanding of the psyche shared across the world's wisdom traditions, Psyche and the Sacred argues for a richer, more humane approach to mental health, one capable of addressing the full depth of what it means to be human. As one reviewer writes, it is ""a thread out of the labyrinth... a path back to wholeness.""

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9781591813507

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Reviews

""A necessary and bracing critique of the assumptions and limitations of contemporary Western psychology, this generous volume is also a passionate call and learned guide towards a truer perspective that embraces man's spiritual nature.""--Gabor Maté, M.D., and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction ""Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is the only psychotherapist that I know of that works from a universal and timeless ontological orientation.""----Wolfgang Smith, Physicist, and Mathematician, author of Physics: A Science in Quest of an Ontology

Author Information

Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, PsyD, LMFT, LPCC, CCMHC, NCC, CPRP, CCTP, MHRS, is a practicing psychotherapist in California, who has worked for many years in the field of mental health and social services. His focus is on the intersection between psychology, culture, and spirituality. He is a member of the Task Force on Indigenous Psychology (Division 32 of the American Psychological Association), an advisor to the Institute of Traditional Psychology, on the scientific board of the Knowledge and Hope Foundation, and on the editorial board of a few journals. He has written four books and edited one. His most recent work is ""The Quest For Who We Are: Modern Psychology and the Sacred"" (2023). He has written over five dozen articles and one hundred book reviews in a wide range of journals.

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