Overcoming Obstacles: Ganesha Chathurthi and “The Life of Pi”

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

Yesterday, I took a psychological and interfaith journey from a Hindu Holiday to the movie “The Life of Pi.” Here are my initial—and perhaps very limited and even misguided—reactions. I try to include some suggestions from valued colleagues.

Ganesha Chathurthi is a recent 10-day Hindu holiday celebrating the elephant-headed Hindu God Ganesh. Among many other spiritual meanings, Ganesh is the remover of obstacles.

Back on November 4, 2022, I wrote a column about Hindu Heritage Month, which is coming in October. I did not know of that designation until I was part of a panel presentation on hate and harmony at the Annual Meeting of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Toronto. While there, I also found out about the upcoming holiday of Diwali, emphasizing the triumph of light over darkness, among other spiritual matters.

That led to my own revelation that I and my coeditors of 3 prior books on various religions and psychiatry—Islamphobia, anti-Semitism, and Christianity—had not covered the so-called Eastern religions, and so we did in the recently released The Eastern Religions, Spirituality, and Psychiatry (all for Springer). Taken all together, the worlds’ religions seem to provide various overlapping and positive ways of finding meaning in life, providing community support, and, yes, overcoming obstacles. Sometimes, unfortunately, that quest can turn out to scapegoat and blame the others, as also occurs among atheists. One very positive example caught my attention, that Hinduism has not seemed to ever convey anti-Semitism.

Psychiatry is infused with the challenge of overcoming obstacles. Those include seeing patients who would rather not be in treatment, psychological resistances to processing psychological pain, medication adverse effects, stigma, and more. We also must overcome our own internal obstacles, such as countertransference personal reactions and beliefs that can intrude upon and imperil psychodynamic psychotherapy. All religions have their own contributions to healing, including some meditative and yoga techniques in the Eastern traditions.

As is usually the case, there are other religious holidays around the same time of year. For instance, within the same time period of Ganesha Chathurthi came a holiday celebrated in various Muslim communities, Milad un-Nabi, commemorating the birth of the prophet Muhammed. Reminders of mercy, kindness, compassion, and wisdom are among what is celebrated. We are also in the Jewish holiday period of Elul, leading up to our High Holy Days of Rosh Hanshanah and Yom Kippur. Elul parallels psychotherapy is some ways as it recommends daily soul-searching for personal improvement.

In the movie “The Life of Pi,” which I saw last evening, one focus is on the spiritual and psychological development of the boy nicknamed Pi. In his childhood, he explores Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam, but then is marooned in the sea after a shipwreck with a tiger from his father’s zoo. They must get to know and trust each other, at least enough to survive. Likely, the boy’s early imprinted kindness to the caged tiger set that up.

Buddhism becomes part of Pi’s learning, and later in life as an adult survivor with posttraumatic strength, he becomes a teacher of Kabbalah, of trying to put together the broken sparks of the world. To do so, he also gives his stories back to the world.

In all the edited books on religious and psychiatry, we coeditors had to overcome many interfaith and relationship obstacles. Does it take one to know one in terms of the various religions, cultures, and personal spiritual beliefs represented? How do we overcome the legacy of imperialism?

One of our solutions was to do both, to be guided by both the knowledge of the psychiatrist representatives of each religious and spiritual tradition, as well as to supplement that with the overlapping perspectives from other those of other religions and spiritual beliefs, all the while remembering that each patient is unique. It would seem that this particular insight and process is not only valuable in patient/clinician matches involving cultural similarities and differences, but in trying to contribute to peace in overcoming the obstacles to addressing our national and international conflicts and wars. If we psychiatrists of different religions and spiritual beliefs coupled with psychological insights cannot do that among ourselves, who can?

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.