问：
我对自我成长书籍非常着迷。有曾读到，心理治疗和心理咨询能帮我们揭开小我为了让我们感受不到爱而设的障碍，对修习奇迹很有用。请问：自我成长书籍也有类似作用吗？抑或，自我成长书籍更易让读者陷在自己的问题里？
肯恩：
心理咨询和治疗有一个自我成长书籍所不及的优点：有人从旁观察你的小我，指出它的运作模式（但愿是以不评判的态度），尤其在你习焉不察、毫不怀疑的方面。毕竟，认出他人的防卫模式通常比自己的容易。
话说回来，如果你愿意诚实面对自我的话，自我成长书籍就能发挥其价值，帮你认出自己不当的行为模式和潜藏信念。
你可以用下面的问题，来评估自己心目中的任何自我成长书籍或技术，包括心理治疗：
它是否让我对自己的想法、感觉、情绪和行为更加负责；还是会强化小我把自己的不正常和不快乐归咎他人的心理驱力？（哪怕我们知道，我们若不了解自己凡事归咎他人的心理驱力，让这一驱力化暗为明，乃是迈向疗愈的重要一步。）
它能帮我揭开隐藏的动机，还是把它们压得更深，一味追求形式层面（即行为或外表）的改变；而不触及背后的内涵，也就是想法或目的？（尽管有时候，改变不当不良、破坏性的行为，例如瘾头，是重要的起步，反映了我们在更深的层次所发的改变的愿心。）
几乎所有的治疗方法，无论由治疗师协助，还是靠你自己独立完成，都有一个局限。即它们的目的无外乎改善梦境，而非引领我们觉醒，后者正是《课程》的目标所在。自我成长的确只能帮你建构一个更好的小我，这并没有坏处，但它确实无法把你领到《课程》将要带你所到之处，甚至可能最终与《课程》的目标背道而驰。
总之，真正的疗愈之道只有一种，就是宽恕，只要我们还受得了苦，就会想出各种花招逃避宽恕。但终有一天，我们会发现，当我们不再妄加评判那唯一真实的治疗师的神圣帮助时，我们才能寻获自己的真我，那才是我们此生真正渴求之物。
选自/ 奇迹课程基金会问答服务
翻译：张红云
校译：王敬伟 Robert
Q #102: I am really into self-help books. I have read that psychotherapy and counseling can be helpful for the student of A Course In Miracles because it can help reveal the ego's blocks to the awareness of love's presence. Is this the case for self-help as well? Or do self-help materials hold more potential than formalized counseling to enmesh readers in their own problems?
A: An advantage of psychotherapy and counseling over self-help books is that there is someone else to observe your ego, hopefully in a non-judgmental way, and point out its dynamics in areas you may be very effectively keeping hidden from yourself. It is usually easier to recognize someone else’s defenses rather than our own.But self-help books still can be of value in helping you identify your own maladaptive patterns of behavior and underlying thoughts, if you’re willing to be honest with yourself.
For any self-improvement tool that you’re considering, including therapy, you may want to ask yourself the following questions in evaluating its usefulness:
Is this helping me to take more responsibility for my thoughts and feelings and actions or is it reinforcing the ego dynamic of seeing and holding others responsible for my dysfunction and unhappiness (although uncovering a dynamic of blaming others can be an important first step in the healing process if we have not allowed ourselves to be in touch with that before)?
Is this likely to help me uncover my hidden motivations or is it more likely to help me keep them buried in an emphasis on changing form, such as behavior and appearance, rather than underlying content, such as thought and purpose (although sometimes an important early step that indicates a willingness to change at a deeper level is to modify maladaptive and destructive behavior, such as addictions)?
One of the limitations of nearly every therapeutic approach in the world, regardless of whether it involves a therapist or work on your own, is that its purpose is to make the dream better, rather than to lead you along the path of awakening, which is the Course’s goal. And self-help is really about helping make a better ego self. Not that there is anything bad about that, but it won’t take you where the Course is leading you and it could end up leading you in the opposite direction. The only truly healing practice is forgiveness, and we may find clever ways to avoid it for as long as we can stand the pain. But in the end, we will find that releasing our judgments to the Help of the only real Therapist is the only way to find the Self we are really looking for.
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