UNIQUENESS OF RABINDRIK PSYCHOTHERAPY IN ACHIEVING PSYCHOLOGICAL RESILIENCE AND EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

From the perspectives of Positive Psychology, Mental health includes a person’s ability to enjoy life- to attain a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological resilience. It refers to cognitive, behavioral and emotional well-being and is sometimes used to mean an absence of mental disorder. Rabindrik Psychotherapy (RPT), founded by Dr. Debdulal Dutta Roy, Associate Professor of Psychology Research Unit, ISI, Kolkata, is the treatment of mental disorder using psychotherapy postulates extracted from the literary works of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. It is a real time, object-oriented, auto suggestive treatment of mental illness guided by powerful positive metaphors or mental imageries. The metaphors used in Tagorean dance dramas, songs, paintings, short stories, novels in the form of words or expressions or dialogues become the effective medium that help the therapists to get into the disease semantics and eradicating it tenderly from emotionally distressed minds. The goal and path-oriented values imbibed through this Performing Art therapy motivate the patients, make them emotionally stable, empower them, help in insight generation, conflict resolution and in resilience building. According to RPT, consciousness, which is unbounded and a never-ending multilayered wave of awareness has three layers-MURTA (Outer layer), RAAG (Inner layer) and SARASWAT (Innermost core). Flow is a consciousness wave and a determining factor that may create turbulence with high loading of emotions resulting in a state of disequilibrium and unpleasant feeling or non-turbulence meaning laminar flow contributing to pleasantness of mood or an equilibrium state. RPT aims at locating the Buoyant flow or the upward thrust of suppressed feelings and repressed desires in consciousness working via Rabindrik metaphors. It also intends to trace the dysfunctional assumptions and cognitive distortions working in thought processes and which can take a serious toll on one’s mental health. RPT is free from labeling and follows certain treatment procedures focusing on SMART goals. Here patients envision a climate full of auto suggestions which help in the awakening of their selves and in their recovery. The paper is targeted at conceptualizing Rabindrik Psychotherapy and bringing out its positive aspects through case studies, which are gateways to positive mental health and well-being.