To know thyself is to know God, to know Truth, and, as one master told us, the Truth will set you free.
Psychotherapy has the potential to blend an understanding of basic life skills, with the exploration of deep identity. Making relationships work well; learning to work effectively with one's own mental processes; developing insight about and understanding of one's behaviors, language, thinking, and feeling; having and making choices beyond what one thought was possible or available; addressing "symptoms" and manifestations of distress and unhappiness; accessing real meaning and value in one's life; re-connecting with the lost deep ecology of one's right place in, and one's right relationship to the (natural) world; being able to love.
Basic life skills: how to relate properly to oneself; how to relax and renew; how to align one's behaviors with true (ie., substantive, satisfying, grounding, beneficial) meaning and value; how to be effective in controlling oneself, rather than trying to control others; how to most effectively and beneficially change thoughts and feelings; how to develop humility, courage, and trust; how to release attachment to what one thinks one needs; how to experiment and explore intelligently and beneficially; how to cultivate the true precursors of happiness; how to surrender.
