Saturday, January 04, 2020

Does Intuition Heal?

In chess, as in other arts, intuition makes creativity and winning possible.

It’s invisible. Subtle. Abstract. And so, much deeper.

Dr. Nikolai Krogius, a Russian chess psychologist and grandmaster, refers to the element of “intuition” in chess as:

“the direct way of reaching the truth - the quick solution suddenly comes to mind”

Chess grandmaster David Bronstein, once a world championship candidate, emphasizes the role of intuition in chess creativity. But simultaneously, he equates it with the player’s imagination.

Encyclopedia Britannica gives a technical definition of intuition as follows: 

“Intuition: In philosophy, the power of obtaining knowledge that cannot be acquired either by inference or observation, by reason or experience. As such, intuition is thought of as an original, independent source of knowledge, since it is designed to account for just those kinds of knowledge that other sources do not provide. Knowledge of necessary truths and of moral principles is sometimes explained in this way.”
Intuition is a component of thinking. As opposed to logical analysis, an intuitive choice shows only the result, often unperceived at the moment of mental operation.

Psychotherapy is full of intuition. Its process is basically intuitive rather than linear or concrete. To heal and be whole, a patient has to find his capacity for intuition and nourish it.

Most mental patients are weak in responding to logic. Wounded emotions often block or cloud their thought processes.

However, when one perseveres enough in the process of psychotherapy, sessions constitute a chain of psychological and emotional experiences - each linked to the next.

Then, intuition appears. Somewhere down the road. A sudden discovery of insight, truth, and application one is pursuing for one’s life state.

“Oh got it! After all this time, this is what’s all about for me,” as Manny, a CEO, once said in exclamation.

I simply drew an illustration in a napkin. All I did that evening session. And Manny got his intuition work for him marvelously in a therapeutic way.

“Intuition is the whisper of the soul,” as Jidu Krisnamurti put it.