This Acronym Will Help You Understand Your Inner World
Why you and everyone you know is a PASTICHE
When you think about self-knowledge and inner work, you might picture a bearded guru or calm monk. But as I’ve started my own self-knowledge journey, through two focused years of therapy after being diagnosed with a generalised anxiety disorder and falling into recurring spikes of panic, I’ve found it’s far more pragmatic than the first impressions these ascetic stereotypes conjure up. It might not look like it, but the gurus and monks have their feet firmly on the ground.
Through my therapist and other practitioners, I’ve mopped up bits of mainstream clinical psychology, mindfulness thinking, spiritualism and Jungian psychoanalysis that I’ve found are powerful and functional, and also, all strangely interrelated— like five people drawing a puppy but each starting from a different limb.
I’m still a learner, and very aware that I don’t know what I don’t know. But I felt a want to unionise everything I’ve learnt so far, to provide a starting point for others. A single, easy-to-remember acronym would do the trick.
I summarised my therapy notes, journal entries and methods. I dove into books and Instagram posts, and consulted with knowledgeable friends like Kevin Tran, head of the Academy of Transcendence…
