Diary written in the form of a letter to a mentor as a Sufi psychotechnics (psycholinguistic analysis)

The article analyzes the diaries in the form of a letter to a mentor, presents the results of a survey of the authors of the diaries, reflecting their subjective assessment of the influence of the diary on their mental state. The spread of such diary forms as a diary in the form of a letter to a mentor reflects a communicative turn in science, psychology, art, mass consciousness, when the focus shifts from I to You. The postmodern aesthetics of modern diary forms is revealed. It is shown that writing letters to mentors is not a classical ritual Sufi psychotechnics. At the same time, Sufism is a communicative model and all Sufi rituals are rituals of communication. Therefore, writing letters is a written expression of such classical Sufi techniques as istighasa, istiana (asking for help), tawassul (search for means of approaching God), rabita (imagining meeting and being near a mentor). Sufi returns to the ultimate truth about himself: about his boundaries, about his vulnerability and weakness, about the need for You, about the impossibility of living without a dialogue with You. Through embedding himself in a hierarchical relationship with a mentor, the Sufi comes to the ultimate dependence on God. Dependence on God is not chemical or behavioral, it is getting rid of psychic defenses and illusions about the strength of one’s control, influence and power and stating one’s slavish position with God, when the only thing that controls the heart of a Sufi is choice-to-you.

narrative psychology, self-therapy, communicative rationality, diary, Ira Progoff, James Pennebaker, sufism, sufi communication studies, psycholinguistics, coregulation