Name: 阿蘭-德波頓談療養之旅 (Alain de Botton on A THERAPEUTIC JOURNEY)
Uploaded: 2025-08-01T18:40:09.000Z
Duration: 1 h 9 min 35 s

What a pleasure to be here to present my new book.

很高興能在這裡介紹我的新書。

基礎被動語態

情態助動詞 B1

It's a follow-on to a book that some of you might know which I brought out a few years ago and that was called A School of Life, An Emotional Education and this is called A Therapeutic Journey.

這本書是我幾年前出版的一本書的後續，你們中有些人可能知道，那本書叫《生命的學校，情感教育》，這本書叫《治療之旅》。

And it's really following on from this exploration that I've been on, my colleagues have been on at the School of Life for a number of years into this very broad area which we might call mental well-being and it's obviously a vast topic.

我和我的同事們在生命學院已經進行了多年的探索，我們可以把這個非常廣泛的領域稱為心理健康，而這顯然是一個非常廣泛的話題。

I should say that I certainly don't believe that it's possible for anyone to be sane.

我應該說，我當然不相信任何人都可能是理智的。

Does anyone in the room think that they are sane?

房間裡有誰認為自己是理智的嗎？

I'm very glad you're obviously a very, very sane audience because in the paradoxical way in which these things work, the best marker of having at least a measure of sanity is a friendship with one's more insane sides and the ability to recognize the extent to which one isn't entirely well and cannot be by the simple nature of the facts of human nature.

我很高興你顯然是一個非常非常理智的聽眾，因為在這種自相矛盾的工作方式中，擁有至少一定程度的理智的最好標誌就是與自己更瘋狂的一面保持友誼，並且能夠認識到自己在多大程度上並不完全健康，而且由於人性事實的簡單本質而不可能完全健康。

This is about as good as we can ever get.

If any of you are dating, a very useful way to sift out those who you should continue a meal with or not is simply to turn to your companion at some point, normally after the starter at least, and say, so in what ways are you mad?

如果你們中有人在約會，有一個非常有用的方法來篩選出那些你是否應該繼續與之共進晚餐的人，那就是在某些時候，通常至少在開胃菜之後，轉向你的同伴說：那麼，你在哪些方面生氣了？

And if the person looks kind of puzzled and angry and defensive and says, how do you mean mad?

如果對方一臉困惑、憤怒和防衛地說，你說的 "瘋狂 "是什麼意思？

I mean, put a little bit of money down, quit the restaurant, but it's not going to work.

我的意思是，投入一點錢，退出餐館，但這是行不通的。

But if they're able to take the first steps into outlining some of the ways in which they may be tricky at points, another key question is to ask somebody if they're difficult to live with.

但是，如果他們能夠邁出第一步，說明自己在某些方面可能比較棘手，那麼另一個關鍵問題就是要問別人，他們是否難以相處。

If somebody thinks that they're easy to live with, again, run, run.

如果有人認為他們很容易相處，那還是跑吧，跑吧。

It's just, this is a very, very bad sign.

只是，這是一個非常非常糟糕的信號。

So at The School of Life, we very much believe everybody's hard to live with and everybody's insane.

是以，在 "生命學校"，我們堅信每個人都難以相處，每個人都是瘋子。

But in this book, The Therapeutic Journey, what we're looking at in particular is the darker side of mental experience.

但在這本《治療之旅》中，我們特別關注的是心理體驗的陰暗面。

And that is the process of getting mentally unwell.

It's taken us about 2,000 years or so to even be able to mention what should have always have been an extremely almost common sense point of view, which is that just as we get ill in our bodies, we of course get ill in our minds.

我們花了大約 2000 年左右的時間，才得以提及本應一直都是極其近乎常識的觀點，那就是，就像我們的身體會生病一樣，我們的思想當然也會生病。

There is no such thing as a life that can be spent in a mind that is entirely well.

沒有一種生活是可以在完全健康的心態中度過的。

We tend to like, because it's so frightening, we tend to try and create a wall, a hard separation between the crazy and the sane.

我們傾向於，因為這太可怕了，我們傾向於試圖在瘋狂和理智之間建立一堵牆，一道堅硬的隔離帶。

Well, as you've been, as you'll pick up from what I've been saying, I certainly don't believe that that's the case, that the border is shifting, the border is permeable, and any good and sane life will include many moments of what one might as well call insanity.

好吧，正如你一直在說的，正如你會從我一直在說的話中領悟到的，我當然不相信是這樣的情況，邊界是在變化的，邊界是可以滲透的，任何美好而理智的生活都會包含許多人們不妨稱之為瘋狂的時刻。

This is not a one-way street, it's a constant passage between states of distress, of acute distress and states of greater wellness.

這不是一條單行道，而是在痛苦狀態、急性痛苦狀態和更健康狀態之間不斷穿行。

It's worth maybe just summarizing or just trying to look at some of the ways in which a healthy mind operates, because all of us have moments when we are able to think in healthy ways, and it's, you know, especially when you lose that ability to think, to reflect on what healthy thinking is.

也許值得總結一下，或者試著看看健康思維的一些運作方式，因為我們每個人都有能夠以健康的方式思考的時候，尤其是當你失去這種思考能力的時候，更要反思什麼是健康的思維。

You know, first and foremost, what a healthy mind is, is an editing machine.

要知道，健康的頭腦首先是一臺編輯機器。

What it is able to do is to rank thoughts in order of importance and not present consciousness with the full, unalloyed, uncategorized panoply of emotions that it could feel at any time.

它所能做的只是將思想按重要性排序，而不是向意識呈現它隨時可能感受到的完整、無雜質、未分類的各種情緒。

Things are ranked, and things are sometimes compartmentalized and put far away.

事情是分等級的，有時事情會被分門別類，放得很遠。

I'm going to talk about defense mechanisms in their more pejorative sense in a minute, but it's important to know that the ability not to think of certain things at certain points belongs to health.

我稍後會從更貶義的角度談談防禦機制，但重要的是要知道，在某些時候不去想某些事情的能力是屬於健康的。

For example, if there were thoughts that I was having right now about being here on stage, I wouldn't be able to continue.

舉個例子，如果我現在對站在舞臺上有什麼想法，我就無法繼續下去。

I may not be able to continue much longer, but I'm going all right for a few minutes.

我可能堅持不了多久了，但幾分鐘內我還能堅持。

But if I were to have certain thoughts, like, what on earth am I doing here?

但如果我有某些想法，比如，我到底在這裡做什麼？

What about if I didn't know what I was talking about?

如果我不知道自己在說什麼呢？

All these things would quite quickly trip me up and bring me into a state where I couldn't do what I could do.

所有這些事情很快就會把我絆倒，讓我陷入一種無法做自己能做的事情的狀態。

So in other words, in order to function in the world, you need to prioritize, categorize, keep certain thoughts at bay, particularly punitive thoughts.

是以，換句話說，為了在世界上發揮作用，你需要釐清輕重緩急，進行分類，抑制某些想法，尤其是懲罰性的想法。

We are all, in order to keep going, immense optimists.

為了堅持下去，我們都是無比樂觀的人。

We need a boost of optimism all the time to bear ourselves.

我們需要時刻保持樂觀，才能承受得住。

All of us, when we are so-called down, we tend to have those realistic, depressive thoughts.

我們每個人在所謂的低落時，都會產生那些現實的、壓抑的想法。

If those thoughts were allowed to submerge us, we couldn't get out of bed.

如果讓這些想法淹沒我們，我們就下不了床。

There is, at the core of health, there lies a certain necessary dose of optimism.

健康的核心在於某種必要的樂觀主義。

It's only when we lose that that we start to realize absolutely how key it is.

只有當我們失去它時，才會開始意識到它的絕對重要性。

Not least, we have to forget on a daily basis that we're going to die.

最重要的是，我們每天都必須忘記我們終將死去。

Philosophers love to remind us of death, and there are, you know, real advantages sometimes in a focusing way to remembering death.

哲學家們喜歡提醒我們注意死亡，你知道，有時以一種關注的方式記住死亡確實有好處。

But if we really had to keep that thought of death in mind, as perhaps we should, we couldn't keep going.

但是，如果我們真的不得不把死亡的念頭牢記在心，也許我們應該這樣做，我們就無法繼續前進。

So there's a lot of thought, a lot of thinking that we need not to do in order to function as we do.

是以，有很多思考，很多我們不需要做的思考，才能發揮我們的作用。

But sometimes, these very healthy mechanisms of thought and processing start to erode and for a period, or perhaps a longer period, start to break down, and we enter a state of mental unwellness.

但有時，這些非常健康的思維和處理機制會開始受到侵蝕，並在一段時間內，或許是更長的時間內，開始崩潰，我們就會進入一種精神不健康的狀態。

We're no longer able to categorize our thoughts.

我們不再能對自己的想法進行分類。

We're no longer able to, therefore, benefit from that restart that a fresh morning endows us with when we're able to look again at a topic in a certain way.

是以，我們無法再從新的早晨中獲益，因為新的早晨會讓我們以某種方式重新審視某個主題。

We become hyper-realists, and that hyper-realism becomes unlivable, and at its worst, life itself starts to seem unendurable.

我們變成了超現實主義者，而這種超現實主義變得無法生存，在最糟糕的情況下，生活本身開始變得難以忍受。

I think that, you know, many of us have at least tasted a share of what this might mean.

我想，你知道，我們中的許多人至少已經嚐到了這可能意味著什麼的滋味。

Hopefully, it was only a little moment in life.

但願這只是生命中的一個小瞬間。

I would say that very few people get through an entire life without, at certain moments, slipping into these kinds of territories, and this is really what the book is about, those moments when we lose our grip on all those processes that the mind has in order to be able to get us through the day.

我想說的是，很少有人能在一生中的某些時刻不陷入這樣的境地，而這也正是這本書所要講述的，當我們失去對所有這些思維過程的控制時，這些思維過程能夠讓我們度過每一天。

究竟為什麼會發生這種情況呢？

There are stresses, undoubtedly, in daily life.

There are things that aggravate a fragile mind, but at the school of life, and this will annoy everybody, so I'm really sorry, we are very focused, unfortunately, on childhood.

有些事情會讓脆弱的心靈變得更加脆弱，但在人生的學校裡，這會讓每個人都感到惱火，所以我真的很抱歉，很遺憾，我們非常專注於童年。

Sometimes we leave, we run a YouTube channel, and almost every film we make seems to mention childhood, and there's a few people in particular who, every time we make a film, go, oh, look at them, they're going on about childhood again, and I feel real sympathy.

有時我們會離開，我們經營著一個YouTube頻道，幾乎我們拍的每部電影都會提到童年，特別是有一些人，每次我們拍電影，他們就會說，哦，看看他們，他們又在談論童年了，我真的很同情他們。

I mean, we do seem to go on a lot about childhood.

我是說，我們似乎經常談論童年。

It's really boring to have to think about your childhood.

Many of us are 30, 40, 50 years, decades, out of childhood, and still, here I am telling you that it's all about your childhood.

我們中的許多人已經離開童年 30 年、40 年、50 年，甚至幾十年了，而我卻還在這裡告訴你，這一切都與你的童年有關。

Well, that's extremely annoying, and I really, sincerely apologize, but the only way to forget about your childhood is to go and explore it.

我真的非常抱歉，但忘記童年的唯一辦法就是去探索它。

We're not exploring childhood for the sake of nostalgia, or because we love mommy and daddy, or because it was such fun, but in order to get rid of the thing once and for all.

我們探索童年，不是為了懷舊，也不是因為我們愛爸爸媽媽，更不是因為童年多麼有趣，而是為了徹底擺脫童年。

You know, these ghosts of the mind tend to be ghosts that sprung on us in childhood, and without the courage to go back and look at them, we're unable, unlikely to find the freedom, the calm, the creativity that we all seek.

要知道，這些心靈的幽靈往往是童年時萌發在我們身上的幽靈，如果沒有勇氣回到過去看看它們，我們就無法、也不可能找到我們都在尋求的自由、平靜和創造力。

You know, childhood is, I mean, it took humanity an unbelievable length of time to recognize the role of childhood in adult development.

你知道，童年，我是說，人類花了令人難以置信的時間才認識到童年在成人發展中的作用。

I mean, you don't find any medieval person going, you know, the reason I lack confidence is my parents.

我的意思是，你找不到任何一箇中世紀的人會說，你知道，我缺乏自信的原因是我的父母。

You know, there's no ancient Greek who's on record explaining their behavior because of a parental shortfall of affection.

要知道，沒有哪位古希臘人因為父母缺少關愛而解釋自己的行為。

There is no record, you know, we have to wait until the 20th century before people speak in this way, which can, of course, lead us to a kind of suspicion.

沒有任何記錄，你知道，我們要等到 20 世紀才有人這樣說，這當然會讓我們產生一種懷疑。

You know, are we somehow, are we modern somehow uniquely pampered, obsessive in this area?

你知道，我們現代人在這方面是否有某種獨特的嬌慣和痴迷？

I mean, compare it to our discovery of certain kinds of bacteria.

我的意思是，把它與我們發現某些種類的細菌相比較。

You know, it took until the late 19th century, until the age of Freud, to realize that at a bacterial level, there are things that inhabit jugs of water that on a bad day could kill the population of an entire city, that there are macrobiotic, biological, macrobiological organisms that you can't see with the naked eye that have the capacity to kill millions of people.

你知道，直到 19 世紀末，直到弗洛伊德時代，人們才意識到，在細菌層面上，有一些東西棲息在水壺裡，在壞天氣裡可以殺死整個城市的人口，有一些宏觀生物、生物、宏觀生物有機體，你無法用肉眼看到它們，它們有能力殺死數百萬人。

And something akin to this goes on in relation to our own childhoods, where again, slightly invisible processes are at play that have the capacity to fell adult lives in ways that are as destructive as a certain kind of poisoning.

類似的情況也發生在我們的童年，在童年中，有一些看不見的過程在起作用，這些過程有能力以像某種中毒一樣具有破壞性的方式影響成年人的生活。

Part of the problem of human beings is they have such an inordinately long maturational process.

人類的部分問題在於他們的成熟過程異常漫長。

A horse, a foal, is up and running in an afternoon.

一匹馬，一匹小馬駒，一個下午就能跑起來。

So if baby horses, mum and dad, are slightly strange, or they are suffering from all sorts of things, it doesn't really matter, because they're often about within the afternoon.

是以，如果馬寶寶、馬媽媽和馬爸爸有點奇怪，或者它們正遭受著各種各樣的痛苦，這都沒有關係，因為它們往往在下午就會出現。

But we humans, you know, we're at least 18, 19, 20, 25, until we can get away from these people.

但我們人類，你知道，我們至少要到18、19、20、25歲，直到我們能離開這些人。

And these people are likely to be carrying all sorts of distorted patterns, which we learn with some of the same natural inevitability as we learn language.

而這些人很可能攜帶著各種扭曲的模式，我們學習這些模式就像學習語言一樣，具有某種自然的必然性。

You know, none of us learn our native language by sitting in a classroom and slowly taking it in.

要知道，我們學習母語都不是坐在教室裡慢慢接受的。

We simply imbibe it passively from the surrounding environment.

我們只是被動地從周圍環境中吸收。

While we're doing handstands in the garden, drawing buttercups at the kitchen table, we are learning languages that people are speaking around us.

當我們在花園裡做倒立，在廚房的桌子上畫毛茛時，我們正在學習周圍的人所說的語言。

And it's not just languages in the grammatical sense.

這不僅僅是文法意義上的語言。

We are also learning, at all times, emotional languages.

How, what will happen if I reach out and try and communicate with another person?

如果我伸出援手，嘗試與他人交流，會發生什麼？

字幕列表影片播放

阿蘭-德波頓談療養之旅 (Alain de Botton on A THERAPEUTIC JOURNEY)

constantly

sort

absolutely

process