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TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOTHERAPY and COUNSELLING

“Two roads diverged into a wood and I, I took the one less travelled by….”                                                                              Robert Frost

Psychotherapy requires a certain amount of curiosity and courage to open up to what is inside you.  It's a journey to the centre of yourself to discover what you don't know  - or perhaps what you've forgotten - about yourself.    

The Transpersonal Psychotherapist John Rowan says that simply paying attention to what is going on inside us (as opposed to what should be going on or what we would like to be going on) could be seen as a spiritual act.     

For this reason, psychotherapy can be seen as being connected to spirituality - as a bridge leading us into the spiritual realm.    

There are many models of counselling and psychotherapy, ranging from Freudian (Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy), Jungian (Analytical Psychotherapy), Person-Centred Counselling, Cognitive Therapy and Behavioural Modification types of therapy, Transactional Analysis, Psychosynthesis and Transpersonal Psychotherapy - to name but a few.   

Transpersonal Psychotherapy can help clients in the same way as any other type of therapy, as it encompasses all the other types of therapy.  A Transpersonal Psychotherapist can, if required, also help those clients who are interested in the spiritual life to overcome the obstacles that keep them away from their spiritual centre and to experience this deep, essential core of themselves.  

What is Transpersonal Psychotherapy?   

The realm of the transpersonal defies an easy description because, to paraphrase John Rowan again it is not an ego function, and as ordinary language deals essentially with ego functions, it misses something essential about the transpersonal and hence falsifies it to some degree.  

The transpersonal realm is accessible to everyone. 

The transpersonal is about personal experience which may or may not be expressed in religious terms - it is a personal journey, a realm of personal discovery, personal uncovering - not something one joins!

The transpersonal is associated with spirituality.  Not the spirituality of priest or the saint, nor the spirituality of the 'New Age', which can mean many things. 

What is the 'spiritual dimension'?  

In a paper written in 1980 entitled 'Use of the transpersonal in logotherapy'  (Transpersonal Psychotherapy Journal), Joseph Fabry suggested that the spiritual dimension comprised the following elements:  

  • our will to meaning

  • our goal orientation 

  • our creativity 

  • our imagination 

  • our intuition 

  • our faith 

  • our vision of what we can become 

  • our capacity to love beyond the psycho-physiological 

  • our capacity to listen to our conscience beyond the dictates of the superego 

  • our sense of humour 

  • our self-detachment or ability to step outside ourselves and 

  • our self-transcendence or ability to reach out to people we love and causes we believe in

As a Transpersonal Psychotherapist I am trained integratively - which means that I am trained in a number of different psychotherapeutic methods - Transpersonal, Transactional Analysis, Person-Centered Counselling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy, Analytical Psychology, Gestalt Therapy, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Kleinian Psychotherapy - to name but a few.    

The method I choose to work with depends upon the type of client and the material with which they present.  

What would a typical session look like?  

A typical session might include (to name but a few intervention styles):   

  • the more familiar 'narrative discourse' (where the client speaks and the therapist listens, intervening from time to time to ask for clarification, to give insights, etc.)

  • creative imagination (e.g. the use of visualisation to explore issues more fully)

  • 'empty chair' (Gestalt) work (speaking to the other party in their absence, for example)

  • role play

  • movement

  • art therapy

  • sound and breathwork   

  • cognitive behavioural therapy techniques

  • stress management techniques

Some problems that can be helped by counselling and psychotherapy

  • Depression

  • Relationship difficulties 

  • Anger management 

  • Sense of hopelessness or despair 

  • Bereavement 

  • Weight problems

  • Addictions 

  • Behavioural problems 

  • Loss 

  • Grief 

  • Abuse issues

  • Trauma

  • Feelings of abandonment

  • Co-dependence

  • Body image problems

  • Chronic fatigue/M.E. 

  • Illness

  • Indecisiveness

  • Coming to terms with divorce

  • Dependency issues 

  • Eating disorders 

  • Lack of authenticity 

  • Assertiveness 

  • Suicidal feelings     

What to do if you think you want help

If you think you might benefit from a course of Counselling or Psychotherapy, please contact me.  

We can then briefly discuss your problem over the 'phone and if you wish, we can arrange for an initial consultation session. 

 

 

 


"Don't wait for your ship to come in, sail out to it" 

Anon

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