I started my adult life as a physical educator and coach of women’s athletics at the college/university level. When I finally realized that several of my student athletes were depressed, if not suicidal, I allowed myself to recognize I really didn’t care about winning or losing. I cared about what was going on inside myself and the lives of others.
I received an MA in Counseling from the Conservative Baptist Seminary (now Denver Seminary) in Denver in 1981. This was early in the process of the Christian church becoming involved in counseling. The coursework was heavily focused on Christian theology with some counseling information along the way. Between my own Western tendencies to want to know more and my continuing quest for a more fulfilling existence, I chose to go forward with a doctoral program.
During my five years at Fuller Graduate School of Psychology in Pasadena, CA, I completed an APA-accredited program in 1988 that leaned toward psychology with some Christian theology courses. Fuller’s stated desire was to find, or at least explore, the integration of Christianity and psychology, but it was not a predominant feature of the psychology classes in general. I started my own personal therapy during these years which heavily influenced my experience at Fuller. Most importantly, I shifted from thinking about information to an awareness of my strong desire to experience the Divine. Thus, I was most attracted to psychological models that spoke of and practiced the experiential aspects of healing, such as Existential, Gestalt and Primal Therapies.
In my private practice after graduation and licensing, I chose an eclectic model of therapy, bringing into the therapeutic relationship those tools I had learned and had found helpful for me. But my primary focus remained on the relationship between myself and the client(s). Listening, encouraging them to share their stories and feel the pain that had been repressed and offering tools for letting go of the old – this was the foundation of who I was as a clinical psychologist.
As mainstream mental health in the United States began to focus almost exclusively on evidence-based practices, I became less and less interested in following that path. I understand these practices to be short-term help at best. They carry the possibility of doing further harm by concentrating only on cognitive-behavioral aspects. Psychotropic medications, while helpful and necessary at times, also depress areas of the brain to allow the client to function, but not necessarily to release the trauma and heal. I recognize that my focus does not appear to include what might be considered the Major Psychological Disorders, the genesis of which is still up for debate. I do believe that there are many other new discoveries that will continue to inform the practices and process of transformation. For instance, some of the psychotic disorders might actually be what Stanislav Grof calls ‘spiritual emergencies’ (Grof and Grof 1989).
I am still eclectic when I think about psychology. I am also more heavily influenced by my spiritual understandings these days than I am by what I have learned in my training (see the section Spiritual Perspectives). I find some resonance with other therapeutic models, especially depth psychology and gestalt therapy. But, for me, they are too intellectually involved, too Western, even as I can feel the expansiveness and higher perspectives available within the model. My ego mind has been a source of safety and support for many years. However, the ego mind is only capable of accessing what has happened in the past (Dispenza, 101-105). Ego goes to its composite of all the human traits and actions it has experienced or observed and automatically chooses what it wants as you interact with others and react to circumstances (Ward 2019). My sense of self, my “I”, comes from my ego which, in connection with my brain, defines who I am, what I believe, what I do and what is I think is possible. It is time to allow my knowing, my intuition, to be that part of me holding the space for transformation. Intuition immediately apprehends a situation without any apparent reasoning process (Dictionary.com 2019). Often called a hunch or discernment, intuition bypasses the old information and paradigms of the human ego and allows the awareness of higher perspectives to be present. I prefer to choose intuitively in the moment what to offer another person as a potential tool.
If I must have a paradigm, it would best be found in the following image and description:
Awareness <–> Emotional Release <–> Insight/Wisdom <–> Integration
Until you become aware of pain, or a problem, there is no need to change. So, awareness is most often the entry point into a non-linear process of change. Emotional Release is a choice that is often ignored. It is an emptying of old emotional (magnetic) energies that can open the entanglement causing distress (as I note further in Scientific Perspectives). This new openness allows Insight/Wisdom to be present creating a new perspective and offering new possibilities. Finally, the new wisdom finds a balance in the person as Integration occurs. Some would suggest the process is a spiral, in which a person revisits these different steps, exploring either a similar area of entanglement or a new area of distress, as their journey continues. Personally, I experience the process more as a cloud of thoughts and feelings, of experiences. My mind might think I’m opening in one area and a completely different insight might come to me. As a therapist, I recognize that transformation is not about trying to fit someone’s distress into a therapeutic model. It is about being with them and offering tools and practices so they might explore and find their own path to transformation.
Over time I came to value contemplative practices and Contemplative Neuroscience (see Scientific Perspectives). Once I became aware that meditation and other like practices have been shown to reach those unconscious neural pathways, dissolving the old and creating new pathways, I had few reasons to return to an old paradigm. I became interested in Energy Psychology.
Energy Psychology (ACEP) is a collection of mind-body approaches which focuses on the relationship between thoughts, emotions, sensations and behaviors, and the known bioenergy systems (chakras, meridians and the biofield). The American Psychological Association (APA) recognized Energy Psychology in 2012, allowing energy psychologists to provide APA-approved continuing education as evidence-based practices. EP-type therapies include acupuncture, hypnosis, applied kinesiology, meditation, Eye Movement Reprocessing and Desensitization (EMDR), Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), and Thought Field Therapy, among others. The intention of these therapies is to bypass the conscious mind and create change at the level of the unconscious mind and/or the physical body.
The group of professionals most closely aligned to my understanding seems to be the Transpersonal section of the APA. Transpersonal Psychology might loosely be called the psychology of spirituality. It focuses on those areas of the human mind which search for higher meanings in life, and which move beyond the limited boundaries of the ego to access an enhanced capacity for wisdom, creativity, unconditional love and compassion. It honors the existence of transpersonal experiences and is concerned with their meaning for the individual and with their effect upon behavior. It suggests that what other psychologists might view as “optimum” human psychological functioning—e.g. freedom from anxiety and irrational negative thought-patterns, an optimistic outlook, a strong sense of identity —is by no means the end point of our development (Taylor 2015).
Go to Spiritual Perspectives
Go to Scientific Perspectives
Go to Conclusion and Resources