By Reverend Doctor Silvia R. Behrend
So many of us understand counseling to be an art, a marriage of knowledge and a certain ability to use that knowledge elegantly, incorporating intuition and spirituality. In my experience as a minister offering counseling and as a chaplain in a hospital, I have found that there is another dimension to the “art” of counseling: the intentional creative process coupled with the understandings of self-psychology provide a transformational template that has love and compassion at its center.
In my work as a minister and ... Read the rest of this entry »
Please add your comments about Self Psychology - (click here to add a comment)
I find it very profound that there are those in the counseling field who truly believe that help and healing come from within the patient and not necessarily from what they as they therapist is spouting off. I find this to be an appropriate tool for learning and growth in all stages of life, to learn from yourslef and the therapist can be your guide, not the end all and be all.
It can be such a healing process to finally get to know yourself and learn exactly what you need in order to survive. I think that self therapy can be useful for so many in a multitude of different ways.
I have added more dimensions to this understanding of self-psychology, situated in jungian and theological understandings of what the soul is, what it's purpose in becoming might be, and how to get to wholeness. I am working on another article on those premises. I agree wholeheartedly in your comments.
How do you get someone to that point of realizing that all they need to heal is themsleves? It seems like it would be so much more complicated than that! I am not trying to break this into simple parts but as a non therapist I am just wondering how you could take someone who is so broken and help them realize that all they need is a stronger self to put it all back together again.
I guess I am a little confused because I thought that the whole point of doing therapy in the first place was to become more self aware and able to work on fixing your own problems. How is this so different than that?
You are right- it does seem that the major point of counseling is for us all to become more self aware and this does not seem to differ from that goal.
It seems like there are many in the counsleing field who more and more are relying on more creative methods for helping their patients. This author uses stone carving, while some rely on drawing and even writing. Why has this become so prevalent? I can definitely see how it would be therapeutic for some but I am not sure it would apply across the board.
I agree that it doesn't work across the board, the stone carving was used as the metaphor for being able to access parts of the self that had to deeply hide. It is another tool to use with clients who are open to exploring their sense of wholeness with the added dimension of creativity. And to clarify, it is not that the client can heal her/him self by themselves, it is a mutually affective process which re-enforces that authenticity. Using creativity is one way of approaching the hidden soul on the slant so it can emerge at its own pace.
Very good insght into healing the whole person
Wow! I loved the insight from the student's reflection. Truly, we are in a process our whole lives and have never "arrived" where everything's fixed and all ok. It's in learning to accept ourselves just as God made us and follow the flow of what he's doing in our lives, will we really change. I struggled a long time with art making, feeling it lacked depth and that I didn't really know what to express. Yet, whenever I look at life, the material is all around me. I think God has been definately opening my eyes to inspiration everywhere. As a current art therapy student, the road to self awareness has NOT been easy...one of the hardest journey's I have and am taking, but worth it. To see me, with all my flaws, and not focus on them, but accept myself as an 'imperfect' person and know that God accepts me JUST AS I AM....is truly liberating!! Art therapy is such a great tool to express when you just don't quite have the words to say!