A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by John Rhead, Ph.D.

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The song from which I borrowed my title continues: “The one you shouldn’t hurt at all.” Yet it does indeed seem to be nearly universal that we hurt, and are hurt by, those with whom we believe we are “in love.”

When we are on the receiving end of the hurt we usually try to understand it in one of four ways: (1) My partner doesn’t understand enough about my sensitive spots, and if I can just get him or her to understand where I am vulnerable then he or she will be more careful not to poke me in those spots. (2) My partner is unconsciously angry at me for some reason, perhaps my gender, and is acting out that anger in a hostile way. (3) My partner has some conscious anger at me for some way he or she feels I have been the cause of his or her pain and I need to either (a) explain that he or she took my words the wrong way and therefore should not feel hurt, or (b) acknowledge the way I have caused him or her pain and promise to refrain from doing it again. (4) I am just being completely paranoid and misinterpreting my partner’s loving behavior as something hurtful. Read the rest of this entry

By Anne Ihnen, MA LMHC

Sitting in meditation means sitting with what is. The challenge, of course, is that a lot of what is doesn’t feel very good: we experience fear, restlessness, grief, anxiety, shame. For many of us, these experiences are enough to send us fleeing from the cushion, convinced that meditation isn’t for us or that we’re doing it wrong. Others convince themselves they’re meditating when they’re actually engaging in spiritual bypassing, a term coined by John Welwood¹ that refers to the use of spiritual practices to avoid facing pain. When these things happen, a therapist can help us return to the present moment and stay present with what we find there.

When I sit with a client, I pay attention as closely as I can to what I receive through the six sense doors. I consider all of this material relevant, even my own thoughts and emotions. Therapists in my orientation talk about “the field”, which is the space between two people, the place where we throw our unwanted, unacknowledged feelings and experiences. My job is to notice these things, setting aside material that’s clearly about my own personal life, and paying attention to all that remains. In this way, I am focusing on the present moment and trying to stand in the midst of it all, even if it’s painful, frightening, or confusing.

When it seems helpful or relevant, or when what I’m noticing is persistent and strong, I reflect the experience back to the client. This is done as an offering, a pointing to what’s happening now; it’s an invitation to the client to check his/her own experience to see if it matches what I’m noticing. In this way, I invite the client into the present moment. This doesn’t mean that events outside the therapy room or experiences from the past are never discussed. On the contrary—these topics are the heart of therapy. But as they’re explored, the invitation is offered to step back into the present to see how it feels to be talking about these things now. And as we do this, we face the pain that’s there in the present moment together, seeing that it is possible to stand in the middle of it all, even if it’s just for a moment or two.

As we engage in this work of coming back to what is, the client begins to recognize the pain as his/her own cast-off experience. And with this recognition, compassion arises and healing begins. In this way, the relationship between a therapist and client mirrors the relationship we have with ourselves when we meditate. For those of us who struggle to face what is, working with a therapist can help us find our way back.

¹Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation, by John Welwood (2000)

©Copyright 2009 by Anne Ihnen, MA LMHC. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Anne and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Alissa Sige Weisman, MFTi

There is someone I would like to introduce to you. Meet Your Shadow. Your Shadow is all the parts of yourself that you don’t like. It is the darker, repressed, and denied aspects of your being as well as the light. Your Shadow was formed when you banished these parts of yourself from your conscious awareness in order to be accepted and liked.

Like Yin and Yang, your darkness, or your unconscious, negative self-image and your light, your conscious, positive self-image, are complementary opposites that comprise aspects of your whole being. When you only identify with your positive self-image, you live a lopsided existence because you deny your hidden other half. Conversely, when you face and embrace your shadier aspects, you bring your life into balance by giving your whole being permission to exist.

According to Jung, who introduced the Shadow to the field of psychology, the psyche is always striving towards wholeness. Whether you are conscious of it or not, your Shadow is always showing you your forgotten parts to help you remember who you are. As the saying goes, “If you spot it, then you got it.” Think of someone you encountered recently who triggered a strong emotional response in you. What characteristics did you find so repulsive about that person? There’s a good chance that the very qualities you despise in others are the exact opposite of what you believe is true about yourself. You can continue to unconsciously project your disowned negative aspects onto the people around you, believing, “I am NOT like you”. Or you can welcome this person as a messenger who has come to remind you of who you are. Instead, you may ask yourself, “How AM I like you?” The first response likely breeds hatred, suffering and isolation. The second response may offer you an experience of deeper connection and self-awareness. What to do you choose? Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by John Rhead, Ph.D.

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Many machines with rotating parts contain flywheels. Almost all automobile engines have them. A flywheel is a heavy wheel which rotates when the machine of which it is a part is running. Because it is heavy the flywheel absorbs surges of energy, thereby causing the machine to run more smoothly. The flywheel also stores kinetic energy when it is rotating and can keep a machine running for a period of time even if the usual source of energy (e.g. gasoline motor, water wheel, windmill) stops providing input. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update

While there is no “typical” psychotherapy patient or lifestyle that automatically suggests a need for psychotherapy, there are certainly some fields of work and walks of life which, being subject to especially high or enduring levels of stress, commonly benefit from a positive counselor relationship. One such profession is that of the clergy. While often seen as a stigma, the ability of clergy members to approach and seek growth from psychotherapists is an emerging trend that highlights a growing global appreciation for the potential and power of psychotherapy.

Many ministers and leaders of faith-based communities experience large amounts of stress due to their administrative duties, as well as the pressures of serving as a very public and scrutinizable figure. Long hours and a sense of great responsibility combined with a tendency to work around a fair amount of human suffering — whether as part of a hospital visitation program or simply accepting prayer requests or visits from troubled congregants — add to the psychological load endured by such people. Read the rest of this entry

© Copyright 2009 by http://www.GoodTherapy.org Therapist Austin Bureau - All Rights Reserved.

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Sarah Jenkins, MC, LPC

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“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” – Alan Alda

I got on the plane, bags in tow. Convinced that I needed everything I had packed, my attire reflected the “business like” image I had to reflect in my interview the next day. I was flying back to the United Kingdom, for a second interview. Driven a strong desire get back “home” and to pursue a job that seemed made for me; I just knew that it was the right path to take.

As expected, I landed in Wales and immediately felt the sense of familiarity, comfort, and peace that the countryside always offered me. Without my conscious control, my soul seemed to jump up and down with glee at its return to the place of my birth. The business suit I wore to the interview reflecting my desire for the job, and underneath it, nostalgia for the country I left as a child. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by John Rhead, Ph.D.

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Lately I have been reading about solitude and writing about surrender. They seem to go together and have much to say about the spiritual dimension of psychotherapy.

Solitude is usually defined as a period of time away from the company of other humans. However within that definition there is a great deal of variation in terms of how much contact one has with the natural world other than humans. Solitude can be structured to minimize or maximize one’s contact with the natural world. The minimalist version is the Catholic monk living in a hermitage where he stays inside to pray and meditate, living on food that is left for him by other monks whom he never (or rarely) sees. An intermediate version would be spending a few days and nights on a vision quest on a mountain, usually not far from one’s community of supporters down below. The maximum version of contact with the natural world that I have come across is Robert Kull’s new book, Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes. It is a diary, edited and with added commentary, of his year alone on a remote island off the southern coast of Chile, relying completely on the food he brought with him and catching fish for his sustenance. There the climate made physical survival an ongoing challenge as Kull sought psychological and spiritual sustenance through encountering the psychological and spiritual challenges of such deep solitude. He spent a good deal of his time outside the basic shelter he had built for himself, exposing and surrendering himself to being part of the wild forces of the natural world. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by John Rhead, Ph.D.

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For a long time I have experimented with various visualizations with regard to breathing. Usually these involve visualizing something associated with inhalation, such as peace, and something else associated with exhalation, such as joy. For the past few months I have settled on the concept/image of grace on inhalation, and love on exhalation. I have refrained from looking up the dictionary definition of “grace,” because it is not the one I am using and I don’t want to confuse myself before I finish writing this. I am using the vague idea of grace that comes from my childhood exposure to religion, primarily Christianity. From that exposure I have come to think of grace as something like divine loving benevolence that is always available for the asking, sort of the way oxygen is available if one inhales. That I might inhale grace and convert it to something like human love seems but a small leap of faith. Read the rest of this entry

By Reverend Doctor Silvia R. Behrend

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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 as a counselor in private practice, I make no distinction between the words soul and self. I use them interchangeably; either word connotes the “essence” of the human being. The work of the self or soul is to become whole, being born and being human already means that the essential ‘isness’ is compromised simply by being in the world.

I have found that one way to help the soul reach toward wholeness is to engage it on the slant. That is: rather that directly confront the ‘issues’, ‘wounds’ and ‘trauma’ experienced by the soul, the cut-off elements of the soul can be enticed into integration. This is possible through the use of the arts. In my particular experience, I have used the art of stone carving to illustrate that the soul can emerge from hiding in a loving, compassionate and non-pathological manner.

My work in this area has been formed by the understandings of self-psychology and my own experience in creating art as well as facilitating that process for others. I would like to articulate a simplified version of the theory of Self-psychology Then, using my student’s own experience, I will demonstrate how engaging in creating art, in this case, stone carvings, allowed them to see themselves differently and integrate the cut-off parts of themselves with love and compassion. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by John Rhead, Ph.D.

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Intimacy refers to being seen or known. One can be seen or known by oneself, by another being (human or otherwise) or by God. Individual psychotherapy usually focuses on knowing oneself better, which is to say becoming more intimate with one’s self. The usual term for this process is “insight.” Group psychotherapy addresses being better known by others, which of course results in greater knowing of oneself in the process. This is the place where the term “intimacy” is most commonly used. Relationships with non-humans in which one comes to be known can be as mundane as a relationship with a pet dog or cat and as elaborate as encounters with spirit guides in all kinds of animal forms while engaging in shamanic journeying. Finally one may experience being known by God, or the Sacred Mystery, through spiritual practices such as prayer and meditation. Of course many would assume that one does not really reveal oneself to God through such practices, since it is assumed that God already knows everything; the experience of being known by God is really just a result of coming to know oneself better through spiritual practices. Read the rest of this entry