September 3rd, 2008 |
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... Read More
July 3rd, 2008 |
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... Read More
May 19th, 2008 |
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,... Read More
April 25th, 2008 |
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... Read More
August 23rd, 2007 |
Growing up as a Catholic child and teenager in Germany some sixty years ago I learned about original sin. I was told that I and every other human being inherited the mark of original sin from Adam and Eve because of their disobedience to God’s command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Actually, in German, original sin is called Erbsünde, which means “inherited sin”. (An aside: The word Erbsünde also contains the German word Erbse which means “pea”, and for many years of my childhood I visualized my original sin as a pea-sized growth on my soul.) As... Read More
