THE NEW AGE HAS COME TO AN END

Some 35 years ago, there was an era where I participated in, with great passion and excitement. It was the 70’s and 80’s and the emerging Human Potential Movement. The songs sag; “this is the age of Aquarius!” – the NEW AGE - the time after the wars ended and a new generation of baby boomers begun to explore all aspects of the human possibilities. But like all eras in history, this had also its positive and negative aspects. The positive aspects were the opening of a wide range of existential visions as to what the person in society can accomplish and that will lead to a new freedom from any kind of oppression. It exposed all kind of false beliefs that were kept from the rigid social order of the Victorian era and settled in the morality of the 30’s and 40’s.

As far as the negative aspect are concerned, the New Age left many people traumatised and confused by the many false ‘therapies’, magic solutions to personal problems, self-appointed ‘gurus’ and promises of a new life for all and thus leaving enormous expectations for those seeking change but leaving many perplexed and lost.

The NEW AGE arrived at a time when the world religions, particularly the Christian Church were in a crisis of faith in the West. The youth that experienced the WWII and the Viet Nam wars, lost all trust in the establishment. The New Age generation’s motto was:” Make Love Not War!”  They embraced the Oriental spiritual principles that did not place God as a single powerful entity. The Oriental spiritual practices offered a different point of view of what it is to be human. They promoted individual responsibility, all-inclusive and universal connection with spirit, the possibility of other entities ‘out there’ and the importance of personal growth to discover the whole person: body – mind- soul.

Over the many years of the human potential movement that spanned the Western world, we witnessed an emergence of such centres like Esalen Institute in California, the residence of Fritz Perls that pioneered Gestalt therapy. There were seminars by Abraham Maslow, Body work by Ida Rolf, and many others. Many more ‘schools’ opened across USA and Canada first and then in the rest of the Western world later. Some of the leaders were really change agents and some were of dubious quality. There was such a great response to these centres of wisdom that we witnessed ‘gurus’ from India, enlightened teachers form the East teaching meditation and yoga skills. Astrology seminars reaching a wide public by way of TV, Tarot readers, inner awakening groups, encounter groups and so on.

Over time, many of these “schools” degenerated into cult- like groups that created untold damage to the naïve members that followed those false leaders who promoted extra-terrestrial contacts, rebirthing, mind control and even suicidal events.

Today most of the authentic institutes that were at the cutting edge of human transformation and development no longer are the old ‘outsiders’ of the mainstream education but have adapted the academic models of teaching. Many have aligned themselves to University programmes that offer the standard diplomas and master’s degrees. These pseudo-schools depend largely on government grants and must follow the mainstream University course requirements and thus losing the freedom of exploration of new ideas.

Therefore, the NEW AGE era with all the utopian ideas has ended. Today most courses are offered on line with little or no human contact. Here is what the Wikipedia is writing about this phenomenon:

“As a form of Western esotericism, the New Age drew heavily upon many older esoteric traditions, in particular those that emerged from the occultist current that developed in the eighteenth century. Such prominent occult influences include the work of Emanuel Swedenborg and Franz Mesmer, as well as the ideas of Spiritualism, New Thought, and Theosophy. Many mid-twentieth century influences, such as the UFO religions of the 1950s, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and the Human Potential Movement, also exerted a strong influence on the early development of the New Age. Although the exact origins of the phenomenon remain contested, it is agreed that it developed in the 1970s. It expanded and grew largely in the 1980s and 1990s, in Europe and within the United States. By the start of the 21st century, the term "New Age" was increasingly rejected within this milieu, with some scholars arguing that the New Age phenomenon had ended.

Despite its highly eclectic nature, a number of beliefs commonly found within the New Age have been identified. Theologically, the New Age typically adopts a belief in a holistic form of divinity which imbues all the universe, including human beings themselves. There is thus a strong emphasis on the spiritual authority of the self. This is accompanied by a common belief in a wide variety of semi-divine non-human entities, such as angels and masters, with whom humans can communicate, particularly through the form of channelling. Typically viewing human history as being divided into a series of distinct ages, a common New Age belief is that whereas once humanity lived in an age of great technological advancement and spiritual wisdom, it has entered a period of spiritual degeneracy, which will be remedied through the establishment of a coming Age of Aquarius, from which the milieu gets its name. There is also a strong focus on healing, particularly using forms of alternative medicine, and an emphasis on a "New Age science" which seeks to unite science and spirituality.

Those involved in the New Age have been primarily from middle and upper-middle-class backgrounds.

The degree to which New Agers are involved in the milieu varied considerably, from those who adopted many New Age ideas and practices to those who fully embraced and dedicated their lives to it. The New Age has generated criticism from established Christian organisations as well as modern Pagan and indigenous communities. From the 1990s onward, the New Age became the subject of research by academic scholars of religious studies.”

Today we are filled with technological tools that give us all the information needed to make a more accurate and well researched data about the many beliefs promoted by the New Age leaders. People interested in spiritual matters, inner work, mindfulness can access webinars, eBooks and on-line courses available at a small cost. There is also plenty of good research available about the effectiveness and value of the various esoteric ideas, beliefs and practices.

One current book that I recommend reading (Amazon.com) deals with a new or different way of dealing with personal growth. That book is entitled “Soulcraft: Crossing the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche” by Bill Plotkin.

SOULCRAFT  – THE NEXT STEP IN CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOTHERAPY

My reflections, this month, are based on my own experiences, personal observations and research about the New Age movement in Canada and USA. It all began in the 1960’s when I graduated in Psychology and later with a Master’s in Social work. In 1973, I graduated from the 3-year course in Gestalt therapy in Toronto, Canada. At that time, I became totally immersed in the New Age movement as all my colleagues were. I visited many of the growth centres and institutes in California, attended a week encounter group in New York, travelled to Sonora Mexico in search of the wise Yaki Indian mentioned by Carlos Castaneda, visited 15 alternative communities all over the world and established several training institutes and gestalt groups in Australia.

These experiences, over 40 years, helped me to discover my own and the Western world’s paradigm shift that became to me an integration of science and soul. The book on Soulcraft, by Bill Plotkin is mapping the future of psychotherapy. We no longer can help anyone if we do not include the SOUL and SPIRIT in our work. There is an emerging need to co-create and develop a clear ecological awareness to save humanity and the planet Earth.

The new and emerging technologies help us to understand clearly the scientific facts of human growth and at the same time bring a new ‘shadow’ side. This shadow aspect is evidenced in the commercialism of everything, corrupt political leadership and economic growth for growth's sake.

However, it is evident now that the major scientific discoveries in astronomy, medicine, psychology and soul work are directing the new paradigm towards the acceptance of the most fundamental fact: that the Universe and the individual are co-dependent and co-creative. This paradigm is supporting the principle of SOULCRAFT. See my previous blog post for details.

“Knowledge is doomed if we cannot understand that knowledge alone is recursive, and harbours the seeds of its own destruction, if taken to extreme”

Neil Rush, Parabola, 2017

                                      “Make Love Not War”: Hippies 1970’s

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 By the late 1980s, some publishers dropped the term "New Age" as a marketing device. In 1994, the scholar of religion Gordon J. Melton presented a conference paper in which he argued that, given that he knew of nobody describing their practices as "New Age" anymore, the New Age had died. In 2001, Hammer observed that the term "New Age" had increasingly been rejected as either pejorative or meaningless by individuals within the Western cultic milieu. He also noted that within this milieu it was not being replaced by any alternative, and that as such a sense of collective identity was being lost.

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SOULCRAFT AS PSYCHOTHERAPY JUNE & JULY, 2017

THE NEXT DEVELOPMENT IN THERAPY – SOULCRAFT

In the last blog, I was describing the amazing research about the subconscious mind. The evidence points to the fact that all emotions are contained in the subconscious. Ordinary contemporary psychotherapy may have methods for ‘releasing’ feelings resulting in some positive effects, but the emotions that are repressed are still left incomplete and still affect our behaviour throughout life.

In the 1980’s there was a huge evolution of the of experiential therapies that introduced ‘emotional release’ as a path to healing. However, instead of freeing emotions, many of these therapies promoted a co-dependence between the therapist (guru) and the client.

Feeling the pain of a damaged liver is not curing it. The same principle goes with emotional healing. Painful emotions still are relegated to the deeper levels of our being. That is the evidence presented in the book I mentioned in our previous blog by Frank Wright: Emotional Healing, (1995)1.

Another very useful book on this topic is by my good friend and colleague Dr. Leslie Greenberg: Emotion Focused Therapy, (2002)2. Leslie trained with me at the Toronto Gestalt Institute and is a professor at York University in Toronto, Canada.

Both books are extremely useful in formulating therapeutic strategies to emotional healing. Yet, none is mentioning the importance of soul work. Lately there is a new methodology coming that explores the inner or deeper work called SOULCRAFT.

WHAT IS SOULCRAFT?

I found this word coined by Bill Plotkin in his book: Nature and the Human Soul – Cultivating Wholeness & Community in a Fragmented World. (2008)3. Bill is describing clearly what I was teaching or attempting to teach, in our gestalt therapy training groups. For years I was advocating the importance of soul and spirit in the training curricula of gestalt therapy.

I experienced my own soul journey or soul initiation by early exploration of Buddhist teachings, Tibetan wisdom, Zen meditation, Kundalini yoga and reading and listening to tapes by Allan Watts, Gurdjieff, Osho, and  the Chinese wisdom of the I-Ching. I also explored the effects of peyote in Mexico when I followed the path of Carlos Castaneda and his conversations with the Yaki elder Don Juan.

At that time, I was not aware that I was creating my own initiation journey of the soul. I was also very fortunate in my role as lecturer at the University of Queensland in Australia, to be able to have a six months sabbatical every three years of teaching. That opportunity enabled me to take trips to many countries to do my studies and research. My upcoming book is about my travels to fifteen alternative communities around the world in 1985. That was a culmination of my experiences to develop my soul. I will have the book available in the coming year.

Here I want to add the article that comments about SOULCRAFT by Bill Platkin. I suggest you purchase his book and get on that journey when you can.

SOULCRAFT vs. PSYCHOTHERAPY

Adapted from Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (New World Library, 2008).

When a woman or man has embarked upon the journey of soul initiation (a rare pursuit in the contemporary world), the primary focus ought to be soulcraft, not psychotherapy. Psychotherapy itself will not support the encounter with soul. Therapy, in fact, might distract from soul. For people in an emotional healing process, or in need of one, soulcraft might be dangerously counter-therapeutic. For those on the journey of soul initiation, on the other hand, soulcraft might be appropriately and beneficially counter-therapeutic.

I’m defining psychotherapy here as interpersonal practices aimed at helping the conscious self (the ego) improve its adjustment to its social world and its emotional life. The goal of psychotherapy, in this sense, is ego-growth, a personality more in touch with itself emotionally and viscerally, more centered and calm, less conflicted in its social relationships, more capable of empathy and intimacy, and more secure economically and professionally. These goals are valid and important, especially in the psychological stage of early adolescence I call the Oasis.  (By “psychological adolescence,” I don’t mean an age range, but a developmental stage that most Western people never grow beyond.) These goals of psychotherapy are also important anytime later in life when we need to develop the personality’s foundational capacities or to address emotional meltdowns or relational cul-de-sacs. Ego-growth is important and foundational to our spiritual development in both the underworld (soul) and upper-world (Spirit) senses of spiritual.

But psychotherapy itself (again, as I’m defining it here) does not help us penetrate the veil of the often-illusory life of the everyday middle-world, nor does it develop our relationship with the transpersonal mysteries of soul and spirit. Psychotherapy, when successful, helps us interpersonally and intra-personally, but it does not directly support us to become transcultural visionaries who can help change the world and support the Great Turning from egocentric to ecocentric culture. As James Hillman and Michael Ventura audaciously put it in the title of their 1993 book, “We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World’s Getting Worse.” 

This is, of course, not to say or imply that psychotherapy has no value. Given egocentric society’s multiple obstacles to successful ego-growth, psychotherapy is needed now more than ever. But the goals of a soulcentric psychotherapy are not job satisfaction or improved adjustment to a pathological society, but, rather, refined social and emotional skills and enhanced personality-level authenticity - the goals of the Oasis - which provide the foundations for the soul-rooted development of later stages.

But Hillman and Ventura are making an additional point. Psychotherapy, no matter how effective it might be, has clearly not been enough to make the world a better place. Indeed, while the popularity of psychotherapy increased exponentially during the course of the twentieth century, the world got dramatically worse. It’s likely in fact that egocentric psychotherapy has contributed to the degradation of the world by encouraging a focus on narrowly defined personal needs rather than the greater world’s urgent needs. Sometimes and in some ways, psychotherapy has encouraged narcissism.

Hillman and Ventura suggest - and I agree with them - that often the most effective therapy is active involvement in making the world a better place through volunteer service. Not only does service work contribute to a better world, it also engenders better, healthier people.

Service work contributes to psychological health in at least three ways. First, it provides a respite from the self-obsession encouraged by therapy. Second, it builds self-esteem through the experience of being useful, helpful, and a part of a meaningful effort larger than one’s own life. Third, if it is true - as many have come to believe - that our emotional troubles are at least in part, and maybe substantially, sourced in our recognition on some level that our world is threatened, then service work promotes us to being part of the solution. When we engage in activities that address a significant problem, we feel better (and less helpless), and usually right away.

Egocentric psychotherapy does not consider social, political, or environmental activism to be a therapeutic intervention. But it is.

Soulcraft, however, takes yet another step beyond therapy in that soulcraft, when successful, engenders initiated adults - actively engaged visionaries of cultural renaissance - and in that the efforts of initiated adults are our primary hope for creating an ecocentric and soulcentric society, then soulcraft (by whatever name) is one of the cultural practices we need in order to make the world a better place. Life-enhancing social transformation is not often facilitated by well-adjusted conformists but, rather, by actively engaged visionaries who are both sad and angry about the state of our world, and who are also deeply hopeful as they create and implement new cultural forms — new ecocentric ways of doing business, healthcare, education, art, architecture, agriculture, energy production, politics and government, psychotherapy, and soulcraft.

Unlike psychotherapy, soulcraft’s aim is neither for nor against saving our marriages or facilitating our divorces, cultivating our social skills or friendships, enhancing performance or enjoyment in our current careers, raising economic standing, ending our depressions, helping us understand or express our feelings, gaining insight into our personalities or personal histories, or even making us what we would normally call “happier.” Any one of these outcomes might result from soulcraft, but they are not its goal.

The goal of soulcraft is to help people cultivate the relationship between their ego and their soul. This is underworld business —  business that might, at first, make our surface lives more difficult or lonely, or less comfortable, secure, or happy. Soulcraft practices prepare the ego to abandon its social stability and psychological composure and to become an active, adult agent for soul as opposed to its former role as an adolescent agent for itself.

Soulcraft can be counter-therapeutic because it often involves - even requires - dissolution of normal ego states, which can traumatize people who have fragile or poorly developed egos, thereby further delaying, impeding, or reversing basic ego development and social adjustment. A good foundation of ego growth - through psychotherapy or otherwise - is required if soulcraft practice is going to realize its ultimate promise of cultural evolution and soulful service to community. A well-balanced ego is the necessary carrier of the gift of soul.

Soulcraft at the wrong time can undermine the ego’s viability. Shadow work, for example, which helps us recover rejected parts of ourselves, may not be the best idea for people in the early stages of recovery from substance addictions, sexual abuse, or other emotional traumas. A vision quest would not be advisable for a clinically depressed person. The soulcraft use of entheogens, even if they were legal, would not be wisely recommended to children, most teenagers, or others with poor ego boundaries.

At the same time, psychotherapy can interfere with soulcraft. To move closer to soul, an initiate might need to leave a relationship, job, home, or role. Some therapists might discourage such changes, fearing an abdication of “adult responsibilities,” a lost opportunity for deepened intimacy, or economic self-destruction. Or a psychotherapy client ready for a soul-uncovering exploration of her core or sacred wound might be counselled — especially by a cognitive-behavioral therapist — that such a journey is unnecessary. Some soulcraft practices – wandering alone in wilderness, practicing the art of being lost, or a solo vision quest — may be deemed nontherapeutic, too dangerous, or even suicidal. Or an egocentric therapist might discourage efforts toward soul-rooted cultural change, thinking his client is merely projecting personal problems onto the outer world.

Although sometimes therapists would be wise to counsel against soulcraft work, at other times, if the individual is ready for the descent or if a sacrifice, psychological dying, or social-cultural risk is necessary to encounter or embody the soul, then such counsel would impede the journey of soul initiation. Without an appreciation of the soul’s radical desires, psychotherapy can interfere with psychological and spiritual maturation and promote a non-imaginative normality that merely supports people to be better-adapted cogs in a toxic consumer-capitalist society.

Malidoma Somé , an African shaman of the Dagara people, gives us an extreme example of how therapy and soulcraft goals can diverge. When Dagara boys undergo their initiation ordeals, the people of the village realize that a few boys will never return; they will literally not survive.  Why would the Dagara be willing to make such an ultimate sacrifice? For the boys who die, this is certainly not a therapeutic experience. Although the Dagara love their children no less than we do, they understand, as the elders of many cultures emphasize, that without vision - without soul embodied in the lives of their men and women - the people shall perish. And, to the boys, the small risk of death is preferable to the living death of an uninitiated life. Besides, when we compare Dagara society with our own, we find that an even greater percentage of our teenagers die - through suicide, substance abuse, auto accidents, gang warfare, and military service - in their unsuccessful attempts to initiate themselves. For the Dagara, a few boys perish while the rest attain true adulthood. For us, a larger portion of teens perish and very few ever attain true adulthood. Which approach is more barbaric?

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[1] Frank Wright: Emotional Healing, (1995)Inner World Pub.

[2] Leslie Greenberg, Emotion Focused Therapy, (2002)

[3] by Bill Platkin, Nature and the Human Soul – Cultivating Wholeness & Community in a Fragmented World. (2008)3

THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND – WHAT IS IT?

In the previous blog post we discovered one important ‘tool’ that every psychotherapist needs to learn and utilise and that is the concept of emotional healing. We defined “Emotional Healing” as an alternative method of doing positive therapy. The deeper events in our lives are deposited in our subconscious mind and that is where we are going in this post.

What is the subconscious mind anyway?

This theoretical concept is well known in all the therapy books but we are not very clear how it works as a healing tool. Freud, Jung and other writers in this area claim that over 80% of out (nonphysical) activity goes on subconsciously. “Sub” means under or beneath and “conscious” means awareness. Therefore, it is evident that we do not know or are not aware what is going on in our inner life and yet we do have a ‘feeling’ that there is a wealth of opportunities to tap in that ‘treasure bowl’ of information and able to heal ourselves.

Since we live in a conscious world, we are focussing mainly on the world that our senses receive: we see, hear, taste, smell and touch. The modern analogy of the subconscious mind is that of a computer that is full of files and ‘apps’. There is a need to have a total cooperation between the operator and the computer to enable the proper function of the work being done. That is the same with the self and the unconscious process that requires cooperation that connects the conscious and subconscious mind working together.

So, to be an effective therapist we need to be in tune with the subconscious and know that this place is situated in the emotional side of the person while the conscious side is mainly concerned with the logical or cognitive side. Both, positive and negative emotions are stored in the subconscious. No amount of ‘cognitive’ therapy will bring deep positive results.

However, we must understand the structure underlying the subconscious process or have a clear ‘model’ of our emotional ‘software’. One such comprehensive concept of this model is found in the ENNEAGRAM. I find that the Enneagram is a wonderful tool to be able to understand the basic functions of the subconscious mind by giving us a framework for describing the emotional connection and our self. It is called the BASIC PRESONALITY TYPES.

What is the Enneagram?

Enneagram (from the Greek words ἐννέα(ennéa, meaning "nine") and γράμμα (grámma, meaning something "written" or "drawn"), is a model of the human psyche which is principally understood and taught as a typology of nine interconnected personality types(see diagram above). Although the origins and history of many of the ideas and theories associated with the Enneagram of Personality are a matter of dispute, contemporary Enneagram understandings are principally derived from the teachings of Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo. Naranjo's theories were partly influenced by some earlier teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff.

The origins and historical development of the Enneagram of Personality are unclear.. Some writers have suggested that similar ideas to the Enneagram of Personality are found in the work of Evagrius Ponticus, a Christian mystic who lived in 4th century Alexandria. Evagrius identified eight  (logismoi) "deadly thoughts" plus an overarching thought he called "love of self". Evagrius wrote, "The first thought of all is that of love of self (philautia); after this, come the eight. In addition to identifying eight deadly thoughts, Evagrius also identified eight "remedies" to these thoughts. He was not aware that he was referring to our inner feelings.

G. I. Gurdjieff (see book:"Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am")  is credited with making the Enneagram figure commonly known. He did not, however, develop the nine personality types associated with the Enneagram. Oscar Ichazo[1] is generally recognized as the principal source of the contemporary Enneagram of Personality. Ichazo's "Enneagon of Ego Fixations", together with several other dimensions of personality mapped on the Enneagram figure, forms the basis of the Enneagram of Personality. The Bolivian-born Ichazo began teaching programs of self-development in the 1950s. His teaching, which he calls "Protoanalysis", uses the Enneagram figure among many other symbols and ideas. Ichazo founded the Arica Institute which was originally based in Chile before moving to the United States and coined the term "Enneagram of Personality".

Claudio Naranjo[2] is a Chilean-born psychiatrist who first learned about the Enneagram of Personality from Ichazo at a course in Arica, Chile. He then began developing and teaching his own understanding of the Enneagram in the United States in the early 1970s, influencing other numerous authors, including Helen Palmer[3], Don Richard Riso, Richard Rohr and Elizabeth Wagele,[4] who also began publishing widely read books on the Enneagram of Personality in the 1980s and 1990s. (See the Enneagram figure depicted below).

The Enneagram figure is usually composed of three parts; a circle, an inner triangle (connecting 3-6-9) and an irregular hexagonal "periodic figure" (connecting 1-4-2-8-5-7). According to esoteric spiritual traditions, the circle symbolizes unity of mind and emotion. The inner triangle symbolizes the "law of three" and the hexagon represents the "law of seven" (because 1-4-2-8-5-7-1 is the repeating decimal created by dividing one by seven in base 10 arithmetic).

The table of the nine types is a comprehensive description how our relationship of conscious and subconscious is interconnected. The table below gives the principal characteristics of the nine types along with their basic relationships. This table is based on the book “Understanding the Enneagram: The Practical Guide to Personality Types” (revised edition) by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson.

One of the methods that is useful in emotional healing is the application of the Enneagram in situations of emotional abandonment so common experienced by children.

Emotional abandonment is a subjective emotional state in which people feel undesired, left behind, insecure, or discarded. People experiencing emotional abandonment may feel at loss, cut off from a crucial source of sustenance that has been withdrawn, either suddenly, or through a process of erosion. In a classic abandonment scenario, the severance of the emotional bond is unilateral, that is, it is the object of one’s attachment that has chosen to break the connection. Feeling rejected, which is a significant component of emotional abandonment, has a biological impact in that it activates the physical pain centres in the brain and can leave an emotional imprint in the brain’s warning system. The diagram below describes the nine subconscious 'strategies' ( I call feelings) that people tend to develop in dealing with their inner subconscious events.

THE ENNEAGRAM FIGURE:

Basic characteristics of each number and emotional fixations:

One of the most known exponents of the Enneagram and Gestalt therapist made a significant contribution to the healing of the whole person. Here we introduce Dr. Claudio Naranjo.

Claudio Naranjo.

After being graduated as a medical doctor in 1959, Naranjo was hired by the University of Chile medical school to form part of a pioneering studies centre in medical anthropology (CEAM) founded by Franz Hoffman. At the same time, he served his psychiatry residency at the University Psychiatry Clinic under the direction of Ignacio Matte Blanco.

Involved in research on the effects of the dehumanization of traditional medical education, Naranjo travelled briefly to the United States during a mission assigned by the University of Chile to explore the field of perceptual learning.

In the 1960s, Claudio Naranjo introduced ibogaine and harmaline into psychotherapy as a "fantasy enhancing drug."

Richard Evans Schultes asked Claudio Naranjo to make a special journey by canoe up the Amazon River to study yage with the South American Indians. He brought back samples of this drug and published the first scientific description of the effects of its active alkaloids.

After another period at the University of Chile Medical School's Centre of Medical Anthropology Studies and at the Instituto de Psicología, Aplicada Naranjo returned once again to Berkeley and to IPAR, where he continued his activities as a research associate. It was during this period that he became an apprentice of Fritz Perls and part of the early Gestalt Therapy community, where he began conducting workshops at Esalen Institute as a visiting associate. He eventually became one of Perls' three successors, along with Jack Downing and Robert Hall.

In the years that lead up to his becoming a key figure at Esalen, Naranjo also received additional training and supervision from Jim Simkin in Los Angeles and attended Sensory Awareness workshops with Charlotte Selver. He became Carlos Castaneda's[5] close friend and became part of Leo Zeff's pioneering psychedelic therapy group (1965–66).

In 1969, he was sought out as a consultant for the Education Policy Research Centre, created by Willis Harman at Stanford Research Institute. His report as to what happens in the domain of psychological, emotional and spiritual techniques in vogue, was applicable to education later became his first book, “The One Quest”. During this same period, he co-authored a book with Robert Ornstein on meditation. Also, an invitation from Ravenna Helson to examine the qualitative differences between books representative of the "Matriarchal" and "Patriarchal" factors lead to his writing “The Divine Child and the Hero”.

The accidental death of his only son in 1970 marked a turning-point in his life. Naranjo set off on a six-month pilgrimage under the guidance of Oscar Ichazo to a spiritual retreat in the desert near Arica, Chile, which he considers the true beginning of his spiritual experience, contemplative life and inner guidance.

After leaving Arica, he began teaching a group that included Gestalt trainees and friends. This Chilean group, which began as an improvisation, took shape as a program and originated a non-profit corporation called the SAT Institute. These early years of the SAT Institute were implemented by a series of guest teachers, including Zalman Schachter, Dhiravamsa, Ch'u Fang Chu, Sri Harish Johari, and Bob Hoffman.

In 1976 Naranjo[6] was a visiting professor at the Santa Cruz Campus of the University of California for two semesters and later intermittently at the California Institute of Asian Studies. He also began to offer workshops in Europe, refining aspects of the mosaic of approaches in the SAT program. Naranjo now lives in Brazil and conducts SAT meetings around the world.

Conclusion

HERE IS A LIST OF ENNEATYPES: WHICH ONE IS YOU?

1 THE REFORMER

The Rational, Idealistic Type: Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic

 

2 THE HELPER

The Caring, Interpersonal Type: Generous, Demonstrative, People-Pleasing, and Possessive

3 THE ACHIEVER

The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type: Adaptable, Excelling, Driven and Image-Conscious

 

4 THE INDIVIDUALIST

The Sensitive, Withdrawn Type: Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental

5 THE INVESTIGATOR

The Intense, Cerebral Type: Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated

 

6 THE LOYALIST

The Committed, Security-Oriented Type: Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious

 7 THE ENTHUSIAST

The Busy, Fun-Loving Type: Spontaneous, Versatile, Acquisitive, and Scattered

8 THE CHALLENGER

The Powerful, Dominating Type: Self-Confident, Decisive, Wilful, and Confrontational

 

9 THE PEACEMAKER

The Easy-going, Self-Effacing Type: Receptive, Reassuring, Agreeable, and Complacent

EMOTIONAL MAP WITHIN THE BODY- research reveals the subconscious!

A new study by Finnish researchers published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, suggests that our emotions do indeed tend to influence our bodies in consistent ways.

Across five experiments, 701 participants “were shown two silhouettes of bodies alongside emotional words, stories, movies, or facial expressions. They were asked to colour the bodily regions whose activity they felt increasing or decreasing while viewing each stimulus.”

The emotions were generated by having the subjects read short stories or watch movies. On a blank, computerized figurine, they were then asked to colour in the areas of their body where sensations became stronger (the red and yellow) or weaker (blue and black) when they felt a certain way. (Atlantic Daily). They clearly can be related tothe Enneagram.

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[1] Ichazo, Oscar (1982). Interviews with Oscar Ichazo. Arica Press.

[2] Naranjo, Claudio (1994). Character and Neurosis: An Integrative View.

[3] Palmer, Helen (1991). The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and Others in Your Life. HarperSanFrancisco

[4] Riso, Don Richard; Hudson, Russ (1999). Wisdom of the Enneagram. Bantam

[5] The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, 1968.

[6] Naranjo, Claudio. The Healing Journey. Pantheon Books

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EMOTIONAL HEALING IN PSYCHOTHERAPY

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL HEALING?

Since the days of the Greek philosopher Descartes, who divided ‘animal spirit’ and human emotions that he claimed were held in the pineal gland, we now have more than thirty theories defining emotions. Those theories represent all conceivable psychological approaches. All of them view emotions as primarily a response to environmental stimuli or as a motivational process.

Therefore, emotions are regarded by most psychotherapists as a system which affects or is affected by other systems. Also, it is assumed that emotions can be controlled.

The above refers to historical reviews from the days of Descartes to the more recent studies explored today. The latest research is looking at the brain functions related to emotions and neurological connections to the parts of brain that record emotional experiences. Here is one study:

“Five or ten years ago, everything was all about specific brain regions. And then in the past four or five years there’s been more focus on specific projections. And now, this study presents a window into the next era, when even specific projections are not specific enough. There’s still heterogeneity even when you subdivide at this level,” it is state: “We’ve still got a long way to go in terms of appreciating the full complexities of the brain.”

“Neuroscience is quickly moving beyond the classical idea of ‘one brain region equals one function,’” says Joshua Johansen, a team leader at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan, who was not involved in the research. “This paper represents an important step in this process by showing that within the amygdala, the way distinct populations of cells process information is a critical determinant of how emotional responses arise.”

Yet, as studies upon studies reveal a wealth of information about emotions, we are still struggling with the actual healing of emotional trauma and other afflictions. One of the most overlooked aspects of emotional healing is the subconscious aspect. Since we are not aware (conscious) of many responses to feelings and emotions, we do not consider them as issues that can be treated consciously. However, subconscious processes inhibit healing at a deeper level and are the underlying causes of a wide range of illnesses and symptoms that are both mental and physical.

In 1995 Frank Wright wrote a book on “Emotional Healing for the New Millennium”. He is the principal director of the Centre for Analytical Hypnotherapy Research and Training in Australia. The Centre trains people to become certified “Subconscious Mind healing therapists.

See the web: http://www.psh.org.au/ehcover.htm.

This blog is an attempt at a summary of the book on Emotional Healing. The idea is to take a journey to explore ways and means to offer the reader interested in alternatives to psychotherapy and find new ways to work as a therapist. Most psychology training today is based mainly on cognitive and behavioural studies and require statistical evidence that an intervention does work. However, if we ask a practitioner what is his or her success rate in dealing with client’s recurrent emotional problems, the answers are rather vague or full of excuses as to why there is no real proof of positive outcomes.

In the book by Frank Right, the author calls his method PSH or Private Subconscious Healing. He outlines the method he uses in his practice that reaches the deep subconscious patterns in three basic steps:

 First, enable the client to achieve a deep, mentally relaxed trance-like state to determine if the client’s issue is in fact the core problem stored in the subconscious.

After the first session, the process of subconscious change begins. It takes a moment to guide the client into the negative (hidden) emotion and allowing the conscious (aware) mind to deal with the issue.

      In the third session, there is a check of the process of healing and sometimes it may require a repeat of the unconscious treatment and secure that all the negative emotions are finished.

Here is a suggestion: first go and review the blog post about “short term therapy” and then at the end of this post you will find the seven basic principles that deal with the subconscious mind as brief therapy.

To guide the reader into the world of Emotions, here is a short resume about what is currently written and the research material that has been produced so far:

Two neurons of the basolateral amygdala. MIT neuroscientists have found that these neurons play a key role in separating information about positive and negative experiences.

EMOTIONS

Emotion is any relatively brief conscious experience characterized by intense mental activity and a high degree of pleasure or displeasure. Scientific discourse has drifted to other meanings and there is no consensus on a definition. Emotion is often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation. In some theories, cognition is an important aspect of emotion. Those acting primarily on the emotions may be only feeling and may seem as if they are not thinking, but mental processes are still essential, particularly in the interpretation of events. For example, the realization of our believing that we are in a dangerous situation and the subsequent arousal of our body's nervous system (rapid heartbeat and breathing, sweating, muscle tension) is integral to the experience of our feeling afraid. Other theories, however, claim that emotion is separate from and can precede cognition.

Emotions are complex. According to some theories, they are states of feeling that result in physical and psychological changes that influence our behaviour. The physiology of emotion is closely linked to arousal of the nervous system with various states and strengths of arousal relating, apparently, to emotions. Emotion is also linked to behavioural tendency. Extroverted people are more likely to be social and express their emotions, while introverted people are more likely to be more socially withdrawn and conceal their emotions. Emotion is often the driving force behind motivation, positive or negative. According to other theories, emotions are not causal forces but simply syndromes of components, which might include motivation, feeling, behaviour, and physiological changes, but no one of these components is the emotion. Nor is the emotion an entity that causes these components.

Research on emotion has increased significantly over the past two decades with many fields contributing including psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, medicine, history, sociology, and computer science. The numerous theories that attempt to explain the origin, neurobiology, experience, and function of emotions have only fostered more intense research on this topic. Current areas of research in the concept of emotion include the development of materials that stimulate and elicit emotion. In addition, PET scans and FMRI scans help study the affective processes in the brain.

The emotion wheel by Robert Plutchik.

CURRENT RESEARCH

Prefrontal cortex:

There is ample evidence that the left prefrontal cortex is activated by stimuli that cause positive responses. If attractive stimuli can selectively activate a region of the brain, then logically the converse should hold, that selective activation of that region of the brain should cause a stimulus to be judged more positively. This was demonstrated for moderately attractive visual stimuli and replicated and extended to include negative stimuli.

Two neurobiological models of emotion in the prefrontal cortex made opposing predictions. The Valence Model predicted that anger, a negative emotion, would activate the right prefrontal cortex. The Direction Model predicted that anger, an approach emotion, would activate the left prefrontal cortex. The second model was supported not the first.

Another neurological approach distinguishes two classes of emotion: "classical" emotions such as love, anger and fear that are evoked by environmental stimuli, and "primordial" or "homeostatic emotions" – attention-demanding feelings evoked by body states, such as pain, hunger and fatigue, that motivate behaviour (withdrawal, eating or resting in these examples) aimed at maintaining the body's internal milieu at its ideal state.

Having examined a brief story of studies about Emotions, we are alerted to the importance of seeking the subconscious roots of ‘hidden emotions’ and clearly see that the “talking therapies” (see earlier posts) are limited. Taking about a problem does help to the extent that we ventilate about our issues and seek advice from someone who has some experience in resolving the problem. It is quite a different thing when it comes to the subconscious. In this state, emotions are neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, sensible nor stupid, and so on and that has no effect on change.

For example, psychoanalysis is still recommending to clients 3 or 4 sessions a week for the duration of 3 to 5 years and so far, there is no real evidence that long and expensive therapy achieves any benefits outside the income to the psychoanalyst. 

The seven key principles to understand subconscious emotional healing:

1 .      Therapy must take you straight to the original (real) cause of the symptoms.

2 .       The cause is a feeling not a fact. Seeking explanations will not help.

3 .       Therapy must be done within the privacy of the inner (subconscious) mind.

4 .       The subconscious is the gentle (let it happen) mind.

5 .    Only the subconscious memory holds the relevant experiences and is the link to emotional release.

6.    Reaching the subconscious level of mind is guided by the therapist and insures that the emotional release is authentic.

7 .   The client will only release the subconscious emotion when he or she is ready to do so.

References:

[1] The Psychology of Emotions by K.T. Strongman, 1978.

[2] Anne Trafton | MIT News Office, 

March 31, 2016

REFLECTIONS YARO BLOG – MARCH AND APRIL 2017

 

 

 

ILLUSION – THE OTHER FACE OF REALITY

 

 

Dr. Fritz Perls by Otto Dix

Berlin Art Gallery

 

 

 

 

 WHAT IS REAL?

Definition of what is real: It is the unity of our conscious experience. Our focussed attention (awareness) draws together a myriad of sensory impressions from the environment (both inner and outer) creating a sense of the real.

Like the notes of a melody, our consciousness ‘interfaces’ together all sensory perceptions forming a whole or a figure. Each part of the figure derives its meaning from the whole and its own ‘being’ reflects both, the whole and all the constituent parts. Without this unity of different parts, there would be no experience of reality as we know it.

Most people take for granted the phenomena of consciousness. However, it is the most essential feature of our mental life. Trying to understand this unity in ‘technical’ terms, we realise how deeply mysterious consciousness is and why its ‘physics’ has, so far, eluded all scientific search.

Recently psychiatry theorists have embraced the “computer” model calling it "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) to explain how the brain works and as an interpretation of what is consciousness. Much research is being done around the brain studies and neurobiology to explain the scientific model with some good results but only as a study of the function of our grey matter.

Ever since the Greek philosopher Plato postured the notion of “I think therefore I am” the West stressed the relationship between rational and analytical thinking as the basic rule by which we form our thinking and make decisions. This led to the ‘computer’ model of brain functioning at the expense of overlooking the intuitive side of the organic brain. This intuitive side draws upon wisdom, imagination, creativity spontaneity and insight. So modern science found a rational explanation by pointing the neurological split between the right brain and left brain, each having different functions.

The ‘Holists’ emphasise the creative element of consciousness as all elements of reality, that is, everything is related to everything else. Even the medical studies of the brain revealed that the two brains have a common link connecting both by the Corpus Collosum, therefore proving that the unity of all parts is indeed more than the sum of all parts. [1](David Bohm). We may conclude that everything and everyone is so intimately connected that all talk of individuals or separation is a distortion of facts or an ILLUSION. Yet, our individuality is also essential (paradox) to be able to separate ourselves from attachments and the resulting pain.

The trance we live in most of our lives is that somebody else is responsible for our problems, issues, sufferings and needs. We eventually must accept that on one level of consciousness we are a unity with ALL and on another level, we are ALONE. We are born alone and we will die alone. Also we have to accept the fact that living our life is being alone. We may be in a family, friends, clubs, etc., but ultimately we live alone. Our family members, wife, children, friends, co-workers are with us as we go about our living, but they also live in their aloneness. All those alonenesses neither act on nor connect with each other. We may live with someone for 30 years or more but it makes no difference, we will remain strangers and wanting (like we all do) to be close and safe with others. It is basically an illusion created by our fears.

Buddha stated: “In the house of Indra there is said to be a network of pearls arranged so that if you look at one you see all the others, reflected in it”

So, we as individuals living alone, see the reflection in others our inner needs that we have projected on the multiple environments. This phenomena creates a space for psychotherapists that are trained to ‘help’ or ‘treat’ patients or clients to become very clear at all times and be able to identify the ‘illusions’ that people experience throughout their lives and how these illusions create dramas and suffering for themselves and others around them.

Most therapists follow the clients’ lead of the material they present and say or do things that are experienced by the client as relatively understandable and safe. This approach to therapy by many psychotherapists (of all persuasions) is rather lame as we reflected in the article on “talking therapies’ in this blog.

Fritz Perls, the principal founder of Gestalt Therapy, was very clear about the issues of projections and being responsible or, as he said response-able  for one self. That small shift of the word brought about the idea that we are totally responsible for ourselves and have the ability to respond to our life issues.

Why, then most adult people either deflect from being responsible or look toward others to help them?

[2]Erich Fromm in his book “Escape from Freedom” stated that we all want freedom, it is our right to be totally free but deep inside our unconscious we are afraid of freedom. One reason is that with freedom comes responsibility- that is- we must respond to our decisions and live with the consequences of our free decisions. We need to deal with our environment and all the shifts that come with it.

The other reason of fearing our freedom is that we must face those consequences coming forth but we are afraid of what may happen if we take on board those consequences. So it is easier to deflect, play victim, (‘poor me’), play manipulation games and thus diminish our self-esteem and our ability to respond.

The third reason is that our past is a trance belief. Our family upbringing, our culture, religious dogmas, education the media and knowledge derived from others is so powerful that we keep avoiding every sort of personal responsibility.

Buddha said: “This is the basic truth: that you are NOT. Because you are NOT, you cannot die, you cannot be born and so you cannot be in suffering, in bondage – are you ready to accept that?”

Everybody has a deep sense that we are born and we will die. Life is like a river flowing towards the sea- the final cosmic sea. Everything in Nature has its beginnings and ends. Just take some time to watch the seasons. However humans do not know their end and therefore they spend time filling in with ‘things to do’. When we feel alone, we seek someone to fill that void: a friend, a teacher, a guru and in the West it is usually a therapist.

If a therapist is well experienced and has done his or her inner work, then he or she may begin with a short term contract with the client to enable that seeker to learn how to recognise their inner capabilities to live well and accept that one is alone. Then the inner work will begin.

Alejandro [3]Jodorowsky (we reflected about his work in a previous blog) writes about the necessity to ‘learn how to die’ by abandoning fear and begin to enter in the process of inner change. Just like Buddha encouraged his disciples to surrender, to let go in order to be able to accept the beauty of life and the joy of death.

The next section will examine the techniques of Brief Therapy that I found to be very useful and successful in terms of alternatives to common therapies. Let me know what you think.

BRIEF THERAPY

In the last few blog REFLECTIONS we were able to explore various alternatives to psychotherapy from the point of view of Gestalt therapy theory and practice. Fritz Perls was an excellent ‘integrator’. He adapted ideas from Zen, Psychodrama, Body Work, Art therapy, Psychoanalysis and more. He developed an exiting methodology that is existential, practical and Holistic.

I am supporting brief therapy because in my own practice, Gestalt therapy is, by definition, a brief modality. Over the years my contracts with clients and groups is usually for six sessions, then a revision of outcomes and, if needed six sessions more. It is my own experience that brief therapy, used in a Gestalt context, can be more grounded in the here and now; promote deep life shifts with clear outcomes that are not usually so clear in long term therapy :( psychodynamic, behavioural and Psychoanalysis).

In brief therapy the therapist does not follow the client’s conscious issues or presented problems. There is little emphasis to deal with transference or working through the relationship with client and therapist. Here are a few examples from the work of the great teachers in psychotherapy.

Fritz Perls, Milton Erickson and Walter Kempler are only a few examples of the first explorers of brief therapy. Fritz developed a group style workshop where he ‘worked’ with one person and the rest observed and, at the same time, learned from the client’s work with Fritz.

Milton Erickson used hypnosis and trance inducing stories (metaphors) to accomplish fast and lasting shifts in his clients in only one session. He took painstaking details from the client’s process, noting minimal clues to reach the unconscious and access inner healing.

Walter Kempler , a student of Friz, was known for his Gestalt work with families and couples. He was considerate, passionate and at times ruthless with his attempt to reach the family’s deep conflicts. He would work with a force that would deconstruct the stuck places of each family member and open deep healing resources for the family’s issues. He promoted self-regulating ways of achieving positive results in two or three hours of work. He would carry on for more hours until a deep solution was achieved. Therefore the evidence from his results was the achievement of successful and deep impacts on the whole family system and each individual.

In exploring the work of the three major pioneers of brief therapy, I conclude that no matter how the client or family experience their deepest issues, the therapist, with him or herself as the focus of intervention  selects the greatest obstacle that will be worked on to resolve the deep conflicts within each member (or person) and engages this conflict as a warrior would. Thus, the pain, suffering and denials or deflections of reality, all are confronted and resolved in a shortest time possible in order that the individual can recuperate his or her inner power to go on with life.

Finally, therapists must become aware that clients are much more resilient than therapists give them credit for. This means that all clients have a strong possibility to benefit from brief therapy that brings them to the deep capacity to deal with their conscious and unconscious self.

BRIEF THERPAY GUIDELINES

1. Start to take some small risks slowly. Be clear about your interventions that may not go in the desired direction, experiment.

2. Use art therapy tools.

3. Make sure you have some years of training and experience and supervision in brief therapy.

4. Some deep interventions that reach into the unconscious may surface issues like suicidal wishes, homicidal phantasies, illusions of grandeur and/ or primitive ways of being. You can expect that these symptoms may develop confusion, anxiety and fears in the client. This may indicate a positive movement toward healing old pain.

“To know yourself means to understand that you are the Universe” A. Jodorowsky

 

 

 

 

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[1] David Joseph Bohm FRS[1] (December 20, 1917 – October 27, 1992) was an American scientist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th century[2] and who contributed unorthodox ideas to quantum theory, neuropsychology and the philosophy of mind.

[2] Erich Seligmann Fromm;(March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory.

[3] (2010), Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy, Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, ISBN 978-1-59477-336-5. Jodorowsky, Alejandro (2001).