Psychotherapy And Self - Realization

If psychotherapy isn't only about relieving symptoms or diminishing overall or specific distress, what else might it be capable of? In the spirit of an integrated approach to well being and to happiness, psychotherapy can also be a process of spiritual awakening, of Truth seeking, and of Self - Realization. Any insight oriented or awareness based approach to therapy is, by definition, a process of finding the truth behind appearances, of exploring the unconscious or the hidden, and of relying on these discoveries to promote healing and happiness. The Truth will set you free, if it is recognized, appreciated, and properly integrated into one's psyche and one's life.

The search for meaning; for understanding; for self knowledge; for wisdom.......all of these classical endeavors are inherent in the exploratory therapeutic process. It's no leap at all to recognize the potential for a path to self realization within this process. The actualization of this potential depends on the client's intention and desire, and on the therapist's understanding and ability.

This is one of those instances where the skill of the therapist may include the ability to guide the client along the path of self inquiry, and the ability to help the client make important and fruitful connections linking the psychological, emotional, cognitive and spiritual dimensions of self. In order to avoid the pitfalls of "spiritual bypass" (a condition wherein there is some genuine spiritual achievement, while a lack of integration of this achievement remains active, thus creating both internal and external imbalance and distress in thinking, feeling and behavior), the process of psychotherapy as Path includes the means for integrating, balancing,and harmonizing advancement and development across all dimensions of self.

Clearly, not everyone who enters therapy will be either aware of or interested in this potential in the process. For those who are either aware or interested however,
the rich soil of possibility, along with the skill of the therapist/gardener, may yield a surprisingly abundant harvest.















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Relationship Intimacy: Making A Real Connection

Here's an example of the sensitivity, the awareness and the insight required to make a real and intimate connection with another: a married couple is working with me because they are aware of certain differences and stresses and conflicts in their new union that are presenting problems for them. We talk a lot about more effective communication of course, and about strategies for increasing the feeling and the experience for both of them of being connected, rather than so much struggling with conflict and anger and frustration.

One of the issues between them has to do with the kind of order created in their house. For her, certain kinds of order and cleanliness are extremely important. This gives her a sense of safe-haven. For him, these concerns rank about 5 on a 1-10 scale, so the priorities are very different for each of them. In the course of exploring the importance of being able to learn how to value and accept each others different realities - not agree with, but accept the real differences - as a basis for negotiating a compromise, it became clear that this idea was very distressing for her. Somehow, it was not ok to accept his experience. No. What he valued and wanted was unacceptable. It had to be her way.

We continued to explore the meaning of this vehemence, in what, on the surface, would seem to be a rather banal, and therefor manageable difference. But it wasn't.
Turns out that compromising in this area in particular would mean, for her, losing the symbols around her of how far she had come from the very painful, chaotic, frightening and humiliating experience of childhood poverty - an experience that she wants never to come close to again.

The feelings involved in what appear to be a simple and very mundane set of circumstances reveal a much deeper and more powerful set of experiences and motivations for one's behavior, and in this case, for one's insistence. Learning how to tune into this level of experience and feeling, how to be sensitive to "what's really going on" behind the obvious, becomes a crucial set of relationship skills, both within oneself, and between partners.

The outcome of this insight in session was that she could much more clearly and surprisingly understand where she was coming from, could enter into the feelings of vulnerability that were being aroused, and he could, now also understanding the real meaning behind her inflexibility, and witnessing her vulnerability, offer equally real nurturance and support. A true connection had been made, where previously there was only conflict and bad feelings.














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Contemplative Psychotherapy Intro

Contemplative psychotherapy is defined, at least on the official Contemplative Psychotherapy.net website that I show on, as a blending of Buddhist awareness practices with Western psychotherapy. The term "mindfulness" has achieved a lot of currency in the last 20 years or so, what with Dr.Jon Kabat-Zinn's work on mindfulness based stress reduction, and now mindfulness based cognitive therapy, as well as with the growing presence in the culture of various meditation practices and techniques, and Dr.Marsha Linehan's extensive development of Dialectical Behavior Therapy with its "teflon mind" core, based on her years of practice of Zen Buddhist meditation.

So then, do you have to adopt Buddhism in order to benefit from contemplative psychotherapy? No, of course not. This is not a religion, or a dogma, or a cult that you have to join. It is simply an incorporation into the experience of psychotherapy of very practical and scientifically based attitudes, views and, if one wishes, practices, that have been shown to clearly aid in developing a more kind relationship with oneself, as well as with others. This is important because we now know that, and I have talked about this in previous posts, one's relationship with oneself and with one's experiences is a key factor in how one ends up feeling, and functioning in the world.

Contemplative psychotherapy aims to use the therapeutic process to help the client learn how to accept and love oneself in the best sense of the words, while also learning how to facilitate for oneself the kinds of changes that are desired, and that, depending on circumstances, may also be required in order to live a more healthy and happy life.














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A Simple Clarification

What about second, or third marriages? Or if not yet a marriage, what about the relationship after a divorce which has the potential to become a marriage?

One partner is pushing for the marriage, the commitment, while the other is holding back. This other, the one holding back, comes to see me, presumably to try to gain some insight about the situation. When, after some introductory banter and "reading" of the environment, I ask what has brought him in, he answers: "My girlfriend!" with a chuckle. From here we begin to explore the nature of the relationship from his perspective, some of the history that has led him to this point (they're both divorced), and what his feelings and wishes are regarding entering into another marriage.

Turns out that, on a scale of one to ten, he's at a nine when it comes to not ever wanting to experience again the pain of what he's gone through with his divorce. This doesn't bode well for another marriage with (having happened once, it could clearly happen again) the same potential. He's "committed to the relationship", but "not to a marriage". So is he then committed to the relationship? In light of his stated preference for ending the relationship rather than entering into a marriage, we might have to conclude that he is not?

Sometimes it just helps to talk with a professional to get a little clarity about where you're really at.














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Still Crazy After All These Years

What does it actually mean to be "doing well" psychologically? To be functioning happily; to be feeling good; to be alright?

The idea that I usually encounter is that to meet the above definitions, you have to be some version of perfect. Perfect in experience; perfect in behavior; perfect in thought and in feelings. This perfection takes on different shapes and sizes according to the individual involved, but there always seems to be a way in which whatever it is that they are doing and being is not it, and this in itself is cause for significant concern and distress.

Try this view on for size: perhaps it's not so much what you are being or doing or thinking or feeling that is the entire problem. Perhaps it is at least equally, and maybe more so,how you are relating with the above. So Paul Simon can sing about how he's still crazy after all these years, while he is perhaps able by now to relate more gently and compassionately with his imperfections and his foibles and even with his problematic ways.

This is not to say that one needn't make changes. It is to say that much unhappiness is the result of the self hatred, or self judgement, or self criticism that we perpetuate, and not the direct result, necessarily, of what we are otherwise doing and feeling.

A corollary to this view is that, by developing this kinder relationship with yourself, you then automatically open the possibility of making desirable changes in other areas of your life. This occurs naturally you might say, because this ability to accept and to nurture yourself creates the context in which the basic and fundamental self that you are can emerge; a self that is responsive to caring and to love, and that is itself caring and loving.

You make changes more easily and more gracefully in an environment of love than in one of judgement and criticism. And in the meantime, you benefit from the kindness of yourself toward yourself.
















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The Nature Of Following One's Heart

What is this path of Following One's Heart, anyway? I equate it with committing oneself to Truth, or to God, or to the Real, etc. In other words, it isn't a light, airy fairy, simple or easy thing to do. It is, indeed, the hardest thing one might ever do. If this is true, then it will require tenacity (as one client recently recognized), determination, willingness: to work, to make effort, to face challenges and obstacles, to learn and to grow. It is not, as some would like to convince themselves (and others), a matter of "simply letting go" (which should, by this approach, be experienced as the easiest thing in the world). Oh darn!

One must understand that in following one's heart, it is virtually inevitable that the path will put you in conflict with cultural, family and internalized personal misconceptions, values, lies, and manipulations. Oops. It will, virtually inevitably, be a painful experience at times. Just seeing through one of your own illusions (becoming "dis-illusioned") can be quite painful, don't you think?

This path will be frightening; it will scare you. It will give you access to what will feel like extremes of emotion and thought. You won't understand what's happening to you at times. It is of great help to have a companion along these byways to help guide you. Someone who has traversed the territory and is familiar with it. A good therapist is one possibility.

If you thought that following your heart ought to be easy and sweet, please excuse me for suggesting otherwise. Get ready for the ride of your life.














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I Love Saunas

It's striking to me to experience a repeated set of behaviors on a regular basis, virtually every time I go to use the sauna at our local Community Center in Santa Fe. I love saunas, and have been using them with some regularity for, oh, a good 35 years. I like to sweat, and I especially like the dry heat of a good sauna. I used to, if the opportunity was there, follow the sauna with a cold plunge of some kind. I don't do this now so much. Now I mostly jump into a warm-hot shower and rinse off.

The sauna at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center is pretty large as saunas go, maybe 12 feet by 5 feet, and maybe 7 feet high, with a long bench along one of the 12 foot walls, and a couple of additional benches, at two heights, along the rear 5 foot wall. When possible, I use the highest bench along the rear wall. That's where it's the hottest. But when necessary, I'll use the long bench along the 12 foot wall, and hopefully be able to sit right next to the electric heater.

Here's what happens routinely in the sauna: someone will comment on how "it's not very hot in here today", and then someone else will offer as how it's a good idea to throw some water onto the top of the electric heater so as to create some hot steam. If they happen to have a water bottle with them, they will indeed proceed to do just this, perhaps with a cursory inquiry about whether anyone would mind (with no real intention of letting that stop them, I always feel, unless there were to be a particularly strenuous objection, I suppose).

So this routine has been going on for literally years there at the Center, and what happens periodically is that the heater breaks down - it's not the kind of heater that is designed for water to be thrown into it, or onto it, as some types of electric heaters are, and so the electric elements short out - and then the sauna is closed for a period of some weeks usually, while whatever steps need to be taken are taken to repair/replace the heater elements, and everyone is thereby deprived of the use of the sauna during this period. The management puts up signs prohibiting the use of water on the heater, which go routinely ignored, and has even, finally, covered the thermostat inside the sauna with a wooden plate, since one practice among users is to throw cold water onto the thermostat, thereby cooling it down, which presumably then tells the heater to gear up into a hotter zone. It's all very bizarre, and the cycle repeats itself on into the eternal, or so it seems.

All of this is very much like what people do much of the time within themselves, which leads to one form or another of distress and unhappiness. That is, people behave based on mistaken, inaccurate, and even completely contradictory sets of assumptions, expectations and understandings, expecting a certain set of outcomes which are unrealistic, yet continuing to do the same mistaken things to attempt to bend reality to their mistaken ideas, rather than troubling to learn the ways of reality as it applies in the circumstances, and adapting expectations and behaviors accordingly.

If you don't understand the functioning of a dry sauna, and expect it to behave as if it were a steam room, and if you don't allow enough time for the dry sauna to function as it is meant to do, and if you are expecting it to do its magic on you in the 5 minutes you can spare, for example, then you will inevitably and forever be a disappointed sauna user, and you will wander off into the wilderness of your erroneous ideas never knowing what the actual problem is. All the while the sauna will be working just as it should, and you will continue to believe that it is faulty. You will continue to blame the apple for not being an orange, rather than enjoying the sweet (or sour) taste of the luscious apple in front of you. Sounds simple doesn't it? Yet how difficult it apparently is to adjust one's dearly held beliefs and expectations to accommodate reality.










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