Has your therapist been to therapy?

I ran across an article in the NY times about client's feelings around their therapist's therapy. While some felt that their therapist would be able to empathize with them more having had the experience of being a client, others didn't like the thought of the person they are coming to for help may need help too. We all have work to do and I want my therapist to do their personal work. As a therapist, it is so important that I stay engaged in my own growth and unfolding- it makes me better at holding space for others.

Creativity

Creativity and Archetypal energy are my bread and butter. Elizabeth Gilbert speaks to the creative process in this video in a way that connects these concepts. I am at my happiest and most jazzed when I make space for the muse with all of her mystery and synchronicity. I know that it is important to to remember our humanity when dealing with such charged, divine, creative energy. Marion Woodman said that at the end of the day, the literary god, Shakespeare, could put a period at the end of the sentence and then go down to the pub and have a beer with his friends and just be little Will Shakespeare. I have been considering the problems that come with confusing the archetypal realm with our humanness.


Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity | Video on TED.com

focusing

I have been in love with focusing lately. I attended a weekend retreat and have been a member of an ongoing focusing group. There is something so healing about unobtrusively following inner experiencing and cultivating a “focusing attitude” of curiosity, welcoming, allowing, and gentle entering into inner body space.  I am learning to focus is on what wants to come. I really get that we have to go at the same pace as the most hesitant place inside of us. The cues about what this pace is going to feel like come from deep presence and attuning. Working with the whole self means that we have reverence and respect for any “parts” that emerge as well as a deep sense of our entire being.

About gestural leads... the body is doing what it needs to get back to that uninterrupted going on being, which means an integrated psyche soma. Following gesture and feeling into the wisdom of that gesture seeks to repair the mind body split. I think this is how to reconnect with the flow of living in ones authentic self. We are alerted to repressed or split off parts of ourselves that need a voice in order to be integrated.

The most valuable outcome of the whole body focusing is the sense of “all of me here” or presence. The body then becomes a safe and grounded support for whatever wants to come. I think of this as love bringing up anything unlike itself for healing. In this way, we are able to contain and work with our own wounding. Containment involves cognitive, physical, affective regulation and also spiritual holding. This is where the cultivation of presence comes in. For me, this means grounding in my body and to a spiritual connection or secure base.

In my own and the work I do with clients, I want to be able to allow the formless to come into form, but my ego wants to do this in the opposite order and be directive or do an intervention.  I have no idea what will happen in the session and my only way of preparing is to get as grounded and present as possible. This kind of awareness makes the room, the client, their experiencing and mine sacred and beautiful.