My approach
Psychosynthesis offers a flexible framework in which different approaches can be integrated.I believe that it is important to respond to what is needed at the moment in the therapeutic situation.I sometimes will use dreamwork, Gestalt techniques, active imagination, artwork or focussing within the context of the therapeutic dialogue.
Such an integrative framework is based on a view of the human person as integrating body, soul and spirit. It avoids to reductively 'psychologize' everything and remains mindful of the wider existential context.The soul is equally deeply involved with the body and the spirit.
Spirituality in my view has much more to do with the ability to clarify one's own original insight into the meaning of one's life, in order to live it out responsibly and with full commitment, than with 'peak experiences'.
In other words "Spirituality is the disciplined path along which existence is enhanced"(John MacQuarrie). Such a conception of spirituality is broad enough to include not only religious but also non- and anti-religious viewpoints. In this broad meaning the spiritual dimension of the person is for me the most integrative one which is consciously reflected upon in a philosophy of existence.
Within such an open philosophical framework Integrative Psychosynthesis seeks to cultivate an attitude of 'care for the soul' (Th. Moore) and the soul needs to be met equally in its darkness and its light, in its emotional chaos and confusion and in its quest for living truth.The soul needs image, myth and poetry as much as clear thought, attention to the subtleties of feeling as much as clarification of intention and understanding.
Much more important than any theoretical frameworks is the relationship.
As a therapist I understand myself to have an obligation to refine my theoretical understanding but in the real meeting this ought to be suspended in favour of unprejudiced openness.
Therapy is first of all a meeting and dialogue between two persons in which the task of the therapist is to create the conditions for healing to emerge from the dialogue and the relationship. In this dialogue mind and heart need to be equally engaged.It requires authenticity, empathy and the confirmation of the uniqueness of the other as much as an honest self-examination of the therapist concerning his own 'blind spots' and his willingness to name uncomfortable truths.
I believe that I have a responsibility to continuously reflect on my own preconceived assumptions which I bring to the therapeutic process in order to be as aware of them as possible and as open as possible to perspectives different from my own. I see my role as that of a catalyst for the client to find and live out his/her own truth. I think not so much in terms of pathology as in terms of faithfulness to one's own truth vs. betrayal of it. Suffering the wounds of self-betrayal is an inalienable part of human existence.Sometimes there may even be more existential truth in 'pathology' than in 'normality'.
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