Therapy Duo

Psychotherapy & Counselling for Individuals & Couples

Category: Therapeutic Method

Articles on Therapeutic Method

  • Therapy as Alchemy

    The Relational Perspective

    Psychotherapy and relationship counselling make use of a wide range of theory and practice that’s constantly evolving. In our own field of Gestalt, for example, current practice has developed from a somewhat individualistic perspective to one that is very relational. The true meeting of the therapist with their client(s) (and how they co-create that meeting) is seen as of paramount importance and is the arena in which healing occurs.

    The Alchemical Tradition

    But let’s also not forget ancient approaches. Other cultures (and our culture at other times) have always had ways of describing and charting how we can inquire into ourselves. One such is the Alchemical tradition that flourished in Europe in the medieval period. While at the level of the physical (turning base metals into gold), alchemy appears nonsense, at the psychological level it’s a quirky, complex, yet often archetypically true attempt to map endlessly complex internal processes and possible human inquiries.

    The Mutus Liber

    One such text, the Mutus Liber (or Mute Book) is a classic from the seventeenth century. The fact that it is “mute” is a hint that it’s the images that are meant to be mediated upon – the book is intended to work at a level beneath that of discursive text, beneath the rational.

    Here’s Plate 1 of the Mutus Liber. Two winged angels ascend and descend a ladder (Jacob’s Ladder) and attempt to arouse the sleeping figure at the bottom. We could see this as a call to the work – to the individual or to the couple to awake from their current situation and begin the process of working on themselves or on their relationship.

    Mutus Liber Plate 1 - Call to Work

    As another example of the processes that can occur in psychotherapy (often at subliminal levels) here’s Plate 2.

    Mutus Liber Plate 1 - Therapists Working

    The winged angels are now holding a sealed flask (a common symbol in alchemy of the container in which the work is conducted). The flask holds Neptune, with two children bearing Sun and Moon symbols. These are said to depict the spiritual forces at work on the subject (the individual or couple in psychotherapy).

    Below, in the earthly realm, the alchemical couple tend the furnace of the work, the male alchemist on the left and the female alchemistic on the right. As Adam McLean* says:

    One interpretation of this would be that these two figures, the male and female partners, are in fact parts of the individual soul of the alchemist undertaking the work. However, equally valid is the viewpoint that the Great Work cannot be achieved except by such a partnership of the alchemist and his Soror Mystica. The idea of the Mystical Marriage and the Chemical Marriage is an important element in the esoteric alchemical tradition.

    Therapy

    To us, this is archetypal evidence of what we already experience in the room when working with couples – the therapist can access parts of their soul at levels that go deep into their own unconscious and into that of the couple clients in the room.

    *Adam McLean’s A Commentary on the Mutus Liber (Hermetic Research Series) is a good introduction to this work.

  • Understanding the Emotional Brain

    The Brain’s Response to Fear

    Last year we attended an ANZAP seminar Understanding the Emotional Brain. This started with a stimulating talk by Lea Williams and Russell Meares followed by a lively discussion on the subject.

    Lea Williams presented some recent work by her and her group on, amongst other things, the brain’s response to fear and its bias towards negativity. Our brains, from current research, evidently need five positive experiences to counter each single negative experience, in order to maintain a healthy equilibrium.

    And the fear response in the brain is complex and exhibits a dual pathway – the so-called “low road” and “high road”. In the primitive low road, the thalamus quickly prompts the amygdala into a fight-or-flight response (say, in reaction to seeing a snake on the path before me). However the slower high road, via the visual cortex, enables potentially a more considered response. (I realise the snake is just a stick.) Brain High Road / Low Road

    Brain Plasticity

    It’s not all bad news on negativity – research suggests that the plasticity of the brain is much higher than previously thought, and there’s potential for retraining negative brains in positive ways. And such positive ways tend to use the high road, rather than the immediate triggering of the low road. This research supports the efficacy of psychotherapeutic practices in creating new ways for the individual to react to old stimuli.

  • Sharing our Vulnerabilities

    Truths in Zen

    We don’t have to be Zen practitioners to hear truths from Zen – particularly when they come in the form of a lovely book like Nothing Special: Living Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck. Here’s a quote from this book that resonates with us and with the work we do with couples:

    I recently heard a quotation from a professional athlete: “Love is not shared pleasure. It is shared pain.” That’s a good insight. We can certainly enjoy going out with our partner, for example, and having dinner together. I’m not questioning the value of shared enjoyment. But if we want a relationship to be closer and more genuine, we need to share with our partner that which is most scary for us to share with anybody. When we do that, then the other person has freedom to do the same thing. Instead, we want to keep our image, particularly with somebody we’re trying to impress. Sharing our pain does not mean telling our partners how they irritate us. That’s a way of saying, “I’m angry with you.” It does not help us break down our false idol and open us to life as a butterfly. What does open us is sharing our vulnerabilities.

    Sharing Vulnerabilities

    Time and time again it’s our experience in couples therapy that when partners share their vulnerabilities the space inhabited by the relationship grows. We feel this experientially in the therapy room, when we (Amanda and Ron) sit with the couple – the four of us as a small group, inquiring into such vulnerabilities.

    Couples therapy can be the “safe experiment”, the place in which the couple can get a real taste of the rewards of vulnerability, can become committed to vulnerability.

    Joko Beck goes on:

    Sometimes we see a couple who has done this difficult work over a lifetime. In the process, they have grown old together. We can sense the enormous comfort, the shared quality of ease between these people. It’s beautiful, and very rare. Without this quality of openness and vulnerability, partners don’t really know each other; they are one image living with another image.

  • The Hendricks and the Essential Co-Commitments

    Conscious Loving

    In their impressive book Conscious Loving, Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks list the core commitments for transforming co-dependent relationships.

    What’s a co-dependant relationship? Well, that’s a subject for a whole other post, but at the moment let’s just summarise it as being one in which the partners have made unconscious agreements – to be less than whole, to limit each other’s potential, to end up with less than what they had before they were together.

    In contrast, in a co-committed relationship, the partners support each other in being whole, complete individuals. They each enable the other to express their potential and creativity; they are each more easily able to access their creativity as a result of loving, supportive interactions.

    So back to the Hendricks’ essential co-commitments. Here is just a summary of their recommendations. (We strongly recommend the Hendricks’ book Conscious Loving, for couples deciding to take this path of co-commitment.)

    The Commitments

    Co-Commitment 1: “I commit myself to being close, and I commit myself to clearing up anything in the way of my ability to do so.”

    To make this statement is empowering for many partners in a relationship. By making it we are already on the road to co-commitment, to clearing up unconscious tendencies to co-dependence as these tendencies arise.

    Co-Commitment 2: “I commit myself to my own development as an individual”.

    Possibly (and frequently), in our childhood and in previous relationships, we have learned that to be in relationship means to limit ourselves, to be less than what we can be. This is a lie. In this co-commitment we state that we will not, to the best on our abilities, engage in this strategy, but will work on being the best we can be in our own right.

    Co-Commitment 3: “I commit to revealing myself fully in my relationships, not in concealing myself”.

    The wounds from previous relationships can convince us to hide parts of ourselves from our partner. In this co-commitment we state that we will no longer do this. When both partners in a relationship are prepared to do this, the effects can be miraculous!

    Co-Commitment 4: “I commit myself to the full empowerment of people around me”.

    In co-dependent relationships there is a secret need for people to be less than who they should be. With this commitment we state that we support the full development of the people around us, including our partner. This is a valuable gift to them.

    Co-Commitment 5: “I commit to acting from the awareness that I am 100 percent the source of my reality”.

    This is a powerful commitment to seeing that relationships cannot grow when based on projections, on blaming our partner, on victimhood. It is a commitment we do well to return to each day!

    Co-Commitment 6:  “I commit myself to having a good time in my close relationships”.

    The Hendricks make the point that it is only in a last few hundred years ago that relationships have been considered “romantic” (in European culture, anyway), rather than merely of survival value. Survival relationships can be grim, painful and difficult. It is empowering to clearly state that this is not how we value our relationships: that instead we take a conscious stand for enjoyment in them.

  • Psychotherapy: Beyond Self Repair and Improvement

    Psychotherapy and Nonduality

    On the subject of psychotherapy and nonduality,  here’s a beautiful piece by John J. Prendergast that includes this summary on the possibilities as he sees them:

    It seems that more people are beginning to have intuitions of the insubstantiality of their conditioned self and of an underlying unity with the whole of life. Some of these people happen to be psychotherapists and clients. So the discussion and direct experience of what we are calling nondual awareness, once largely confined to a small group of academics and renunciates, is finding its way into the life of ordinary people living ordinary, worldly lives. The implications for the field of psychology are important.

    Most psychotherapy aims at helping people have a better story and image of themselves and to be more in touch with their emotions and bodies. There is real value in becoming a better, more integrated, authentic person. It enhances our relative happiness and makes the world an easier place to live for everyone.

    Yet what if our deepest happiness comes through the disillusionment of the separate sense of self? What if the nagging sense of lack, emptiness, and disconnection that so many of us experience, albeit subtly, is an inevitable existential consequence of misidentifying as a discrete somebody? What if a causeless joy and profound inner freedom are our natural birthright, available to anyone willing and able to undergo the pangs of a “second birth?”

    There is an emerging possibility in the dialogue we call psychotherapy to take a step beyond the repair and improvement of the self, as important as this is. Instead of being a step forward, however, it is a step back, a deepening and settling in and down. This movement of attention back to its source in and as unconditioned awareness is accompanied by a flowering of presence, quiet joy, profound peace and deep connection.

    While in principle there are no preconditions for the recognition of our deepest nature and it is not uncommon to have a brief glimpse of it, in practice it is very difficult to sustain this awareness when one’s inner sense of self lacks some degree of stability and coherence. Letting go into the “groundless ground” of Being or no-self can be profoundly destabilizing and terrifying, somewhat like being in a major earthquake. People who have experienced early trauma and/or absent and disorganized emotional attachments (bonds) will often need to do careful reparative work to establish a functional resilience before their system can tolerate such a major letting go.

    Good psychotherapy and disciplines of attention training can play a vital role in supporting the experience of inner calm and resilience. The potential pitfall of trying to fix or improve the self, however, is that it becomes an endless project in itself. After all, what is there that couldn’t use some improvement within each of us? This could keep us occupied for quite some time. As my teacher Jean Klein would sometimes say, “The car is still stuck in the garage.” It is very easy for attention to be seduced and distracted from facing the underlying falseness of the constructed self, even a relatively authentic and well-adjusted one!

    Of course, many people are not ready or even interested in exploring beyond the apparently safe, though sometimes rather miserable, confines of their familiar (and familial) self. This is not a problem. Yet it is important that someone who wants to look really deeply into who they are beyond all stories and images be able to work with a therapist or teacher who knows the territory well enough first-hand. A psychotherapist who is oriented in this way brings the additional capacity to work skillfully with difficult emotional and somatic states.

  • Carl Rogers and The “Gloria” Films

    The “Gloria” Films

    There’s a whole complicated background to Everett Shostrom’s “Gloria” films of 1964, much of which is lost in the sands of time. The three films, as we understand it, were the first time that three well-known psychotherapists worked with a (same) real client, on film – these being Carl Rogers (human-centered), Fritz Perls (old-fashioned not-so-relational Gestalt) and Albert Ellis (rational emotive behaviour).

    Notwithstanding the ensuing controversy over the films, we think the Carl Rodgers piece still looks good. There’s also a book by Gloria’s daughter (Living with the Gloria films), which would make interesting reading, and which takes the story further. (You can pick up aspects of the story in the comments to the videos, links to which appear below.)

    The Carl Rogers Film

    Here’s the Carl Rogers film – an introduction to the half-hour therapy session with Gloria. Watching this we see the ease with which he lays out some of the core tenets of the humanistic approach to psychotherapy – in a way that’s still very current after more than 40 years.

    It’s the part where he talks of the “prizing of the person” that are particularly appealing – an attitude that maximises the chances of real work being done between therapist and client. His initial meeting with the client is genuine, understated, and facilitating of the process. And as the interview unfolds (parts 2 to 5) he appears to genuinely prize this person with whom he’s working.

    The other parts of the session are here: