From No Boundary:
pg. 11: Zen Buddhism: forget, transcend, see through the ego versus psychoanalysis: strengthen, fortify one’s ego
pg. 27: one who sees through the illusions of opposites is called liberated
pg. 28: unity consciousness: a ground which transcends and encompasses both positive and negative… harmonizes and unites opposites
Therapist/instructor: So, how about some of you do some work in front of the group now. <silence>
When I say that are you feeling interested? Nervous? What?
According to M. last week as we tried to figure out how to articulate what it meant that we are transpersonal therapists–that basically the transpersonal means that we view humans as spiritual beings on a spiritual journey.
So, the question is: do I believe that?
Notes following class last week:
The initial session is a chance for the client to get to know the therapist and vice versa. Feeling each other out. The parts that I’m more likely to forget are that it’s about making the client comfortable and building trust. Helping the client to feel comfortable with me.
Bring in the human element: ask what they do, about their family, their work, their hobbies.
Be able to describe my own experience and what sort of therapist I am. Be able to describe transpersonal therapy, if that’s what I hang my hat under.
Feedback I got: I may have come across as too business-like, to0 get-to-the-point, putting my own agenda instead of the client’s (which was to seek support in the session, not to interview me). I see the influence of running a coaching business here–I’m used to a set agenda for an initial session and also have learned the hard way that I need to establish boundaries in the initial session (e.g. show I know how to take control, direct the conversation, interrupt when the client is wandering).
I’m left feeling a bit of “I’m so not prepared for this. Three years of this training hasn’t taught me the skills to run my own practice as a therapist, how to work the ins and outs of managing boundaries and the balance of directing and responding, how to take money, how to build a business, how to make this a life’s work.”
As far as I can tell, it keeps coming back to: if I am present and aware, I can’t go wrong. All roads lead to meditation.
I’ve been reading Eva Pierrakos’ The Pathwork of Self-Transformation off and on for about a month; hopefully I’ll finish it in the next week.
Today, reading about her thoughts on potential and negative motivations. Summary as I understand it: the potential for everything, all things, already exists. It is up to us to realize or manifest the potential. But we can only realize or manifest that which we can conceive of.
(Side note: this is why Fulfillment coaching is so important; it provides the client with the tools to conceive of new and different possibilities, and once those possibilities are conceived of, only then can the client move in that direction).
She points out that rather than acting in a way that brings us toward realizing spectacular potentials, we act in a limiting way because we are driven by negative motivations: the negative potentials which we can conceive of.
For example, I tell LomL that I’m nervous to ask the landlord to let me out of my lease. LomL walks me through what am I afraid of, what negative outcome am I imagining?
It’s true; I stop to think of it and realize I’m nervous because I am imagining the negative potentials that I can conceive of: the landlord will say no, the landlord will be angry, the landlord will give me a bad reference next time I try to lease an apartment, my credit rating gets hurt, etc.
LomL points out the positive potentials that–up until this point–have been out of my conception of what’s possible. The landlord could say yes. The landlord could have been hoping to have someone leave the lease early because he has another tenant lined up. The landlord might not care. The landlord won’t think this is a big deal. The landlord will cut me some slack because he didn’t have to find me when the apartment first became available (I took it over from a friend) and because I’ve always paid my rent promptly.
Brings me to a curious question–what are the negative motivations under which I am habitually operating?
Pierrakos, pg. 132-133:
“… you will find primarily that you conceive of negative possibilities which you naturally fear, wish to avoid, and defend yourself against… the avoidance of a feared possibility implies negative motivations.”
What are my negative motivations, and what possibilities can I not conceive of?
Negative Motivations:
Possibilities that I haven’t conceived of (what if these became my positive motivations?):
I’ve been reading Grace and Grit these past few weeks, which is heavy on story but lighter on theory, so have been keeping fewer notes.
However, started doing some googling today to do a bit more Gestalt reading. Some helpful sites (maybe?)
Gestalt Institute of Toronto, the Theory section
Gestalt International Study Centre – I signed up for their newsletter.
Feedback for me as therapist from TTC weekend:
Don’t lose the fluidity, but infuse more structure. What in coaching we would call “pick a principle and take the client somewhere”. Be wary of being hoodwinked by the client when I let them co-choose direction with me, or when I don’t have them working within a structure.
I am holding this feedback as an inquiry right now, because I’m finding it in conflict with my coach training in co-activity – the client and the coach are co-active in creating the coaching – and in the coaching principle of “the client is naturally creative, resourceful, and whole.” I love holding my clients as creative, resourceful, and whole.
Notes to self: I followed my intuition and touched the client at one point, and again I followed my intuition and shared my level one listening experience of compassion. Both felt like risks. Both felt like the right risks to take.
