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Description of Page : Describing the work of psychosynthesis counselling, a psychosynthesis counsellor - full description of Phoenix Counselling Service here |
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Psychosynthesis - A Transpersonal Approach to Therapeutic Counselling. Psychosynthesis is a Transpersonal approach to therapeutic counselling, which means that it includes spirituality — in the sense of 'something bigger' — as well as psychology. A psychosynthesis counsellor is familiar with and trained to work with 'big questions' as well as everyday issues, and can help you develop particular potentials, such as intuition, creativity, or achieve your life purpose — supporting personal or spiritual growth — and is not limited to helping with life's difficulties. This richness and flexibility allows client and counsellor to widen, narrow, or redirect the focus of the work from time to time, tailoring the work as needed to the situation, personality and preferences of the client. Everyday Issues or Big Questions Most of us face everyday, but nonetheless difficult, issues from time to time. For example, relationship break-up, conflicts in family or at work, redundancy and career change etc. These and other factors, sometimes unknown, can cause anger, stress, anxiety, depression, panic attacks and other symptoms, all of which can be helped by various kinds of counselling, including psychosynthesis. Psychosynthesis counselling can help with issues such as these because it is 'integrative' — incorporating elements from several fields of psychology including Psychodynamic, Gestalt, Jungian, and Behavioural, as well as recent developments like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). In addition to everyday issues, many people reach a point where they are troubled by big questions, whose answer seems elusive, or beyond the everyday and for which a specialised form of counselling such as psychosynthesis is particularly suited. Questions such as Why do I feel unhappy? or What do I want from life? or What is my purpose? These big questions can arise at any time, but are often prompted by an event. Sometimes they occur during a period of distress such as on losing a job, after the break-up of a relationship, or after a bereavement. They may also arise following a very joyful experience, perhaps a moment of wonder, awe and acceptance prompted by a sublime sunset, or on holding your newborn son or daughter for the first time. Even a near fatal experience such as a car crash can also be a trigger or wake-up call. Whatever the source, such experiences can be very disturbing. They may leave behind a general feeling of dissatisfaction, or nagging doubts about life and who one is, that do not go away. There may be feelings of pointlessness and meaninglessness, prolonged or intermittent periods of depression, all seemingly without good reason. In extreme cases the crisis may include a nervous or mental breakdown, and an inability to cope with everyday life. Extreme situations may be associated with spiritual awakening, part of a process called spiritual emergency. Symptoms like these can have many causes and so it is important to recognise the origin of such symptoms so that appropriate treatment and support can be provided. Transformation: Distress to Creativity Whether mild or extreme, the client's difficulty in such situations is to recognise the cause, and whether this is in fact a stage in a normal and ultimately creative process or a symptom of something else, for which referral to a medical or psychological practitioner might be advised. An experienced counsellor can recognise the symptoms in the context of the client's life situation, and ensure the client is provided with appropriate treatment and support until they are past the stage of crisis or severe distress. With this knowledge, and the support and guidance of someone who has made a similar journey, the client can begin to open to the meaning of their experience, which is why psychosynthesis is a particularly relevant form of counselling. Psychosynthesis was developed to address areas of psychology that its founder Dr. Roberto Assagioli noticed were not covered by other areas of psychology. He recognised their usefulness for everyday issues, which is why psychosynthesis incorporates many elements from other branches of psychology, and found that the two types of issue are usually interwoven. A psychosynthesis counsellor can help the client recognise whether the root cause is the everyday issue, or when something deeper is happening that requires further attention beyond alleviating the immediate cause — to help understand the meaning of the experience in a broader context. Ultimately the counsellor can help you make sense of your experience and translate what you come to understand about it into practical and positive change in your life. Developing Intuition, Creativity, Purpose and other Potentials The ability to work with meaning and purpose has made psychosynthesis effective for exploring and developing the often underused talents of intuition and creativity, or to strengthen the connection with your deeper self and your highest purpose. Psychosynthesis is not only something that is useful when one has a problem or difficulty but also as a tool for personal development and spiritual growth in the widest sense. An Example of Psychosynthesis at Work As an illustration, suppose issues in relationships lead you to want to work on strengthening your sense of self, improve self-esteem, and help you keep in touch with your own needs when relating to others. If you wanted to do short term work on a very specific issue in this area, the counsellor might work mainly with cognitive techniques. Or where the issue is more deeply rooted, together you could explore its origins, or work directly with your unconscious processes — to help change patterns that are not working for you — and here imagery, drawing and work with symbols can help. These are all everyday areas where the wide range of techniques available to the psychosynthesis counsellor can help. Going beyond this into issues of meaning and purpose might arise naturally as other issues are addressed, or alternatively might be what lead you to seek counselling in the first place. Perhaps as a result of a 'wake-up call' such as those described earlier, or symptoms that are only temporarily alleviated by other treatments that have not addressed the underlying, perhaps spiritual factors at their heart. In psychosynthesis counselling it is important that the client has the opportunity to learn how to get in touch with their own needs, and so what you want to achieve and how to go about this are things that you would discuss with your psychosynthesis counsellor from time to time Mark Hughes Psychosynthesis Counsellor Copyright © 2009 Mark Hughes
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To find us google psychosynthesis counselling, psychosynthesis counsellor |
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Material on this web site is copyright to Phoenix Counselling Service, Dagenham, Essex, 2012 |