Video Talks on Therapy and Spirituality

All videos are in mp4 format, with other formats to be added shortly.

An Introduction to Therapy and Spirituality
Therapy and Personal and Spiritual Fulfillment
Why People Turn to Therapy
Who Can Benefit from Therapy?
How the Therapeutic Relationship Heals
What We Need for Inner Work to Flower
Therapy, Loneliness and Aloneness
How Therapy can Help with the Stages of Life
Group Therapy and Healing Early Relationship Issues
Understanding Personal Change in Therapy and Inner Work
Resolving Personal Issues as Part of Spiritual Development
Inner work as a Conscientious Response to Global Problems
Real Inner Change and Real World Change

An Introduction to Therapy and Spirituality

If we are seeking deeper solutions to our personal problems, then spirituality—whatever word we use to describe it—is the kind of depth we have to go to. At their most fundamental, our problems in life are spiritual problems. Through combining psychotherapy and spirituality we have the opportunity to work through unresolved early issues and to confront the human mystery.

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Therapy and Personal and Spiritual Fulfillment

Western psychology and psychotherapy gave rise to the Human Potential Movement in the 1960s, which stressed our personal responsibility for well-being and for fulfilling our human potential. This approach in turn gave rise to psycho-spiritual psychotherapy, which recognises our need for spiritual fulfillment. This need for a transcendent experience is seen in all forms of art and in thousands of years of religious impulse.

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Why People Turn to Therapy

Relationship difficulties, strong emotions like anger, pain, fear, and spiritual longing—the desire for something deeper than the world of appearances—can be catalysts that stimulate inner life. Therapy at its deepest offers guidance for the inner journey which will lead us to our true nature.

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Who can Benefit from Therapy?

Those who experience personal disappointment or crisis through the stages of their lives can benefit from counseling and psychotherapy. As can those who wish to address the source of their concerns, or seek an alternative to medication. Therapy can also offer guidance to those who wish to embark on the inner journey to realize their true selves.

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How the Therapeutic Relationship Heals

The therapist creates a receptive “empty space” and receives the client's inner world of emotions, experiences, thoughts and feelings uncritically. In the process of sharing and listening within this space, healing takes place: these inner experiences are “offered up” to make way for new life.

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What We Need for Inner Work to Flower

Inner work requires outer support and skilfull guidance. By breaking old habits we are able to relate authentically to others and to the outer world. By shedding the confines of our personalities we become our authentic selves—this is the flowering of inner work.

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Therapy, Loneliness and Aloneness

Therapy may address loneliness, but aloneness is a part of the human condition. We cannot change this, but therapy can help us to feel easier with being alone with our thoughts, feelings and experiences.

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How Therapy can Help with the Stages of Life

Unenlightened contemporary culture ignores the rituals of maturation and illumination. In many other cultures, older people shared their wisdom and experience to help younger people through the different stages of their lives. In therapy, we can share and deepen in our understanding of these stages of transition.

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Group Therapy and Healing Early Relationship Issues

In group therapy it is common to project early family relationships on to other group members. The transference is often reciprocal. With the tacit agreement to heal, group work provides a special opportunity to recognize these issues and enable inner healing.

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Understanding Personal Change in Therapy and Inner Work

Personal change is often misunderstood in inner work. We are always changing. By “getting out of our own way”—being less fixed—we can transform and evolve from moment to moment. Our freedom lies beyond fear, in trusting and surrendering to life.

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Resolving Personal Issues as Part of Spiritual Development

However much we may wish to change spiritually, we cannot have spiritual experiences just because we want to. Very often we may feel we are thwarted by unresolved issues from early life. Exploring personal psychology is therefore often a necessary preparation for the spiritual path.

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Inner Work as a Conscientious Response to Global Problems

Therapy and inner work are vital in dealing with global issues in the 21st century. As Human Beings we continually create our world. By taking responsibility for healing ourselves within, we take greater responsibility for the outside world.

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Real Inner Change and Real World Change

If we want to bring about real change in the world and take deep responsibility for our influence on the planet, the place to start is within. We usually need help to do this inner work, free from its associations with illness or pathology. Wise mentoring provides such guidance, cultivates our natural inner abilities, and orients us to the inner and outer world.