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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“Clearly your awareness emanates through your personality, energy and words. Your compassionate understanding allows people to trust you easily, and your manner of expression is easily grasped. So, this is especially wonderful when combined with male ‘energy’. I shall hold your information and writings as a great resource and treasure our connection.”