Since I began studying psychotherapy in 1966, I’ve noticed that therapists generally fall into two categories — theory-driven and practical-change driven.
Depression is the great deceiver
There is four times the rate of depression now than in 1987. We’ve essentially been doubling the amount of depression in this country for each of the last three generations.
Even considering an increased tendency to diagnose depression now than in previous years, this emerging 21st century culture is clearly not particularly conducive to happy care-free lives.
Deeper Consciousness Means More Responsibility
In my book, Waking Up, I maintain that Integral psychotherapists cultivate compassion and depth of consciousness to co-create healing cultures with their clients. Depth of consciousness means understanding people within the many contexts of their lives, including the altitudes they typically inhabit on a variety of developmental lines like the self, interpersonal, parenting, morals, psychosexual, and integration-of-defenses lines. With deeper consciousness in my clients and myself comes felt responsibilities to help all those contexts, but with varying degrees of urgency.
Coaching and Psychotherapy
I’ve looked with interest at the rise of coaching as a discipline over the last twenty-five years. I love the movement and admire all the men and women who are called to help others in their lives. People are by nature social, and everything we do, any developmental progress we make, involves intimate connections with other people, and we all do better with wise guidance.
Integral psychotherapy is redefining psycho/spiritual/physical healing in the 21st century
Integral theory is a meta-theory that creates a scaffolding within which all other theories are organized. Integral psychotherapy is any therapy that takes into account a global understanding of the Kosmos. Objective/subjective, individual/collective, states of consciousness, lines of development, stages of development, spiritual/temporal, and types of individuals are core dimensions of Integral understanding. Any healing approach that practically utilizes these perspectives as cross-validating, mutually influencing forces is by definition Integral psychotherapy.
The (Positive) Power of Shadow
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.” – Carl Jung In a U.N. study, people rated happiness as more important … Read More
Intimacy and Evolution Are Relational
I believe that humans—using conscious focus and intent—extend energetically even farther into direct communion with fields of subtle energies that comprise all knowledge and form in multiple dimensions. It’s all relational, it’s all evolution constantly progressing, and it all leads to human self-aware consciousness joyfully expanding.
The Physics of Mood
We all want to feel better. Sometimes, this can happen instantly with insight, attention, loving acceptance, or shared understanding. But more often than not, feeling better takes time.
I call this the “physics of mood,” because our feeling states are based, to a significant degree, on our hormonal systems. Rage, shame, terror, and high anxiety create endocrine baths in our bloodstreams that often don’t instantly disappear when we address them.
Dealing With Panic Attacks
Panic attacks are not much fun. Hearts race, hands sweat, you feel like everything is going to hell, and you believe you are powerless, worthless and alone. Many people mistake … Read More
Amygdala: Our Brain’s Emotional Fireworks Center
Every time I review all this research, I’m reminded how important daily meditation practice–you know, the ten or twenty minutes you can’t seem to consistently find time for–can be for happiness and health.