Psychotherapy

“All real living is meeting,” – Martin Buber

An offering of compassionate presence, psychotherapy is a sacred undertaking.
By reclaiming thoughts and feelings screened from awareness and integrating disavowed aspects of the self, we not only create a more expansive personal identity, but direct our attention beyond concern with the ego, towards relationship with one another, with our community and with the environment that sustains us.

Psychotherapy addresses such manifestations of psychological malaise as tension, anxiety, low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence as well as “acting out” behaviours such as addiction.

Among the psychodynamic therapies are various traditions. Dealing with the drama of early infancy and childhood development, Freudian or Kleinian psychoanalysis and Object Relations schools pay particular attention to the effect of early childhood experience and upbringing in engendering inner conflict. The process of making the unconscious conscious, it is believed, enables infantile fixations to be jettisoned and deep personal change to take place. The therapist acts as facilitator and the quality of the client/therapist relationship is pivotal to the outcome, with the therapeutic alliance serving as a safe container for any emotional turmoil that may arise.

Humanistic and Existential schools emphasise questions of meaning and the living of an authentic life. Jungian and Psychosynthesis approaches are concerned with the integration of disowned aspects of the psyche and with maintaining a healthy relationship between the ego and the spiritual centre of being, referred to by Jung as the Self and by Assagioli as the Higher Self. These latter perspectives emphasise the transformative potential of suffering.

In contrast to the psychodynamic therapies, cognitive or cognitive/behavioural therapy (CBT) deals with the present and the conscious mind and involves consciously changing self-defeating attitudes, thoughts and behaviour. Goal-orientated and focused on problem-solving, it is usually offered on a short-term basis. Cognitive and Eastern approaches fuse in Mindfulness-based CBT.