Truth, like love and sleep, resents approaches that are too intense. W.H. Auden
This psychotherapeutic practice is founded in the traditions of depth psychology. Depth psychology seeks to investigate the contents and processes of the psyche which lie outside of everyday awareness but which unwittingly motivate our actions and behaviors. It is a way of engaging the deeper self as a compass to guide that which Jung called the process of individuation -- the process of becoming who we were meant to be. Individuation brings with it challenge and the necessary suffering of change at every crucial developmental stage of life. The process of the unfolding of the personality may be desperately sidetracked by childhood trauma, failed relationships, tragic loss, war, identity confusion, career failure, sickness, ageing, and loss of faith or meaning in life. All of these situations are hard, perhaps seemingly impossible to bear, orphaning us from ourselves, from who we once thought we were, and from family and society.
The symptoms of suffering, often felt as depression, hopelessness, boredom, bitterness, anxiety, night terrors, addictions, or physical maladies can also be conceived of as a calling: a calling from the deeper self to enlarge our lives and to push forward to newfound strengths and possibilities. One cannot hope to change unless the meaning behind one’s suffering is explored and understood, thus expanding the boundaries of possibility, and reducing the symptoms of suffering.
Questioning a new way denotes courage. This psychotherapeutic practice supports all who have suffered or who have lost their way and seek a new direction. The challenges of change, of individuation, are hard, but through our greatest wounding comes strength and the promise of renewal and redemption.
