About Therapy
HUMANISTIC THERAPIES
Client Centered
Gestalt
Transactional Analysis
Transactional analysis analyzes transactions. The transactions in this case refer to each time we communicate with each other. Eric Berne, founder of T.A., identified three main states of mind underneath all of our transactions: parent, adult, and child. Each of these states is an entire system of thought, feeling, behavior, and body experience. The therapist helps the client analyze how these three mind or ego states interact with each other within, and with the parent/adult/child states of others. Dysfunctional behavior is seen as coming from self-limiting decisions made in childhood for survival; which in turns creates what's called the "life-script." Changing this script to a more healthy, loving script is part of the aim of the therapy.
Part of the goal of our interactions is to obtain strokes - the units of interpersonal recognition. When we are acting unconsciously from dysfunctional life scripts, we engage in certain socially dysfunctional behavioral patterns as "games." These repetitive, devious transactions are intended to obtain strokes but instead they reinforce negative feelings and self-concepts, and mask the direct expression of thoughts and emotions.
At the foundation of the therapy is a belief in the basic worth of people. It is the theory that is at the heart of the wonderful book for parenting children - both inner and outer - "Growing Up Again," by Jean Illsley Clarke, and Connie Dawson.
Longing for meaning and a feeling that life is missing something important often propels clients to seek Jungian analysis. Jungian analysis is a face-to-face therapeutic process based on the psychology of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, MD. A Jungian analyst and a client form a relationship designed to investigate the client’s unconscious and to create a richer quality of life. Clients often begin analysis suffering in some way and participate in therapy until they experience some relief from their neurosis. Frequently, Jungian analysis deepens and clients pursue the profound sense of mature wholeness that Jung called individuation.
Each Jungian analysis is highly personalized, as unique as the individuals who enter into analysis. Jungian analysis utilizes psychic energy, tensions within the psyche, and archetypal imagery. Together, analyst and client work symbolically with the client’s stories, behaviors, images, dreams, and life experiences to identify the tensions within the client’s psyche and to facilitate a transition to a new psychological attitude. Jung discovered that psyche heals its tensions by means of the transcendent function - the capacity of the symbolic to alleviate suffering, transform behavior, and generate meaning.
The Chinese symbol for "crisis" is the same as the one for "opportunity." Whenever we're faced with a crisis, whether big or small, there are two sets of opportunities: that of self-destruction, or that of self-creation. When confronted with something painful, a person may get trapped in depression and addictions; or they may see the event as a "sacred catastrophe." It is sacred because it is an opportunity for the person to wake up to their deeper, truer self. The difference, in the Self-Relations view, depends on "sponsorship:" According to Stephen Gilligan, creator of Self-Relations: "Sponsorship is a vow to help a person (including one's self) to use each and every event and experience to awaken to the goodness and gifts of the self, the world, and the connections between the two. Self-relations suggests that experiences that come into a person's life are not yet fully human; they have no human value until a person is able to "sponsor them.
…However, any experiences or behaviors that arise that are neglected, ignored, or cursed by the person or community remain in their pre-sponsored, "not quite ready for prime time" state. They repetitively assert themselves, looking for the human presence that will sponsor them and thereby allow their positive value to become apparent to self and community. But if each time they are rejected anew, they become increasingly troublesome and antagonistic to the person and the community."
Thus, for Sharon, her shyness is in its pre-sponsored state. It has a gift for her, but she will not be able to experience that gift, until she can begin to open herself up to what is thought of as her neglected self. By establishing connections between her neglected self and her competent self, the part of her that carries her shyness will experience sponsorship, and the positive gifts will be experienced. A common example of this is when a parent comforts a child who is afraid of a monster underneath the bed - the parent reassures the child, giving the child sponsorship, and thus the deeply feeling, tender parts of the child can come forth in safety and security. By opening up to her shyness, Sharon would find a path to the strength of the indestructible "tender soft spot" at the core of her being.
In the course of her therapy, the therapist serves as the skillful human presence offering sponsorship in the beginning. It is the goal of Self-Relations therapy that Sharon would learn how to do this sponsorship for herself.
To sum up, in Stephen Gilligan's words:
"The basic position is life is coming through you, and it's bringing you everything you need in order to become a human being. What people need to learn are some skills about how to listen to it, how to sense it, how to stay with it, how to be guided by it, while also giving it some form."
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