Psychospiritual Psychotherapy, by Maura Sills
Core Process Psychotherapy is founded on certain principles, central to a Buddhist view of the nature of suffering and, therefore, to how healing occurs. Core Process Psychotherapy is deeply informed by Buddhist principles and practices. The training of psychotherapists within the Karuna Institute pivots on these principles and focuses on the inner abilities of the therapist to transform her own arising thoughts, feelings, body sensings and subtle energetic experience. Within this context, it is seen that therapy work is largely psychospiritual in nature.
The practice of psychotherapy is seen as a joint practice of client and therapist within the arising present experience. This is based on a depth of experiential understanding of emptiness within the Buddhist practice. Emptiness unifies. We are not discreet, distinct and separate, but deeply interconnected. Thus there is no individual experience that does not mutually inter-effect "the other". In the words of Ven. Thich Nhat Han, we "interbe".
Another central principle, or experiential view, is that of impermanence. Life is sensed to be in constant motion. In this context, the sense of self, our most basic self-nature, is seen to be impermanent. Our personality system is sensed to be a construct which has no enduring permanence. There is not an ongoing and identifiable self that endures, rather it is seen that we are constantly changing. This is the heart of potential. Nothing is fixed. Processes may become fixated and characterological strategies developed, but all of this is impermanent. Clinging to the sense of I, me and mine comes from perceiving this process as a fixed self-construct, a "me". It is based upon confusion, a not seeing, or an ignoring of the nature of arising process. This confusion inherently generates suffering as we identify with positions, roles and worn out solid representations of an ever changing arising and passing away of process.
A client’s initial breakthrough in therapy may come as they begin to sense themselves as an arising process rather than as a fixed and immutable self. This entails a sometimes very delicate process of enquiry into the arising sense of the constructs and processes which form our self-sense.
The third principle relates to a quality of wisdom, spaciousness and brightness of mind that is free from the suffering created through fear and grasping. It is our Core State. This state is inherent and ubiquitous and to be found in the demented parent, the saint or the child molester. It is sometimes called Brilliant Sanity. It is our most basic and inherent spiritual nature. This may be hard to take in, the fact that, at the deepest level of being, we are all inherently free and sane. It is not that this inherent Health is ever lost, it becomes enshrouded in the mists of our conditioned nature and conditioned process, including the formation of self-construct and self-view. It becomes obscured within the conditions of our lives. Core Process work is largely about reclaiming this inherent birth right.
Given all of this, what does it mean in practice? In such a short introduction I obviously do a disservice to the years of training of the Core Process Psychotherapist. However, this said, there are some fundamental differences for the practitioner.
The practitioner has to first of all have developed the inner skills of being open and resonant to the effect of being present with the other. To invite a vulnerability in themselves which comes from the cultivation of a particular quality of listening not only to the other but to themselves. This can be described as contemplative enquiry based on awareness practice within the context of relationship. Healing is seen to occur within relationship. This is a sustained attention by the therapist, without judgement, to what can be heard from the client, then focusing the attention into themselves, into the effect of that deep listening with all of the senses and heart. Holding the inner experiences contemplatively and allowing spaciousness, clarity and compassion to transform the experience. It is also a leaning in with the ear of the heart into the field of relationship in which much of the subtle material, messages and communications are available.
To do all of this without agenda and to trust the intention of contemplative enquiry as a means in itself of healing and reclaiming wholeness.
If nothing else, this perspective radically challenges the model of therapist-expert, client-sufferer. The therapist can only be an expert in their own ability to be with their own arising process in relationship with, and not to, the other. Indeed it challenges the notion of the other. Personal processes are experienced to mutually arise and to be totally inter-connected. We truly interbe. The deepening of the therapeutic process is based to a large extent on the therapist’s ability to appreciate this mutuality and to work with their own arising experience. It is said that what obscures or holds the client is the therapist’s limitation, not the client’s. The client, through resonance, and the focus on process, also deepens into this joint awareness practice.
The malaise and sense of disconnection many of us are experiencing in relationship to each other, to the planet and to our children, must be acknowledged in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy can no longer be seen as an individual’s journey. The nature of inter-being must be understood by the psychotherapist. The atrophied ability to experience ourselves as part of a whole as opposed to separate from each other must be central. Our ability to abide in silence, confusion, fear and uncertainty must be viewed not as problems but as doorways into mutuality, wisdom and Health. The ongoing sensitisation of ourselves to our human condition is no longer optional. To continue to see the problem, suffering and confusion as outside and separate from ourselves, perpetuates the ongoing splitting and projects the disturbance. It is time for us all to be disturbed and collectively participate in the transformation of all suffering. Thank you.
Maura Sills is founding director of the Karuna Institute which offers a four and a half year postgraduate training in Core Process Psychotherapy. This is a Buddhist based approach to psychotherapy. The Training is recognised by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy. Maura is also one of the founding trustees of the Association for Accredited Psychospiritual Psychotherapists.
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