Meditative Psychotherapy

Drawing on the workshop leader's nearly three decades of therapeutic and meditative experience, this workshop focuses on how to integrate meditation and therapy
in one's life and work.

Meditative psychotherapy, my own unique synthesis of Eastern and Western wisdom, uses meditation to quiet and focus the mind – making it open and spacious – and therapy to illuminate whatever you discover. When we lovingly examine the full range of human experience – experiences that therapy and meditation by themselves often neglect – we access our untapped potential for self-healing. Emotional wounds, thorny patterns in relationships and self-sabotaging tendencies become “fuel” for awakening. And the self-reflective relationship of therapist and client (or Buddhist teacher and student) becomes the crucible for accessing and transforming old ways of relating to other people and treating oneself. Meditative psychotherapy not only reveals that we have drastically underestimated our potential, it provides concrete and user-friendly strategies for unleashing our best selves.

Depending on the length of the workshop and the interest of the participants, we will explore some of the following topics:

• Cultivating whole-hearted presence;
• Listening stereophonically – on two “channels” at once;
• Discovering the “silent anchors” and “emotional splints” that weigh you down;
• Using emotional conflicts and wounds for self-transformation;
• Emotionally “composting” fear and anger, guilt and shame;
• Cultivating fearlessness;
• Deepening self-trust;
• The shadow side of Eastern thought and the value and dangers of “non-attachment”;
• Heightening empathy;
• Using dreams for creativity and self-healing;
• Individualizing your path based on what you need to heal and flourish;
• Accessing your deepest untapped potentials and living improvisationally;
• Bringing practice to life, including illuminating and transforming the psychological obstacles to deepening one’s practice;
• Learning how to integrate meditation and psychotherapy in clinical practice.
  

For more information about this workshop, contact me