The Psychosynthesist is a new blog dedicated to all things Psychosynthesis – for those who have a professional interest as well as anybody else. Our goal is to capture the essence and the spirit of Assagioli’s message through a variety of digital media that makes this somewhat esoteric seeming branch of transpersonal psychotherapy accessible to everyone.
As the site develops, our goal is to create a forum for discussion, a place for sharing and growing and a useful resource for all who share an interest in psychosynthesis.
Who Am I?
My name is Robin. I live in London, England, and I’m training to become a psychosynthesis guide or therapist at the world famous Psychosynthesis and Education Trust.
Why This Blog?
Well, for my day job I work in internet marketing and social media. Partly I wanted this domain name to be primed for when I graduate and I need it in a couple of years. Partly I wanted to experiment with blogs and interactive websites as a way of furthering debate in the community.
One Interesting Fact About Me
I am an identical triplet. I am the yougest of three brothers – one is 3 minutes older than me and the other is 8 minutes older than me. We are genetically identical. Such an occurance happens about once in every 8 million births.
Who are you? Where? Thanks.
See above! :-)
Beautiful site, I’ll be back to read more. When do you anticipate graduating?
Thanks for sharing all this.
Cheers
Luce-Anne
Hi Luce-Anne. Sorry not to reply sooner. Still getting my head round this whole blogging thing. To be quite honest, I’m not going to graduate properly until Feb 2012 I think. Seems like a long way away right now!
I have been working with a pychosynthesist for about 5 months. I am also studying Eckhart Tolle books and CDs on my own. Do you think this is a good approach, or am I liable to confuse myself?
Hey Bill. Thanks for your question. It has actually been a really good contemplation for me to consider. I’ll give you my opinion but perhaps others would like to join in the discussion – and they would certainly be most welcome.
The first thing is that there is no such thing as ‘the right answer’. If it works for you, it works for you. What I would say, in my experience, is that the approaches can seem quite quite conflicting at first. You must be willing to allow these contradictions to exist. The temptation to say one is right and the other is wrong can be strong, and as it is with all such contradictions, not very helpful.
In The Power of Now Tolle places almost no merit in looking at the past; for Tolle, connecting to the present moment is all that matters. On the other hand, if you are working with a psychosynthesist or ‘guide’ there will inevitably be a fair amount of work with your lower unconscious – a.k.a. the past. However, despite this I still don’t believe that the two are in any way incompatible.
Tolle, or his ‘followers’, might suggest that any type of psychotherapy is merely self indulgent whining. Or that it is about blaming others rather than taking responsibility for our own lives. This is a basic misunderstanding that I would like to put right – at least in my own opinion.
I would say that authentically engaging with a psychosynthesis guide is very much about taking responsibility for yourself. If we do not have the courage to look at our own shadow, to shine a light on what is for us, how can we take responsibility for anything?
Another point is that once you have brought various parts of your repressed unconscious to your awareness, worked with them, released some of the emotion that has been festering away and generally had a good clean up, psychically speaking, you will actually find it so much easier to genuinely practice the very techniques that Tolle talks about in his book. In fact, a mindful awareness of the present moment will quite naturally become your everyday experience. Without this self knowledge, it becomes very difficult to hold onto that mindfulness once we really engage with the world and get caught up in the day-to-day activities of life.
I would also say that the dispassionate mindful approach is exactly what you do need when really looking at yourself. So – take Tolle’s techniques and apply them to your own psychosynthesis process. They are great for enhancing your awareness and engaging authentically with your own psychosynthesis. In fact, when you look at it from this perspective much of what he says is very similar to the writings of Assagioli. I am thinking particularly of the Act of Will.
There is no truth except your own truth, and that IS the truth!
Hi Robin
What a great initiative, we really need more of this kind. I guess you now all about the yahoo-forum, but I find your design very appealing.
I will start follow the debate and perhaps join in. I have also just graduated from the Trust (MA in Psychosynthesis) and you can read the thesis here: http://www.psykosyntese.dk/a-198/
All the best – Kenneth
Hi Kenneth. Thanks for you kind words. I have downloaded a copy of your thesis. It looks very interesting indeed. I’ll be reading it shortly! Best, Robin