One of the big surprises for me in my journey as a spiritual director and psychotherapist is how spirituality is rarely talked about in the teachings within the different schools of psychology. And yet, the reason why psychotherapy works and is effective is due to the dynamic of Spirit working within its techniques. In this blog, I plan to explore some of the ways spirituality flows into the different psychotherapy frameworks, namely Narrative Therapy, Family Systems Therapy, Focusing-orienting therapy, and Solution-Focused Therapy. The Dynamic of Emergence and Spirituality Part of the reason I believe there is little spirituality talk within psychotherapy is because of the antithesis people see between science and spirituality. If something is spiritual, it is seen as subjective and thus can’t be scientifically studied. Furthermore, the common frameworks that we use to talk about spirit realities are religious frameworks whether it be Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, etc. Science and religion throughout history have not be comfortable bedfellows. If spirituality is going to have any role in psychotherapy, we need a new language, one that is based on experience and not on religious frameworks. The term “emergence” has been one term that I have found helpful in seeing the role of Spirit in the experience of psychology. I first began aware of this term in 2007 when I learned about Theory U developed by Otto Scharmer, a theory used to work at organizational transformation. In this theory, Scharmer highlighted the steps of surrender that an organization must go through before an organization can enter a place of “presencing”, a place where insights and new experiences “emerge” causing the organization to re-organizes around this new vision and experience of itself. I see this process of emergence happening over and over again in my spiritual direction practice, except what is being re-organized is not the structure of a social agency but the egoic structure found within the person’s soul. We, often assume, as humans that we are the controllers of our human experience. We determine what we say, do, feel and experience, and as a result, we think we are the creators of our experience. But that is not totally true. If we pay close attention, we will notice that there are many aspects of our experience that we don’t control. We don’t control the thoughts and ideas that come into our mind. Yes, we can intentionally direct our thoughts into certain directions, but when we are not directing thoughts, do we still have thoughts? We certainly do. Where do these thoughts come from? Do they come from us? Yes, in the sense we receive them, become aware of them, but we are not their source. These thoughts simply “emerge” into our awareness. Our emotions work the same way. We can intentionally manage our emotions by shutting them down or fuelling them by feeding them through the activities we choose to do, but where do these emotions come from? Do they come from us? Yes, like thoughts, we receive them, become aware of them, but we are not their source. These feelings simply “emerge” into our awareness. What about our motivations that cause us to act through speaking or acting? If you pay close attention to them, you will discover that they work the same way too. We can manage or control our motivations through lots of “shoulds” or we can get caught in the addictive patterns of compulsions, behavior structures within our soul. But where do these motivations and longings come from before we manage them or before they become structured into compulsive patterns? These longings simply “emerge” into our consciousness. These aspects that “emerge” into our awareness could be seen as the dynamics of Spirit. Within the Diamond Approach, a sacred psychology, these dynamics of Spirit are seen as connected to the dynamics of Essence. If a psychotherapist is good, this dynamic of emergence is happening regularly within psychotherapy. As the counsellor helps their client open their mind and open their heart and open their will by surrendering to the present moment, the client enters that same place that organizations enter, what Schwarmer calls “presencing”. It is in this place of presencing that emergence happens, when a client receives a new insight or experience that causes a transformation or reorganization within the egoic structure of the client’s soul to happen. Every time, we see emergence happening in our counselling ministry, we are seeing Spirit at work. When we understand Spirit in this way, it becomes apparent that spirituality is the secret behind the effectiveness of different psychotherapy frameworks. Let me briefly explore four different frameworks to illustrate how emergence happens in each psychological model. Narrative Therapy (NT) and Emergence A person's life is full of both positive (green circles) and negative (red x's) experiences. Some of these experiences are significant (larger) while others are smaller. However, the way the human mind works, the negative experiences carry more power and influrence in our lives. As a result, the dominate narrative that our mind forms to make senses of our life incorporates many of the negative experiences in our experience, especially the ones that we experienced as traumatic or problematic in some way. This dominant narrative is the story we often tell ourselves and others, a self story that we often believe about ourselves: "this is who I am." People often become identified to their story, that is, their "witnessing I" becomes attached to this story that supports this view of themselves, and often, their view of themselves is negative (the victim, the offender, the sense that there is something wrong with me, etc). To help create space between the client and this dominant narrative, the counsellor helps the client look more closely at their history and life experience with the goal of helping the client see all the 'missing" experiences in their life that are not included in their dominant storyline where they are the problem. One could call these missing pieces the "exception-al" parts of their life. This act of looking beyond the dominant narrative causes the "witnessing I" to disidentify from it. As the "witnessing I" detaches from the ego structure of the "dominant story", it regains its ability of self awareness. This detaching of the "witnessing I" nurtures the process of emergence. Now, the client begins to notice, often to their surprise, their “exception-al” narrative which includes all the experiences in their life that were dismissed because they didn’t fit their dominant narrative, many which are positive. One could say that this is “their God or counter narrative” within their life, As their exceptional or counter narrative begins to emerge and grow, the client realizes that their dominant storyline no longer captures who they really are, another moment of emergence. As our client begins to see and embrace the narrative that includes their exceptional story, they begin to see themselves no longer as the problem or in a negative way. This realization opens up new ways of the client seeing and experiencing themselves, ways that are very empowering to the client. These experiences of emergence and insight are a major reason why Narrative Therapy is an effective approach to counselling. Family Systems and Emergence When a therapist brings family system theory into the counselling room, they are inviting the client to go into the “balcony” and looked down upon their family system, whether it be their family of origin or their current family constellation, or their family of two, the couple relationship. When a client moves into the balcony position, a space opens up between themselves and the family system they are looking at. This mental space, caused by this disidentification, allows clients to see things that are not possible when they are immersed in the dynamics of their family, and thus lost in that family experience and disconnected from their sense of centre. This mental space allows emergence to happens for people are often surprised by the dynamics they begin to see operating in their family without them being aware of these dynamics. This new perspective and the insights that emerge from it often bring new choices and freedom to the client leading to positive changes in their life. Focusing and Emergence Focusing-oriented psychotherapy works with the felt sense and the notions of parts. Every issue we encounter in a life creates a felt sense within our soul and body. This felt sense is made of all our beliefs, associations, emotions, memories, and other dynamics connected to the issue. As a result, the felt sense is usually fuzzy and unclear. Furthermore, while this felt sense can feel powerful and overwhelming, this felt sense is only a part of our soul. Clients often find it helpful to realize that the felt sense of their issue is only part of them, and not all of them. If a client’s felt sense feels too powerful, that tell us, as counsellors, that their sense of centre or “wtinessing I” is situated too close to this felt sense. When this happens, we can instruct our clients to move their sense of centre a little away from the felt sense so it does not feel so overwhelming. From this more objective distance, we can then help our clients interact with their felt sense with questions to see what responses and insights arise. This act of inquiring with the felt sense nurtures the process of emergence for the client and counsellor have no idea what response or insight may arise from the felt sense. However, when insights do arise, they will cause a positive shift in the client’s felt sense that the client will notice within their soul and body. As we work with our clients in this way with their felt sense, these positive shifts accumulate leading to positive changes to our client and their life. Solution-focused Psychotherapy and Emergence Let me end this survey of psychological models with some brief comments about solution-focus psychotherapy. Again, what makes solution-focus psychotherapy effective is the dynamic of emergence. As has been noted earlier, clients are often identified with their problem, and this attachment actually keeps emergence from happening. One of the strategies in Solution-focus Therapy is the miracle question: “if you were to wake up tomorrow and a miracle happened overnight that solved your problem, how would your life experience be different? How would your experience be different in your mind, heart, and will?” When clients are encouraged to contemplate this miracle question, they are forced to dis-identify from their problem and grope into their experience of the solution, the miracle. This groping nurtures emergence to happen for clients often have no idea at first what the experience of their solution would be like for they are often attached to their problem. As they grope for answers to this miracle question, understandings and insights arise, a sign of emergence. When we get clients to scale their issue like their experience of anxiety, this scaling practice nurtures a similar form of groping. “So you rate your anxiety as an “8” where “0” is no anxiety and “10” is really, really bad anxiety. I am curious. If you were to experience anxiety as a “6”, what would that be like?” Again, for a client to answer that question, they will often have to grope inside for they often don’t know what a anxiety rated “6” would feel like. This groping nurtures the process of emergence for the client has to listen inside to their body/soul to see what insights arise. Conclusion I hope by now that you are seeing how many of our psychological therapeutic methods help clients experience some form of emergence. When a client moves to a place where emergence can happen, they begin to receive insights and have experiences of compassion, strength, inner support, power, grace, love, and other aspects of Spirit that lead to personal transformation. For those of us who practice a religous tradition, this emergence in these pcyhotherapeutic methods works very similar to the dynamic of emergence we see in prayer, contemplation, and meditation. Without this emergence that allows spirituality to interact with psychotherapy, no lasting healing or transformation would ever happen. Questions to ponder: 1. Contemplate your life experience. When do you experience yourself as centred and in a place of awareness where emergence can happen? When do you find yourself lost in your experience, story, problem, and feelings, and thus unable to experience emergence? 2. What is the dominant story you tell youself? What is your "exception-al" counter story, your life narrative that contains many key experiences not found in your dominant storyline? 3. When you find yourself lost in your family dynamics or dynamics at work, I invite you to go to the balcony and look down upon your family or workplace place setting. What patterns do you notice? What roles do you find yourself playing in your family or workplace? 4. If a miracle was to happen tonight, how would your life be different tomorrow? How would your thinking be different? How would your feelings be different? How would your motivations be different?
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