Courtesy of South Pacific Private and Pia Mellody

Let your love flow outward through the universe,

To its height, its depth, its broad extent,

A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.

Then as you stand or walk,

Sit or lie down,

As long as you are awake,

Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;

Your life will bring heaven to earth. 

Sutta Nipata

Therapy can be a really slow road. Some of my clients come in and want me to fix them, thinking that as the therapist I must have a magic wand and I can just wave it and they will be cured.  I have no magic wand. It's hard sometimes having to tell a client that all they can do is keep coming to therapy, and processing, and growing, and learning and crying, and fighting, and letting go and whatever else it is they need to do. Or to try and be aware of the void they have, what's causing it and how to fill it with healthy means instead of with drugs or sex or alcohol or whatever they choose to fill it with. Its such a wonderful thing to witness someone's gentle process of change. And to know they trusted me enough to let me walk the path with them, to witness it all. 

I feel really blessed to share that journey with people. 

I am sitting here thinking about the wide variety of addictions and wondering what the differences and similarities are between them? Take gambling addiction and drug addiction. Or sex addiction v's a shop lifting addiction. All of them offer an escape from reality, escape from having to connect with oneself and feel ones emotions. They are all a means of trying to fill a void within oneself, as the person feels something within them or their reality isn't adequate. All addictions are a creative adjustment which the person has unknowingly created in their world to assist them to cope with something, that otherwise they think they do not have the self support or environmental support to deal with. Pretty smart really. Smart but painful. As the addiction will never deal with the underlying problem. It will never permanently ease ones pain or troubles. It is ALWAYS going to return once the high from the last big win wears off, or the heroin starts to wear off. So hence the horrific cycle of addiction. Until someone is prepared to take a look inside oneself at the 'problem' or 'pain' or whatever it may be, develop a different set of coping skills and learn how to self support and gain support from one's environment, addiction will never be a cure. It will continue to destroy and ravage the persons life, as that is addictions inherent nature. 


Thankfully there is another way. It may seem so scary and almost undo-able but its actually nothing compared to how scary and painful the cycle of addiction is. Its just that addicts know addiction and they are unfamiliar with looking inside oneself and facing ones pain. How could an addict know if they have never done it. I remember a story about a little girl who was being badly abused by her mother. She was beaten and was burnt with cigarettes. When the police and social ser came to take the little girl away someone took a photo of the little girl being carried away by a social worker. The little girl was in tears reaching over the social workers shoulder reaching out and screaming for her mum. See the moral of the story is that even pain is preferable to the unknown. The unknown can be terrifying. But I can guarantee it's no where near as bad as active addiction.  

Bali!

CONFERENCE CAT in BALI 2011- Creativity Art and Therapy. 

March 11 to 16

I have booked in for a 5 day Creativity and Art Therapy workshop that is held in Bali in March. I'm really looking forward to learning some new skills in areas such as:-

Art and mindfulness

Connecting with the self and others using Mandalas

Chakra Mapping with focus oriented art therapy

Dance Therapy

Exploring Family dynamics through art

Aurasoma- using colour as a tool in therapy

Im really looking forward to sharing my experience of this workshop with you!

A Definition of Gestalt Therapy

I see gestalt therapy as a voyage of discovery. We are exploring how a person reaches out to their world, how they respond to their situation and how past and present situations impact up their (and our) process of reaching out in the here and now. We do so while actively engaging in the relationship with the client as part of their situation, paying careful attention to what happens in the dynamic interchange between us. We aim to increase awareness through embracing the totality of everything the person before us is, was and can become. Gestalt is exciting, vibrant and energetic.

 

Written by Dave Man.

Seeing clients grow and learn more about themselves is one of the best rewards a therapist can experience. There is something about watching the journey a client goes through from when they first come into therapy and when they are transitioning out of it. Like watching a ship thats so overladen with cargo it can't sail with the weight. It's on the verge of sinking, and each week in therapy, the client is unloading their cargo bit by bit. At the end of the therapeutic journey, still with some cargo, they leave sailing on the ocean, lighter and with more skills to handle the weight of the cargo and the skills to throw it overboard if it gets too much.