normality and achieving (returning to) wholeness. We might call this phase of transformation progressive, evolutionary growth into self-actualization. We transcend the limitations of generally accepted ordinary reality. We release the attachments to people and things that keep us captive and limited and work toward karmic liberation, clarity of psychic vision (listening to and following the quiet, infallible inner voice) and reaching the highest expression of love in the surrender of the ego to the will of God. The ultimate goal is a life of moments so balanced and conscious that one maintains equanimity, composure and spiritual focus even at the moment of death.
People usually seek therapy for quick solutions to immediate problems. Perhaps they have an addiction or anxiety or a relationship issue which they know they need to address. Unfortunately, therapeutic treatment is symptomatic and can often result in symptom replacement.
Healing, on the other hand, requires an in-depth look at what life is about, the purpose and meaning of existence and how to more fully express oneself in this lifetime. In healing work, we recognize the interconnectedness of the whole person. We go deeper, to the level of early trauma, and resolve what was left unresolved. We know that true healing clears up the problem, symptom and cause, leaving the person healthy and prepared to fight off future infections, be they physical or emotional.
In transformational work, we see the symptom as a clue to the deeper spiritual issue with which the person is involved. The symptom can actually lead through the deeper emotional work, clearing out ego issues that block spiritual connection. For example, a person who is continually upset with his/her relationship partner is so preoccupied with these projections that it prevents him or her from looking deeper at the real source of the hurt and anger.
A hindrance to transformation is the support we may receive to not change. The process of transformation often results in estrangement from those who have been our companions in ordinary life. As we develop new insights, new interests, new life scripts and life goals, those in our companionship circle who haven’t changed in a like manner are no longer able to effectively support us. They may even try to sabotage our growth in a new direction, and support us to turn back to the old ways. This is especially common with relationships that have involved addictions or other behaviors designed to keep us numb and asleep.
However, we can create healthy community, a network of new companions, like-minded and supportive of our newly expanded perspectives. This is a community of seekers on the same path who value consciousness over unconsciousness. After spending time with people who share our souls on the deepest levels, it is difficult to go back to cocktail parties and idle chit-chat. It becomes boring to spend time with people who are not honest about their feelings and are still highly involved in feeding their hungry egos.
ACHIEVING OUR ULTIMATE POTENTIAL
Uncovering these unconscious conclusions and decisions is important not only to repair damage caused by traumas in early life, but also in resolving any obstacles to achieving our ultimate potential in life. One of the most important breakthroughs in Western psychology has been the discovery that psychological maturation can continue far beyond our arbitrary, culture-bound definitions of normality, and that techniques exist for realizing our expanded potential.4
Abraham Maslow said, “What we call normality in psychology is really a psychopathology of the average, so undramatic and so widely spread that we don’t even notice it.”5 Normality is a form of arrested development, where the developmental process has stopped prematurely, incomplete.6 The work of developing ourselves into our full potential is personal transformation.
We have all experienced moments of transcendence, induced by religious ritual, a peak experience, hallucinogenic drug, meditation, near-death experience or other means. This experience provides a “glimpse” of the vast possibilities beyond normal everyday consciousness.
Many people now see development beyond normality as the logical culmination of human development. In the first phase of life, from childhood to middle adulthood, we are becoming individuals, learning to meet the demands of family, work and society. In the second phase, which begins, according to Carl Jung, with the “midlife crisis,” we begin to turn inward, to reconnect with the Self, the center of our beings. In the first phase we built and developed our egos and in the second phase we transcend them.7
DREAM WORK AND PSYCHODRAMA
In our practice we use dream work and psychodrama, two specialized techniques which are adaptations of hypnotherapy. Psychodrama provides an opportunity for the client, in a group therapy setting, to structure his/her internal psychic reality externally and to interact with the representation created. The person whose story is being enacted selects other group members to play the roles of characters in the psychodrama, perhaps his boss, his spouse or his parents. We might also represent his fear, his courage or the feeling of isolation by having a group member play that part. Subpersonalities or shadows can be enacted in psychodrama very effectively, providing clients with a fresh viewpoint of themselves. The identified client has entered a hypnotic trance state, similar to a dream state or to the state one is in while in hypnotherapy, which adds to the intensity of the lived experience.
Psychodrama is highly effective because it is experiential; it taps deeply into unconscious material, it is corrective and it is a group process. Psychodrama allows an internal experience to be externalized and experienced from a new perspective. For example, the impact on a client’s life of overwhelming responsibilities is immeasurably more powerful experienced in a physical way than it is merely discussed verbally and known cognitively. We might place something heavy on the client’s shoulders to let him really experience how burdensome the responsibilities have become. “Give that heavy burden a voice. What is it saying to you?” Then we have words to correlate with his experience of the heaviness on his shoulders. Also, we concretize experience visually, kinesthetically and viscerally. For example, a family sculpture (a technique popularized by Virginia Satir), with family members placed physically in relation to each other, could demonstrate visually how distant the antisocial brother is and how clinging the oversolicitous mother is.
Psychodrama helps to access the deep unconscious, engaging the body kinesthetically and activating body memories, which take us like sonar to early traumatic experiences or other deeply-held unconscious material. When an individual is in the actual physical posture or movement that accompanies a traumatic reaction, it becomes more palpably real. We might assist a client, whose tendency is to want to withdraw in the face of conflict, to express it by physically walking away from his scolding spouse. Then he is confronted in a visceral way with the isolation and loneliness that he also wants to avoid. We can help him to walk into his relationship with his wife and to withdraw from her as many times as it takes for him to realize that he needs to find a new solution, something he hasn’t tried before.
Psychodrama is corrective because in it we can re-write history. We can react differently than we did originally, saying what we couldn’t then, protecting what we couldn’t then and setting much-needed boundaries. A client can see the abused child who was him/her sympathetically, contrary to the judgments and shame which have filled his/her self-experience ever since. This correction often takes the form of re-working missed developmental stages. The corrective experience encourages the client toward re-experiencing the old, unsettled conflict, but with a new ending.
Advantages of group work include the efficiency of benefit to multiple group members of one member’s session. Often, the participants who play roles in a session or those in the non-participating audience find their issues getting triggered during someone else’s session. Also, participants benefit from the modeled social learning provided by observing other members’ coping strategies, resilience and triumphs.
Dream work is an ideal way to access the deep unconscious. In our dreams, the lowest
