Integral Psychotherapy Group

The group will interact within different formats at different times:



The first format will allow members to bond and interact spontaneously within certain communication guidelines and directions. Attention will be given to what arises within the group as a creative exploratory process that allows for deep contact and group (we) consciousness. We will see to what new levels we can “transcend and include” as this phase of the group, for the most part, can navigate its own course into new integral territory.



The second format will be similar to traditional Gestalt workshop that allows for individuals to sit in the “hot seat” next to the therapist and do individual work using the group as a larger field of support and feedback, as well as a safe place in which to experiment with new behaviors and new ways of being. Gestalt “Empty Chair work will be one of many creative and innovative techniques used. Other new group formats may be added later such as group meditation and primal “mat work”.



Overall, the atmosphere will be safe, nourishing, gentle, and compassionate. You can risk and open up at you own rate. No one will force anything or come at you with an “emotional crowbar”. You are free to be who you are and who you’re not. There is room for the “forbidden” unacceptable parts of yourself. There is room for both libido and Thanatos. There is room for all your points of view and feelings, from the primitive to the sophisticated.



Again, Your best bet is to call Dr Carr if you want to know exactly how the group will work or need clarification about anything.



(Legal Disclaimer: Dr. Carr’s legal role as a Licensed Psychologist is kept entirely separate from his role a remote viewing instructor. The current paradigm in clinical psychology does not allow for psychologists to make any claims or do any practices that are not scientifically well-established and accepted in the minds of the current policy setters for national and state psychological regulatory agencies. Dr. Carr cannot make any claims outside this paradigm other than as purely speculative and theoretical and not as a serious part of a psychotherapeutic process. Also limits of confidentiality and “disclosure policies” will be gone over during the group meeting)





Read on if you are intrigued by one Psychologist's "all inclusive" perspective on Integral Psychotherapy!

This group will provide a safe and sacred space to



To be, to experiment and practice being radically and completely:

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real, authentic, congruent, honest, deep, contactful, transpersonal, spontaneous, “translucent”, Enlightened, Empathetic and compassionate (toward self and others)



The goals of the group are:

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To seriously approach what we do in depth
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To accelerate our growth to higher states and stages (particularly stages within 2nd and 3rd tier and beyond)
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To Heal ones deepest wounds, shadow, pains and patterns all the way down to their deepest roots. (emotional, spiritual, cognitive, behavioral, physical)
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To differentiate and integrate polarities and disowned parts of ourselves.
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To break through denial and stuckness on all levels.
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To know what is in front of our face.
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To become fully feeling, fully thinking, fully being individuals.
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To re-instate multi-dimensional organismic self-regulation on all levels.
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To heal shame, low self-esteem fear and “dread of repeat”
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To bring the hidden parts of ourselves into the world.
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To deal practically and skillfully with current situations and problems.
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To risk reaching out as well as reaching in.
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To fully support an in depth Integral Life Practice that acknowledges all four quadrants.
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To move to your next developmental stage (Transcending your previous identities and hidden embedded “reality boxes”)
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To allow for Prototypical experiences
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To develop the neurologic “structures” to hold higher states that transcend and include.
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To use current “triggers” as marvelous vehicles to the underlying driver of past pain.



To further develop skills in the following areas:

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Communication and meta-communication
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Boundaries
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Assertiveness & risking
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Fair fighting
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Risking and experimentation
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Emotional, cognitive and spiritual literacy
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Taking second and third person perspectives etc.
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Meditation
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Metatation: Allowing the organism to select its own process (out of many) to run.
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Expanding the “pre-thought” “pre-habit” window
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Emotional release (and containment) (the full range of intensity):
Crying/sobbing, Anger, Rage, Primaling, Disgust, Fear, “Writhing”

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Emotional expression (the full range) appropriate to both the internal state and external circumstances.
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Critical thinking and “thought formation”
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Sympathetic and parasympathetic management
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Developing and sharpening of all the gross and subtle (not talked about) senses: Including:


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The sense of: Making sense, Being, Reality, Perspective, Presence, Truth, Perception, Figure-ground, Identity, Self, Groundedness, Meaning, Future-past, Honesty-truthfulness, Disgust and toxicity, Violation, Pain-Discontent, Joy and Pleasure, Confidence, self-trust, We, Balance, Logic and contradiction, “Non-locality”, Space, Discernment and differentiation



Specific Integral Concepts:



We approach Integral more as a space we naturally can come from much more than a group of concepts we try to go to. Otherwise we risk creating "shoulds" and "overlays" on top what is actually there, and on top of who we actually are.

AQAL (all quadrants, levels, lines, types etc.) is a powerful "map/cookie cutter" that doesn't seem to cut against the grain. However, like any map, it should not be held on to too tightly . After careful study, it should be let go of from time to time to develop an innate sense of the lay of the land. By letting the map go it re-emerges to us in a more accurate form. By holding on to any map we risk creating "analytic overlays" and dogmas that cover what is actually there and unfolding and evolving.. For example, just the word and concept "all" does not and cannot capture what "all" actually is, and what "all" is actually evolving to be.

We will incorporate (and sometimes challenge) extended integral concepts of:

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Spirituality, Shadow, Integral life Practice, States and Stages, The meta-perspective of seeing all four quadrant simultaneously
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AQAL
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All Levels of the Self (the multidimensional organism) including:
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Non-dual
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All levels of Being
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All levels of Spiritual-Nonlocal consciousness
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Cognitive – behavioral
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All levels of cognitive processing
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All levels of cognitive defenses
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Social - family, ethnicity, world
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Emotional
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All levels of emotional processing,
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All levels of emotional defenses
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All levels of pain
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All levels of memory: Birth , Infancy, Toddlerhood , Childhood , Adolescence , Adulthood
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All levels of Identity & personality and sub-personalities
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Body – muscular- neurological -brain
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Cortex, limbic, brainstem
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the voluntary and involuntary,
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the sympathetic and parasympathetic,
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the amygdale and hippocampus
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Non-local – energetic Fields



We will integrate (vs. eclectic “heaping”) principles, ideas and techniques that take from many different sources (such an integration is entirely possible):

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Integral Psychology, Integral Philosophy , Gestalt Therapy, Spiral Dynamics, Developmental theory, Primal Therapy (the deepest release work), Bioenergetics, Radical Honesty, Couples therapy & family systems, Communication skills training, Fair fight training, Re-parenting, Breathwork, Meditation, centering and mindfulness, Hatha Yoga, Qi Gong, dance, Critical thinking & cognitive errors, Non-local consciousness and intentionality (includes remote viewing), "Advanced Beings", Reverse temporal effects, Subtle Energy psychology and healing, Krishnamurti, Zen Buddhism, Meditation, Shamanism, Biofeedback & Stress reduction, Boundary dynamics etc.







For those of you who are hungry for more theoretical models and concepts on consciousness & psychotherapy:

(After all, part of the groups purpose is to promote emotional-cognitive literacy)

Theoretical Models and Useful Concepts: (STILL ROUGH DRAFT)





Awareness vs. consciousness The importance of “Vertical Connection” penetrating through all horizontal levels of defense.



Awareness is a “horizontal” slice of consciousness.:

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It is an “emulation of”
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a “resonation with”
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a “space for”, another process (or meta-process and co-creation) that is experienced as a figure-ground “object” that arises.

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It is also the arising of arising itself (a meta-process).
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When higher meta-process “resonate with” and contain “space for” each other, we are left with the potential space of pure comprehension without a normal object (non-dualistic duality). The everything-nothing figure-ground become “lively” with no left over fragments.
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The eye (I) rests in the fact that it cannot see itself and ceases to look for emulations of itself. The subject-object tension can collapse and that which arises completes itself and self-liberates. (States) Objects arising through higher meta-processes are sometimes but not necessarily experienced as “given”

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Processes and Meta-processes are hierarchical (for example emulation or emulations and resonation with resonations). Larger and larger gestalts can form connecting more and more dots. New layers of neuro-connections are formed through time. (Stages)

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We comprehend an “object”, and on yet another level that “object” itself is comprehension. The most primitive sensations are comprehensions and we get greater comprehensions of our comprehensions, of our comprehensions. When we recognize we “re-cognize” that which has already been cognized.
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Current awarenesses are affected by future events and future awareness. Good research shows that we react to things before they happen
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The world is seen and the seeing is “worlded” both go hand in hand to form a single field and you can’t have one without the other. The seeing is contained within that which is seen. And that which is seen is contained within in the seeing. Also, we don’t have points of view, we are points of view.
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Awarenesses that occur in the “pre-thought” window are the most fertile areas of awareness to expand and explore and to dwell in. An expanded pre-thought, pre-re-cognized window is the most fertile ground for growth because it is much less likely to be filtered by habits, defenses and world views. Cognitive pathology and stuckness occurs when the window closes or is very narrow.



Consciousness is the “vertical” connection of awarenesses which includes:

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Simultaneously (spatially) connecting of awarenesses “and subselves” within oneself (from lower to higher brain structures). “Basement”, “living room”, “2nd floor”, “attic” and all subtle in-between level are all connected and in communication. This is somewhat analogous to the Kundalini energies connecting all energy center or chakras from down to up, up to down and from center to up and down.
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Sequentially (temporally) connecting of awarenesses within oneself (connecting the past, present and future)
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Non-locally (trans-time/space) and transpersonally connecting of awarenesses within oneself, and among other fields of consciousness
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Consciousness is like the glowing ember that radiates coherent energy from and through all its layers all the way from its core.
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The progression of human consciousness allows views from higher perspectives where more “dots” can be connected and larger gestalts can be perceived and greater degrees of resonation and emulation can occur.
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In this model, without the vertical connections, one can be “awake: but not conscious.



Shadow and the Arrest of Growth:



There are parts of everyone that:

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Are awaiting connection and integration with consciousness if an when they move toward their next stage of development
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Are prevented from connecting to by internal and external structures and dynamics
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They have unconsciously disconnected from
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Have never been connected to since birth.
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Most people are not developmentally moving because they have disconnected and are also prevented both from reconnecting and establishing new connections. They are cemented into place.
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Many parts of the self are unconsciously disowned and buried (repressed) under many chronologically laid down layers of painful feelings and memories.
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It is unlikely that the parts buried under many layers can be dislodged by means including “spiritual” means without careful “excavation” through the layers that were laid down on top of them. After all, a major purpose of repression is to effectively keep overwhelming painful content from consciousness so the organism can continue to survive.
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The internal and external “anti-life”, survival oriented, resistive structures, processes, and “subselves” that prevent connection must be exposed, felt, owned, restructured and re-assimilated on all levels of the self.
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There must be an optimal balance of healing regression and progression, “reaching in” and “reaching out”. Old space must be reclaimed and new space must be created.





Repression includes the repression and disconnection of content, capabilities as well as conscious entities (subselves):

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One is not able to “see the flies in one’s eyes because of the flies in one’s eyes”.
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Further, there are likely parts of the self (subselves) that can’t even see through one’s eyes yet.



Repression more specifically includes:

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Repression of Cognitions
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As well as abilities to cognize (“dots” can no longer be connected)
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As well as abilities to even know you have repressed anything
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Repression of Knowledge and information
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As well as abilities to even know you know
3. Repression of Emotions and Needs (especially unmet early childhood needs)
* as well as abilities to emote and experience need. (Also, the effect of repressed emotions on cognitions are vast and deep
4. Repression of Perceptions and subtle senses
* As well as abilities to perceive and sense
* Later on in life, the past "pre packaged perceptions get triggered and "overlay" what's really going on, in ways the seems "given" and real.


There are four lines of defense or fronts against emotional pain. We live in a society that is very phobic toward pain (our own and others). Most pathology develops when our pain and woundedness are mishandled.


Pain from earlier times is stored alone with prototypical experiences and prototypical expectations that unconsciously color all subsequent experiences and expectations. The neocortex can do very little to actually change these prototypes laid down in deeper brains structures. (Although it has incredible power to convince itself it can, which is an amazing and powerful survival skill our species has evolved)



Each neurologic level has a different “front” where stored pain and cognition is “gated” away from direct conscious access. When the defenses at one level (line) don’t hold, the material leaks into the next level and so on up. Various pains become stacked on top of each other at the different levels.



The gated material then only reaches consciousness in an indirect disconnected symbolic way. Direct connection is no longer possible and a false self and world is seamlessly substituted. The deep indirect seamless material arises and is usually experience as “given” even when the cognitive line is highly developed.



Our lives then act out the symbolic meeting of childhood needs under various socially acceptable guises such as (compulsively) striving for success. The symbolic meeting of need does not meet the real need and leads to constant repetition of the pattern. We end up constantly re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic or “decorate the prison walls” with some success, but the deep source of the need and pain is never fully accessed (even through meditation). In reality the basement, living room 2nd floor, and attic of our house must be directly visited and cleaned up.

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The body line of defense (the “basement”) where archaic birth and infant pain is gated away at the level of the brainstem area. Also basic spiritual and non-local disconnects can occur here. Vast undifferentiated spiritual energy can exist here, as well as, a spiritual “overseeing” clarity.

Here is where we experience tense, compulsive and painful somatic energies that keep over aroused, driven and exhausted or under aroused and lethargic. Our world is globally “wallpapered” with this energy and is experience as absolutely given. A child deprived of a caring mother would have wallpaper that felt empty and yet this feeling would be accepted and normal and not empty for lack of other prototypical experiences. In severe cases the formation of the “self” is damaged so the person does not have a “self”.

What happens in infancy and childhood always leaves significant reservoirs of pain that affect all subsequent experience. It’s a matter of degree. The average “normal” person has significant “disability” to overcome with few real exceptions
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The emotional line of defense (the “living room”) where pre-rational affective pain is gated away at the level of the limbic system. Here is where projection, retroflection, deflection, introjection and common everyday “delusions”. Current or recent past drama is “over embraced” with little sense of connections to deeper levels and past events. Current activity, however, acts out past pain. Many people unconsciously become “a past response in search of a present stimulus”. Going into past feelings seems stupid. The world is further “wallpapered” with the denied past as we try to deal the current “straw men” representatives of the past. An adult who doing childhood was deprived of a caring mother would always seek to create uncaring situations in relationships and then try to achieve caring intimacy he or she was never able to get.
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The cognitive level (The “2nd floor”) or rational level of defense where pain is gated away at the level of the Cortex. Here is where things get rationalized. There are often strong defenses against the non-local and spiritual. Rationality and thinking become “over embraced” with no sense of connection to underlying emotion. One becomes a “reasonable” person and develops “hardening of the categories”. Often non-local and spiritual experiences are seen as only irrational and pre-rational even with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Rationality bypasses emotion. A child deprived of a caring mother would rationally justify their current or past situations and circumstances and continually dwell in the thought and beliefs created by their justification.
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The “Meta cognitive”, (the “attic”) spiritual, trans-rational or transpersonal line of defense where pain may be gaited away by more complex structures in the cortex as well as by possible non-local energetic structures. Spirituality is used as a way of avoiding going to the “basement” to directly feel through shadow by deep sobbing etc. Basement pain that filters through is seen as something that can be transmuted. Spirituality can be “over embraced” to “spiritually bypass” or mute pain on the other levels. “Transcend and exclude” can apply. Also self as “object” can be held on to for dear life. Also higher perspectives, spirituality and non-locality can be denied, or distorted by the unconscious pressure from below. A child deprived of a caring mother would “transcend” these painful feelings or transmute several layers of the pain that reached consciousness.

Myths:



Out of these lines of defense come several “myths”

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My world is given to me as it is. I experience the world as it is.
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I am very aware of what is in my "basement" (actually some basement items can take 3 or more hours just to access).
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Only a few trips to my basement are necessary
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There is nothing significant deep down in my “basement”.
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I have worked through my stuff ( a classic)
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All my problem are justified and appropriate to current circumstance
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Deep past pain does not significantly influence my current life and current perceptions
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Pain does not serve and important growth function.
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I can successfully live in one or two rooms of my “house”
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Unfelt feelings don’t lie in waiting to be felt.
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I can transcend my shadow..
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Higher levels of the brain can vanquish the pain stored on the lower levels (e.g. limbic system).


Levels of functioning to be penetrated and accessed during sessions. We all currently have all levels of functioning going on inside us in different proportions; some at times not seen as “objects” and therefore act as subjects.

1.

Mindless “automaton” perfunctory level
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“What others tell me” level (includes role-playing)
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“What I tell myself" level (includes self-propaganda , one thinks and speaks in "read-in-ese" or "Rorschach mode")
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“What my senses and feelings tell me” level (the beginning of corrective feedback and creative discontent)
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“What my pain, numbness and deadness tell me” level (phobic, constriction, knotted, implosion or death layer)
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“Fully felt, released feelings, cognitions and subselves” level (explosion layer) (Bits of unfinished material move through “sold”, “liquid” and “gaseous” to vibrant pleasurable “plasma” states.) new levels of feeling and new subselves are uncovered. This includes penetrations through all four line of defense.
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“The integrated, grounded self” where the new pieces are put together and grounded in feelings and senses.
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The emergence of “the maximally aware and maximally conscious” level. Awarenesses are connected on a layered vertical scale of brain structures from the involuntary to the voluntary to the “trans-voluntary”, from primitive cognitions to meta-cognitions.



“Emulation”, “resonation” and “space for” are producing clear figure-grounds “gestalts” that rest in the fertile void. The “everything-nothing” figure-ground and rhythm is embodied and danced by the whole multidimensional organism. Holonmic “thought-balls” that contain huge number of perspectives and a huge amount of information can be produced by the organism



In therapy these levels (and their resistances) are repeatedly penetrated to intimately 1) “detonate” and feel through past “emergencies” (experienced in the present as dread of repeat) 2) to reach a level of clarity to see there are no real current emergencies (the beginning of outgrowing protective ego identification function).



Every level of functioning and every level of defense has its own appropriate interventions during the therapeutic process. There are many possible creative and supportive interventions that are available at every level. Often sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems can be coordinated in such a way that a “safe emergency” can be created where that which could not be seen, thought, felt or done before can now be done with success.



Keep in mind, Learning to deal creatively and practically with current problems, situations, relationships, support networks, communities, is as important as finishing our past business. Current problem solving is an important as the bringing the parts of ourselves further down on the developmental ladder up with “selves” further up on the ladder. Both must go and in had so that we can progress as well as regress. Reach out as well as reach in.





Health



Smoothness of Flow: The harmony of flow in one’s life when all parts of the self are working with each other and with the environment.
In this case, there are no dominator hierarchies interfering within the self. Every part of the self does what it does best. The heart is not doing the work of the head and the head is not doing the work of the heart etc. Homeostasis is reinstated. One lives one’s life according to what one notices. The organism interfaces with the environment in a rhythmic flow of contact and withdrawal. Clear Intentionality of mind influences the non-local field around the person to optimize the collapse of possibility of events into actuality.