Imagine being out for a lovely day's hike with a packed lunch in your knapsack, and you come to a small river. You see a rowboat tied up which you sense you may use, and so you throw your knapsack in the boat and row yourself across the river. Once on the other side, you don't drag the boat up the hillside behind you, but bless it for having served you, and release it. Nor do you leave your lunch in the boat. You take it with you because you know you are going to need it.

I feel our shepherding psychosynthesis into the 21st century is a bit like this image. Are there any aspects we now need to bless and release, and others we need to make sure to take with us into the new millennium?

When Roberto Assagioli was asked in a magazine interview to describe the limits of the system he had developed, he replied, "The limit of psychosynthesis is that it has no limits. It is too extensive, too comprehensive. Its weakness is that it accepts too much. It sees too many sides at the same time and that is a drawback." (Psychology Today, December, 1974)

Yet one aspect of psychosynthesis, the model of counselling and psychotherapy formulated by Dr. Assagioli and elaborated by his successors, has become increasingly more clear, definite, and specific, even though its great comprehensiveness, inclusiveness and applicability may sometimes obscure the features which distinguish it from other models.

While I was Training Manager of the Psychosynthesis and Education Trust, London, England, it was very important to me that our counselling trainees experienced the discrete essence of psychosynthesis, free of the common distortion that psychosynthesis counselling is so vague, eclectic and inclusive that it can be anything and everything anyone wants it to be.

Thus all therapists who had our trainees as clients were required to use psychosynthesis as their core model to demonstrate and support the essential elements of psychosynthesis counselling presented in our training and summarised in Psychosynthesis Counselling In Action by Diana Whitmore (Sage Publications, 1991, ISBN 0-8039-8279-8.) Our trainees thereby experienced what it is like to be a psychosynthesis counsellor, with their therapist as a model.

As an aid for our therapists and clients alike, I drew up a list of characteristics of the psychosynthesis model as presented and practised at the Trust to provide a useful structure without setting rigid boundaries. The following strategies, maps, principles and techniques are not all unique to psychosynthesis, and undoubtedly some items which others would deem essential are not included here. They are simply some aspects of psychosynthesis to take into the 21st century and which are offered here to provide a clear and pragmatic answer to the question, "What is psychosynthesis counselling and psychotherapy?"

I also suggest we each find our own answer to this question so that, together, we may create a grounded, secure and enriching environment for psychosynthesis to flourish in the 21st century.

Basic Strategy

• Knowledge and understanding of the personality and its behaviour patterns
• Control and integration of its various elements, such as body, feelings, intellect
• Self-realisation, discovery and nurturing of a unifying centre deep within
• Psychosynthesis, forming of the personality around this centre
• Ultimate synthesis of the personal ego and the transpersonal Self

Maps And Models

• Human organisation and development (Egg diagram)
• Psychological functions (Star diagram)
• Synthesis of opposites (Triangle diagram)
• Identification, including subpersonalities
• Disidentification
• Two dimensions of growth: personal and transpersonal levels
• Self-realisation and psychological disturbances
• The Will

Principles And Practices

• Counsellor as a guide, not an authority figure, cooperating consciously with the client's inner wisdom and inherent thrust towards Self-realisation
• Bifocal vision, awareness of both the Self and the personality of the client
• Acceptance of the client from the perspective of health and well-being, rather than illness and pathology which needs to be helped, "fixed" or corrected
• Planning of the purpose, goal and direction of the therapy and of sessions with the client's active participation rather than prescribing everything for the client
• Scheduling of periodic reviews and joint assessment of the counselling work and the therapeutic relationship
• Evocation of conscious intention: empowering the client and setting goals by shifting focus from presenting problems to their constructive resolution
• Enabling of the client to learn how to deal with issues as they arise rather than fostering dependence on the counsellor
• Holding of a transpersonal context which reframes, illuminates and gives meaning to the client's issues and which offers values, creativity and inspiration
• Balance between bottom-up and top-down work, and between inner and outer work
• Acceptance of life as an evolutionary journey of development with everyone having a life purpose and challenges to meet in order to fulfil that purpose
• Emerging purpose: cooperating with the progressive step in the client's issues
• Respect for the mysteries of life, for uncertainty, the unexpected and the unknown, for the creativity of confusion and for times of darkness and pain
• Reframing of pain, crisis and failure as opportunities for growth and essential parts of the client's life purpose, with potential to serve the client
• Collaboration with the inevitable, blessing obstacles and transforming them into stepping stones
• Respect for the client's defence mechanisms and systems of coping as deriving from legitimate needs to reduce anxiety and maintain psychological stability
• Identification of the immanent quality emerging from a client's issues, and nurturing its acceptance, development and expression in the client's daily life
• Conscious modelling of the client's "I," evidencing compassion and acceptance, clear awareness, validation of experience and recognition of potential
• Systematic evocation of potential, including superconscious qualities, states and functions
• Discovery and cultivation of the client's "I" as an essential tool for psychological health
• Central focus on the development of the Will as a psychospiritual function
• Activation of the client's Will and the capacity to make choices which offer freedom, and enrich rather than limit life
• Incorporation of the dynamic interplay of Love and Will in counselling style and in the client's needs from session to session
• Application of Roberto Assagioli's ten psychological laws
• Acknowledgement of the existential crisis of meaning and the crisis of duality
• Trust in the healing potential of transformation and transcendence
• Reframing of transference as a healthy thrust to redeem childhood trauma and to complete "unfinished business"
• Development of a deep sense of unity, goodness and rightness: with oneself, with others and with society
• Affirmation of human interconnectedness and interdependence, of belonging to a larger whole and of social and global responsibility
• Assistance of the client to gain and ground awareness, to take responsibility and to express greater psychological freedom in daily life
• Evocation of the client's inner authority, wisdom and autonomy, thereby ultimately rendering the therapeutic relationship obsolete
• Conscious completion, ending with a clear vision and plan for the client's life, joint assessment of the work done together and separation from the counsellor

Methods and Techniques

• Active dialogue and analysis
• Introspection and creative writing
• Autobiography and psychological journal
• Evening review of the day's events, identifications and patterns of behaviour
• Abreaction, not as an end in itself, but as a preliminary step towards replacing the previous negative state with a more positive and transformative one
• Mental visualisation or guided imagery, both unstructured and structured, including such "classics" as climbing a mountain; visiting a house in a meadow to meet a subpersonality; finding a cup and sword; and embarking upon a hero's journey
• Ideal model, in both issue-related usage and in cultivation of an opposite quality
• Inner dialogue, with a wise being, the soul and other aspects of oneself
• Free drawing, in both spontaneous and symbolic expressions
• Life purpose and motivation exercises, such as, "Where am I now? Where am I going? What blocks me? What quality do I need to overcome the block?"
• Evocation and development techniques of desired transpersonal qualities in the client, such as beauty, creativity, joy and power
• Identification, dialoguing with and becoming symbols and qualities, including all subpersonality exercises
• Self-identification, including "I am I, a permanent centre of pure Self-awareness and will "
• Disidentification, including all "I" work, also stepping back consciously from limiting identities, beliefs and roles to gain perspective, "I have a body," and so on
• All exercises for developing the Will and the capacity to make healthy, deliberate choices
• Meditation, including Assagioli's reflective, receptive and creative forms
• Gestalt identification and dialogue, as adapted to psychosynthesis, including use of the Third Chair technique to represent the "I" of the client
• Other basic methods and techniques presented in:
  • Assagioli, M.D., Roberto, The Act of Will: A Guide to Self-Actualization and Self-Realization and Psychosynthesis: A Manual of Principles and Techniques
  • Brown, Molly Young, Growing Whole: Self-Realization on an Endangered Planet and The Unfolding Self: Psychosynthesis and Counselling
  • Caddy, Eileen, and David Earl Platts, Ph.D., Bringing More Love Into Your Life: The Choice Is Yours and Choosing To Love
  • Ferrucci, Piero, What We May Be: The Vision and Techniques of Psychosynthesis
  • Whitmore, Diana, Joy of Learning: A Guide to Psychosynthesis in Education

David Earl Platts, Ph.D.
deplatts@compuserve.com
November 2, 1996