SIGN IN YOUR ACCOUNT TO HAVE ACCESS TO DIFFERENT FEATURES

CREATE AN ACCOUNT FORGOT YOUR PASSWORD?

FORGOT YOUR DETAILS?

AAH, WAIT, I REMEMBER NOW!

CREATE ACCOUNT

ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT?

IAHIP

CALL: +353 (0)1 284 1665
  • Contact Us
  • Classifieds
    • Publications
    • Services
    • Training
    • All Ads
    • Submit Ad
  • News
    • IAHIP News
    • Blog
  • Members
    • AGM 2020 & 2019
    • Events Calendar
    • Professional Conduct
    • Continued Professional Development -CPD- For Accredited Psychotherapists
    • Accreditation
    • Re-accreditation
    • Supervision
    • Honorary Membership
    • Child and Adolescent
    • Garda Vetting
    • Resources
      • Members’ Resources
    • Payments
  • SIGN UP
  • LOGIN
  • Home
  • About
    • About IAHIP
    • Governing Body
    • Committees
      • Committees
      • Regional Development
    • Complaints
    • Constitutional Documents
      • Articles of Association
      • Bye-Laws of the Association
    • IAHIP in N.I.
    • Considering a career in psychotherapy?
  • Psychotherapy
    • About Psychotherapy
    • How Psychotherapy Can Help Me
    • Choosing a Psychotherapist
    • Useful Links
  • Join
    • Join IAHIP
    • Why Join IAHIP?
    • Benefits of Membership of IAHIP
    • Categories of Membership
    • Fees
  • Publications
    • Inside Out
    • Subscribe
    • Buy Back Issues
    • Buy Full Page Ad
    • Buy Half Page Ad
    • Advertising
  • Training
    • Online Workshops 2020 – 2021
    • Recognised Training Courses IAHIP
    • Pay for a Workshop
    • European Certificate of Psychotherapy (ECP)
  • Find a Therapist
  • Home
  • Inside Out
  • Issue 13: Summer 1993
  • A Transpersonal Training

A Transpersonal Training

By Brian Burrows

The training I’m going to write about, at the Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education, London, has been accredited by the British Association for Counselling, and the Centre is a member of the UK Standing Conference on Psychotherapy. The four-year, part-time Diploma course is designedly integrative and draws on the insights of humanistic as well as analytical and existential approaches and skills training, but for the purposes of this brief article I will leave these aside, and focus on the transpersonal aspect. The course makes no sharp distinction between personal and spiritual growth and ideally offers a spiritual perspective on every phase of development.

The training makes a number of assumptions: that there is unity throughout Creation; that the perception of ourselves as separate individuals is a limited perspective only; that the human being is best seen holistically and partial theories based on sexuality, childhood, life scripts, arc most valuable when reconnected to the whole; that our inner and outer lives are connected in a meaningful way. But perhaps the most obviously “transpersonal” assumption is that our body, emotions, mind – the “personality” – are the expression of, and are potentially in a dynamic relationship with, an underlying essence, core or spirit having a unique path or purpose.

Nothing very new so far, I imagine, but at this point a number of esoteric insights enter the theory. First, the suggestion that we enter life as a soul, bringing a divine inheritance, an angelic nature. With the body we receive a genetic and then social inheritance, an instinctive, “animal” nature. Both natures are important and each can enlighten the other. (I am personally a little worried by the term “animal” which might seem derogatory of the body and senses, but that was not at all the emphasis of the course.) If one nature predominates and represses the other, it may take a life crisis to open the individual up, either a crisis of grounding or awakening to the spiritual dimension of life. This can precede a breakthrough to another plane of consciousness, beyond ego: the transpersonal, “angelic” plane of “heart awareness”, characterised by greater empathy for others, less sense of separation, a movement towards unconditional love. Of course, not all break-downs lead to break-through. Who knows whether a client is breaking down to break through, or just breaking down? The answer may be: the client, at the unconscious level. The advice of Barbara Somers of the Centre for Transpersonal Psychology, was to “dialogue” via imagery “with the symptoms”.

The training I’m describing is unusually informative about planes of consciousness, another esoteric area. It suggests that there is an innate hierarchical order in our being related to the “chakra” or subtle energy centre system. The planes are seen as reflecting the divine potential and providing the spiritual perspective on and purpose of our life. In brief, the planes are:

7.            The Om (Logos)
6.            Pure consciousness, the Logos
5.            Abstract (qualities)
4.            Love (the angelic)
3.            Astral (dreams, intuition, subtle feelings)
2.            Mental (thoughts, less subtle feelings)
1.            Physical

This material raises the question, what place in therapy does esoteric knowledge have? I feel a bit vulnerable here, but the course suggests that we exist on all planes at the same time and that something of the qualities of each plane are found in each person. This would be borne out by my own experience, especially of dream-work.

The training has its own personality theory which describes our essential nature in terms of the Elements: Air, Fire, Water and Earth, corresponding to thinking, energy and intuition, feeling and the concrete, grounded orientations of personality. Each of the four temperaments can characteristically express itself in Active, Balanced or Receptive ways, known as the “Three Paths” and there are therefore twelve (4×3) types in all: for example, “Active Air” or “Balanced Water”. Each person is seen as having a predominant Element, sometimes two, and therefore the challenge is to develop others which are latent or suppressed, to become more whole.

The model is dynamic because it presupposes ongoing change, or formation, and has precise links to the “outside” world because it is often “outer” life problems and crises which challenge us to change. Moreover each individual path is seen as unique with qualities unfolding in a natural order like the root, trunk, branch and leaves of a tree. As a general rule, people need to balance the Element they are strongest in before developing another. The model is a “conflict” model, because there arc tensions between the types, particularly between Fire – Water, but also Air – Earth, one more rarefied, the other more grounded.

The overall emphasis of the training is on a “heart-centred”, intuitive approach, “sensitive, loving, firm, confronting” as the Director, Nigel Hamilton, put it. “Heart-centred” is not just a phrase here, because in the theory of this course, the “heart is the transformer”, the facilitator of change. One example of this is that the client’s capacity for self-acceptance is often affected by the quality of our acceptance of him or her.

These are the bare bones of the training. I’m conscious that there are gaps in the account – not much on depression or anger or on the experiential side of the training, for example. Perhaps some of the new elements in this therapy may become commonplace in future. It seems clear that the old, scientific, mechanistic view of the Universe is breaking up, opening the way to a less materialistic understanding of life and to changes in our attitude to personality.

Brian Burrows trained in “Formative Spirituality” (Master’s Degree, Spirituality, Psychology and Counselling) at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA and in Counselling and Psychotherapy (Dip) at the Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education, London, where he was on the staff. Recently he has come to live and work in Dublin.

Search Inside Out

Latest from the Blog

Latest News

  • Spanda India in Association with Ochre Ireland – Online 2021
  • Pieta House – Psychotherapists / Counselling Psychologists (Lucan)

Upcoming Events

Contact Us

The Administrator,
The Irish Association of Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy Ltd.
40 Northumberland Avenue,
Dun Laoghaire,
Co. Dublin

Telephone: +353 (0)1 284 1665
Email: admin@iahip.org

Office Hours

9.30am – 4.00pm Monday
9.30am – 5.00pm Tuesday to Friday

Telephone Line Answered
Monday – Friday 9.30am – 1.00pm.

Disclaimer

IAHIP Ltd. cannot be held liable for the services, products or information contained in ads posted on this website.

FIND A THERAPIST

Search in radius 0 miles
  • Contact Details
  • Privacy Statement
  • Code of Ethics for Psychotherapists
  • Company Registration

© 2018 All rights reserved.

TOP
This website uses cookies to enhance your browsing experience. Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.