Imagination, Creativity and Spirituality in Psychotherapy

Imagination, Creativity and Spirituality in Psychotherapy PDF Author: Leanne Domash
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100019079X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
The aim of this book is to awaken creative desire and expand the imagination of the psychotherapist and, in turn, her patient. Each chapter is meant to surprise the reader and help him see the world in a new way. Many varieties of imagination are explored -- the spiritual, the relational, the dreamworld, the aesthetic and the adaptive. The author offers space to reflect, to daydream, to remember; space to pursue goals, to make new connections; space to take risks and space to be wrong. The psychotherapist is encouraged to find her own voice, be poetic, dare to create, converse with other disciplines and, most especially, enter the world of dreams. This is all passed onto the patient as the dyad enters the intersubjective field. Both scholarly and practical, this volume elegantly and persuasively synthesizes for the first time research in many fields, including spirituality and Kabbalah, neuroscience, the arts, biology and artificial intelligence, to give an in depth and original understanding of the current pressing problems in the rapidly changing field of psychotherapy: how do we work with unconscious processes and early memories to help our patients become more imaginative, creative, hopeful and resilient, and in so doing, heal. The relationship between the body and creative imagination is fully explored as well as the disruptive effect of trauma on the imagination and how to address this. The emphasis on surprise, uncanny communication, interdisciplinary inquiry, use of dreamwork and the imagination of the body — how it spontaneously meets new challenges— all stimulate the creativity of the reader. Through numerous case studies, the author illustrates the practical implications of how this exploration allows for deeper understanding and more effective treatment. With the innovative synthesis and specific techniques the author provides, the clinician has tools to carry on the work of moving the field of psychotherapy forward as well as work ever more effectively with patients.

Imagination, Creativity and Spirituality in Psychotherapy

Imagination, Creativity and Spirituality in Psychotherapy PDF Author: Leanne Domash
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100019079X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 483

Get Book

Book Description
The aim of this book is to awaken creative desire and expand the imagination of the psychotherapist and, in turn, her patient. Each chapter is meant to surprise the reader and help him see the world in a new way. Many varieties of imagination are explored -- the spiritual, the relational, the dreamworld, the aesthetic and the adaptive. The author offers space to reflect, to daydream, to remember; space to pursue goals, to make new connections; space to take risks and space to be wrong. The psychotherapist is encouraged to find her own voice, be poetic, dare to create, converse with other disciplines and, most especially, enter the world of dreams. This is all passed onto the patient as the dyad enters the intersubjective field. Both scholarly and practical, this volume elegantly and persuasively synthesizes for the first time research in many fields, including spirituality and Kabbalah, neuroscience, the arts, biology and artificial intelligence, to give an in depth and original understanding of the current pressing problems in the rapidly changing field of psychotherapy: how do we work with unconscious processes and early memories to help our patients become more imaginative, creative, hopeful and resilient, and in so doing, heal. The relationship between the body and creative imagination is fully explored as well as the disruptive effect of trauma on the imagination and how to address this. The emphasis on surprise, uncanny communication, interdisciplinary inquiry, use of dreamwork and the imagination of the body — how it spontaneously meets new challenges— all stimulate the creativity of the reader. Through numerous case studies, the author illustrates the practical implications of how this exploration allows for deeper understanding and more effective treatment. With the innovative synthesis and specific techniques the author provides, the clinician has tools to carry on the work of moving the field of psychotherapy forward as well as work ever more effectively with patients.

Creativity, Spirituality, and Mental Health

Creativity, Spirituality, and Mental Health PDF Author: Kelley Raab Mayo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317158148
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
This book emphasizes the integral connections between imagination, creativity, and spirituality and their role in healing. First, the author highlights the work of a neglected yet important psychoanalyst, Marion Milner - a painter and undeclared mystic - expanding her work on creativity, mysticism, and mental health. Second, she explores imagination and creativity as expressed in fostering hope and in spiritually-oriented therapies, particularly for mood, anxiety, and eating disorders - offering practical application of studies in imagination and the arts. Raab Mayo concludes that both creativity and the potential for transcendence are inherent in the human psyche and can work as allies in the process of recovery from mental illness.

Creativity, Spirituality, and Mental Health

Creativity, Spirituality, and Mental Health PDF Author: Dr Kelley Raab Mayo
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409478343
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
This book emphasizes the integral connections between imagination, creativity, and spirituality and their role in healing. First, the author highlights the work of a neglected yet important psychoanalyst, Marion Milner - a painter and undeclared mystic - expanding her work on creativity, mysticism, and mental health. Second, she explores imagination and creativity as expressed in fostering hope and in spiritually-oriented therapies, particularly for mood, anxiety, and eating disorders - offering practical application of studies in imagination and the arts. Raab Mayo concludes that both creativity and the potential for transcendence are inherent in the human psyche and can work as allies in the process of recovery from mental illness.

The Spiritual Psyche in Psychotherapy

The Spiritual Psyche in Psychotherapy PDF Author: Willow Pearson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000214931
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
This book examines the interaction of spiritual and psychoanalytic lineages with psychotherapy in everyday practice. Written by a team of seasoned clinicians and illustrated through clinical vignettes, chapters explore topics pertaining to the mystical dimensions of psychological and spiritual life and how it may be integrated into clinical practice. Topics discussed include dreams, dissociation, creativity, therapeutic relationship, free association, transcendence, poetry, paradox, doubleness, loss, death, grief, mystery, embodiment and soul. The authors, clinicians with decades of experience in psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and spiritual practice, draw from their deep engagement with spirituality and psychoanalysis, focusing on a particular theme and its application to clinical work that is supported by the generative conversation among these lineages. At once applied and theoretical, this book weaves insights from the heart of Vajrayana Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Christianity, Catholicism, Ecumenicism, Integral Spirituality, Judaism, Kabbalah, Non-violence, Sufism and Vedanta. They are in conversation with psychoanalytic perspectives including Jungian, Post-Jungian, Winnicottian, Bionian, Post-Bionian and Relational. A felt sense of the spiritual psyche in clinical practice emerges from this conversation among spiritual and psychoanalytic lineages, beckoning clinicians ever further on the path of spiritually rooted, psychodynamic practice.

The Healing Imagination

The Healing Imagination PDF Author: Ann Ulanov
Publisher: Daimon
ISBN: 3856309209
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
This eloquent work speaks of the centrality of imagination in the life of the spirit. Ann and Barry Ulanov describe the imagination as a bridge between the psyche and the spirit. Using rich imagery drawn from literature, film, and their own experience as therapists, they unlock for us the healing power of our imagination. "Imagination heals by building a bridge sturdy enough to link us up, each of us, to the river of being already present in us, to the currents flowing through us and among us in our unconscious life." After describing this healing power of imagination, the authors go on to show how it is vital in the spiritual life: in preaching, prayer, teaching, counseling, and politics.

Place, Spirituality, and Well-Being

Place, Spirituality, and Well-Being PDF Author: Victor Counted
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031395824
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
This book synthesizes perspectives on how ‘place’ is deeply intertwined with our spirituality and well-being. Split into three sections, this book brings together contributions from global scholars across a range of disciplines to unravel how the personal, social, and cultural spheres of place shape our spiritual experiences and overall well-being. It is an essential read for those interested in enriching their knowledge of the linkages between place, spirituality, and well-being, while also providing a foundation for future research on place and its intersections with both spirituality and well-being.

Art as Medicine

Art as Medicine PDF Author: Shaun McNiff
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 083482728X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
"Whenever illness is associated with loss of soul," writes Shaun McNiff, "the arts emerge spontaneously as remedies, soul medicine." The medicine of the artist, like that of the shaman, arises from his or her relationship to "familiars"—the themes, methods, and materials that interact with the artist through the creative process. Art as Medicine demonstrates how the imagination heals and renews itself through this natural process. The author describes his pioneering methods of art therapy—including interpretation through performance and storytelling, creative collaboration, and dialoguing with images—and the ways in which they can revitalize both psychotherapy and art itself.

Psychoanalytic and Spiritual Perspectives on Terrorism

Psychoanalytic and Spiritual Perspectives on Terrorism PDF Author: Nina E. E. Cerfolio
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003824161
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
Nina E. Cerfolio masterfully explores the deeper spiritual and psychoanalytic understanding of the origins of human aggressive and destructive instincts which underlie mass shootings and terrorism. The author survived two terrorist attacks: developing breast cancer from being a first responder at 9/11, and being poisoned by an FSB agent while providing humanitarian aid in the Second Chechen War. Through a personal, scholarly investigation into her psyche, the author describes the spiritual awakening that was catalyzed by these events and their traumatic impact, and examines how a world could create the firmament for the kinds of destructive aggression that are a daily occurrence. Featuring cutting-edge quantitative research and case material, which illustrates the prevalence of undiagnosed and untreated psychiatric illness among mass shooters and terrorists, this book encourages dialogue about the stigma of mental illness and challenges the perception of terrorists as monsters with no societal responsibility. Championing the forgotten collective humiliation of the marginalized—which in turn breeds terrorism—and documenting a new spiritual lens through which healing is possible, this book will be essential reading for mental health workers and anyone wishing to understand the traumatizing epoch in which we are living.

The Search for Meaning in Psychotherapy

The Search for Meaning in Psychotherapy PDF Author: Judith Pickering
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317274474
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
If, when a patient enters therapy, there is an underlying yearning to discover a deeper sense of meaning or purpose, how might a therapist rise to such a challenge? As both Carl Jung and Wilfred Bion observed, the patient may be seeking something that has a spiritual as well as psychotherapeutic dimension. Presented in two parts, The Search for Meaning in Psychotherapy is a profound inquiry into the contemplative, mystical and apophatic dimensions of psychoanalysis. What are some of the qualities that may inspire processes of growth, healing and transformation in a patient? Part One, The Listening Cure: Psychotherapy as Spiritual Practice, considers the confluence between psychotherapy, spirituality, mysticism, meditation and contemplation. The book explores qualities such as presence, awareness, attention, mindfulness, calm abiding, reverie, patience, compassion, insight and wisdom, as well as showing how they may be enhanced by meditative and spiritual practice. Part Two, A Ray of Divine Darkness: Psychotherapy and the Apophatic Way, explores the relevance of apophatic mysticism to psychoanalysis, particularly showing its inspiration through the work of Wilfred Bion. Paradoxically using language to unsay itself, the apophatic points towards absolute reality as ineffable and unnameable. So too, Bion observed, psychoanalysis requires the ability to dwell in mystery awaiting intimations of ultimate truth, O, which cannot be known, only realised. Pickering reflects on the works of key apophatic mystics including Dionysius, Meister Eckhart and St John of the Cross; Buddhist teachings on meditation; Śūnyatā and Dzogchen; and Lévinas’ ethics of alterity. The Search for Meaning in Psychotherapy will be of great interest to both trainees and accomplished practitioners in psychoanalysis, analytical psychology, psychotherapy and counselling, as well as scholars of religious studies, those in religious orders, spiritual directors, priests and meditation teachers.

Contemporary Child Psychotherapy

Contemporary Child Psychotherapy PDF Author: Jeanne Magagna
Publisher: Phoenix Publishing House
ISBN: 1800130635
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Contemporary Child Psychotherapy: Integration and Imagination in Creative Clinical Practice demonstrates the step-by-step process of developing the depth of understanding, creativity, knowledge and skill that underpin a modern integrative child psychotherapist. Portrayed is a flexible model that is fluid and evolving, bringing together traditional, long-held ideas with fresh perspectives and up-to-date research. In bringing together psychoanalytic theory, attachment theory, trauma theories, the arts and creativity, neuroscience and the body, a rich framework is created. From this, the individual integrative child psychotherapist can choose the interventions which best foster the emotional development of each unique child and their parents today.