In the following section I will look into one of the possible benefits of the therapeutic process - the possibility of cultivating a beneficial and life supporting narrative. A narrative that is dynamic and can be refined as life’s journey progresses and lessons learned along the way. Healing occurs when we become less identified with the habitual self and become more attuned to our natural being state. Making this shift holds the potential of realigning ourselves to the Source-being-self axis. According to Core Process Psychotherapy (CPP) Theory, Source is the universal ground of pristine awareness, being, is the awareness that is at the core of all self constellations and have a fundamental sense of I-amness. Self, refers to a dynamic set of psycho-emotional-psychological constellations. Alignment with the Source-being-self axis is when being maintains its connection to source, and self is able to organize around that connection. This brings a state of alignment between absolute and relative realities which also opens the potential to being-to-being relatedness in a relationship. The beneficial narrative is a narrative that expresses this alignment.
During infancy and growing up we develop internal maps for interpreting reality. These maps become so ingrained in our consciousness that at a certain point it seems to be reality itself. Those maps of reality will later play out in a person's life in a cyclic way that will tend to reaffirm its relevance. It creates the reality in which one is confronted with the same alleged “destiny” again and again. This process makes personality to be experienced as a fixed structure rather than the dynamic process that reaffirms itself from the pristine ground of infinite possibilities in every moment. In Buddhist psychology this cyclical nature of phenomena which creates the experience of intransigent self is described in the process of dependent co-arising.
Buddhist philosophy with its narrative deconstruction approach describes the mechanics of the narrative based experience through the 5 Skandhas (lit. personality aggregates). The 5 Skandhas are:
According to Buddhist thought these five elements are co-arising matrix-like aspects that manifest through the physical, emotional and mental faculties and together give rise to the experience of a separate self or ego. When we relate to the cyclical coalescence and dissolution process of these 5 elements as a rigid concrete phenomena we experience our selfhood as separate and autonomous phenomena. The Skandhas are often portrayed as a flower, with Consciousness/Vijnana in the middle and the rest of the 4 Skandhas: Form (rupa), Sensations (vedana), Perceptions (samjna) and Mental activity or formations (sankhara) encircling Consciousness/Vijnana from its 4 sides. Buddhist philosophy teaches us that it is our identification and clinging to certain Skandha formations that leads to our suffering. Due to this, Buddhist practice has put a lot of emphasis on the experiential realization of the empty nature of these formations. It is worthy to acknowledge that Western metaphysical understanding also considers emptiness to be the birthing womb of all creation. In Qabalah, Ein (“אין” lit. nothing/not) is said to be the primordial source of creation.
It is not always easy to differentiate between what is the present moment baseline experience, and what is the subsequent interpretive layer of the narrative. The sheer force of the interpretive layer becomes especially strong when there is a triggering of early or survival structures. The source of those structures can stem from personal history, collective history, genetics or karmic sources. Many times as the client story unfolds, the therapist may find that there is a fundamental part in the client experience that the client is not willing to explore. It will be perceived by the client as too dangerous or overwhelming to allow it to be as it is. This creates an inherent conflict between what is present and what is believed should be present. Of course the above description is not experienced as such by the client, and the conflicted state is projected upon the external circumstances. It could be seen as a conflict between the needs of the inner narrative and present moment reality. As psychotherapists we get a chance to work with that inner narrative. When a client arrives at therapy there is an initial period where the client shares their story. It is fundamentally important that the client can feel that their pain is seen by the therapist. This period also helps the therapist to feel into the inner world of the client and to get to know their inner structures. It allows the therapist to meet the client where he or she is.
Deep healing occurs when the client is able to reintegrate the rejected parts of the psyche and regain their natural functioning through the central self. In CPP there is a basic assumption of inherent health. It is the pristine and pure core of the self which is not affected by conditioning. This assumption is based on the Buddhist concept of Bodhicitta, which in the Mahayana tradition means enlightened mind or the already enlightened ground of being. According to Buddhist practice the way to come to an experiential recognition of inherent health is by cultivating the receptive quality of our awareness, and our ability to be with our direct experience in a non judgemental way. It allows us to have a more objective view on the story that we tell ourselves, on the levels of body, emotion and thought.
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