When people ask me, "Psychology and spirituality – how do they fit together?" I always think: How can they not...? After all, in colloquial language, psychology is serious issues of the therapist, defense mechanisms, repression, self, ego, super-ego, id, Freud... Spirituality is: spirit, love, open heart, soul, energy, chakras, and past lives...?
How do they connect? My parents tell me that when I was a little girl, around the age of four or five, I would wake up in the morning and ask them: "What can I do today for the sake of humanity?" And they thought it was just a funny sentence I learned in kindergarten... Over the years, this little and funny story accompanied the family as a joke, but in the last decade, I realized that I take it very seriously. This is one of the significant things that shaped my professional and personal life.
Spiritual psychology deals with understanding the human soul – in all its aspects. It is a combination that was created out of necessity – when many therapists, led by Abraham Maslow in the 20s, felt that conventional psychology does not provide a satisfactory answer to understanding the human soul.
Most conventional psychological approaches focus mainly on the mental (intellectual) and emotional aspects. While in spiritual psychology, there is an understanding that there is a need to nourish all four aspects: the physical, the mental, the emotional, and the spiritual-energetic.
The idea is to allow a person to connect between the parts, to be connected to oneself. I believe that this is how we are built: from many parts, like in a multi-dimensional puzzle, and each time a few parts take the center of our attention. Sometimes there are parts that we are disconnected from, because we are afraid of them, or we don't like them... But the more we distance ourselves from parts of ourselves, the more we distance ourselves from who we are, from ourselves.
I believe that if we give space to all the aspects, and we give attention and healing – to the physical, emotional, mental, and energetic/spiritual parts – we can develop more and more and... the sky is the limit (even they are not really a limit, right?). Even if there are parts that we pushed away for years, because we couldn't deal with them then – maybe today is the time to heal? After all, today we are not in the same place we were then? And today, maybe unlike the past, there is an opportunity to heal not alone, but with guidance, together.
Even in spiritual psychology itself, there are several streams, and the understanding that the process is done by the therapist and the patient (or the group of patients) together. The therapist brings with him his experience, his worldview, and of course his academic training – but mainly his heart, his human being, and the connection between all his aspects as a human being, and in the shared sitting, in the shared space, a dialogue is created for the purpose of healing.
For me, spiritual psychology is looking at the patient as a world and all of it. True, he came at a stage of difficulty, or examination, but that does not make him a "case". The "case" (which I don't think is a case..) met us for a common path at a certain time. From my experience – people who come to me, don't just come. Maybe that's what they think in the first meeting, but over time the context that brought that person specifically to me becomes clearer. Perhaps these are common issues that I have already experienced in my past and can guide and direct, or perhaps these are common lessons at the soul level, sometimes shared experiences from past lives.
There are people who also shy away from the word "patient" – I actually love it. Patient from the word – TAKING CARE... TO TAKE CARE OF
And I feel that I am really taking care of the person who comes to me. I am not just listening, paying attention, and enjoying – as people like to assume about therapists.
I combine different approaches and techniques, according to the need of the patient and according to the issue he brings. In personal meetings, for example, I combine Gestalt psychology with crystal healing, energetic healing, and spiritual healing. I use process psychology, guided imagery, meditation, and working on patients' dreams (yes, even prophetic dreams..).
When a memory from a different period of life (a past life) arises – I check why it came to this memory room today – what it can teach us? Sometimes an old memory like this comes up through a dream, or during healing. I don't aim for it – if it comes up, we look at it and learn from it.
For me, spiritual psychology is a different way of looking at life, and it allows me to see and understand the experiences, behaviors, and hardships in life – from a different perspective than the conventional one. A broad perspective – seeing a big picture of life, and maybe even a sequence of pictures or even a whole movie.
During my professional and spiritual development years, I noticed that my treatments and courses are no longer "either psychology – or spirituality", but have become something integrative.
I bring myself. And to that, between me and myself, I call it – connection.
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