Transpersonal Therapy Blog
5 Steps to Confronting Incongruence in Psychotherapy
When a client is incongruent, there is a mismatch between their ideal self and their authentic experience, leading to feelings of discomfort or anxiety. Trying to be something that they are not, a client simultaneously expresses and perpetuates their patterns of...
Working with trauma through a spiritual lens
With a genuine desire to offer a truly sacred place for clients to heal, a therapist can put a lot of pressure on themselves to know exactly what to do when working with a client who presents with symptoms of complex trauma. Many therapists take multiple trainings on how to work with trauma, and yet they still feel ineffective in their ability to offer deep repair and healing to clients. Because each client is so different, there are so many unknowns when working with trauma. Linear models and frameworks designed to “heal” a client overlook the vital role of a client’s own innate spirituality as the Source of their healing.
The old paradigm in psychotherapy, where the therapist needs to be the expert who holds the answers to their client’s suffering, can actually interrupt the therapeutic process and distract from the healing potential available for clients. There are three main problems with this old paradigm: 1) When the therapist holds the answers to a clients suffering, this model perpetuates the trauma response of a client giving their autonomy away, 2) when the therapist is the expert, they treat their client as an object to be fixed, and 3) when the therapist controls the steps to healing, the client’s success is dependent on them fitting into to someone else’s map.
Why is subtle energy useful in therapy?
Seemingly beyond the scope of our physical eyes, we can feel, sense, and even see the expression of subtle energy, which is the expression of a person's vital force. While counseling and psychotherapy focus on a person's mental and behavioral health, honoring a...
11 Sentence Stems to use in Gestalt Group Therapy
When the principles of gestalt therapy are brought into a group setting, the potential for transformation increases exponentially. The present-centered approach of gestalt is akin to a relational meditation, which allows for a client's delusions, misbeliefs, and...
8 Reasons why the Body is Essential in Psychotherapeutic Practice
Gestalt therapy is a body-based approach to counseling that offers mindful attunement to the here and now. As the first approach to counseling that honored the wisdom of the inner mind-body connection, gestalt is a highly intuitive system of psychotherapy. Recognizing...
Disrupting Homeostasis in Gestalt Therapy
Gestalt therapy is a mindfulness-based, transpersonal therapy theory that is based in holism, where we honor the wholeness of a client and do not try to reduce them down into distinct “parts.” As we stay in the present moment, here and now with a client, we attune to...
Questions to Ask in Gestalt Therapy
by Harmony Kwiker | Blog Finding your wording and language as a gestalt therapist can take some time. Discovering how to allow your authentic engagement, awake awareness, and present moment centeredness to be reflected in the words you use is a process of trial and...
Tending to Borderline Personality Disorder
It can be a confusing experience to be in any kind of relationship (personal or therapeutic) with a person who has borderline personality disorder (BPD). At first, the relationship can seem deep and connecting. People with BPD can be extremely empathetic and...
Countertransference as Intuition in Disguise
by Harmony Kwiker | Blog As human beings, therapists have feelings and thoughts while sitting with clients. Sometimes those thoughts and feelings seem personal. When a therapist puts their feelings onto a client, the therapist is experiencing countertransference. In...
Understanding the Nervous System
Our nervous system is made up of a profoundly intricate network of nerves that carry electrical impulses to various cells, tissues, and organs throughout the body. The way we receive and process information from the environment influences how we feel in our...
Humanizing Narcissistic Personality Disorder
by Harmony Kwiker | Blog When the word narcissist is used, we typically think of an unfeeling person who uses and abuses others for their own gain. While a true narcissist does exhibit these characteristics, this image of a narcissist is often conflated with a...
Facilitating a Gestalt Two-Chair Experiment
What follows is a transcript of a lecture Harmony Kwiker, MA, LPC, NCC, ACS gave on October 18, 2024, where she focused on facilitating gestalt two-chair experiments with attunement to subtle energy: Gestalt experiments are therapeutic exercises that offer an access...
