Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy
Conference Schedule
Conference Schedule
Conference on Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy
April 30th – May 1st, 2005
Institute of Transpersonal Psychology
Palo Alto, California
Saturday, April 30th
8:30 - 9:15 Registration
9:15 - 9:30 Welcome and Orientation
9:30 - 11:00 Session 1
1A. “Developmental Approach to Spontaneous Awakening:
Case Histories and Clinical Strategies” Olga Louchakova, Ph.D.
1B. “A Nondual Approach To Addiction And Recovery” Noelle M. Poncelet, Ph.D.
11:15 - 12:45 Session 2
“The Power of Truth” Dorothy Hunt, LCSW
12:45 – 2:00 Lunch
2:00 - 3:30 Session 3
3A. “Moving with the Flow: Form to Emptiness, Emptiness to Form”
Bonnie Greenwell, Ph.D.
3B. “The Mythology of the Wounded Child: Skills for Healing Dual Reality
Consciousness” Deborah Dooley, Ph.D.
3:45 - 5:15 Session 4
“Inquiry at the Heart of Human Life” Dan Berkow, Ph.D.
Sunday, May 1st
9:30 - 11:00 Session 5
“Awakened Presence: The Open Radiant Nature of Mind and Reality”
Lama Palden (Caroline Alioto, MFT)
11:15 - 12:45 Session 6
6A. “When Nondual Wisdom Goes Awry” Mariana Caplan, Ph.D.
6B. “Deconstructing Egoic Identity with PsychoNoetics”
Jeffrey Eisen, Ph.D.
12:45 – 2:00 Lunch
2:00 - 3:30 Session 7
“Nonduality: Coming from, Going into, and Talking about”
Kaisa Puhakka, Ph.D.
3:45 - 5:15 Session 8
“Nondual Wisdom and Clinical Practice”
John Prendergast, Ph.D. (moderator), Sheila Krystal, Ph.D., Ken Bradford,
Ph.D., Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT, Richard Miller, Ph.D. (Panelists)
5:15 - 5:30 Networking Information and Closing
List of each conference session:
TITLE: DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH TO SPONTANEOUS AWAKENING:
CASE HISTORIES AND CLINICAL STRATEGIES
BY: O. LOUCHAKOVA, PH.D.
DESCRIPTION OF CONTENT
Presentation is based on the depth-phenomenological analysis of several longitudinal case histories, showing the different developmental variants of the unfolding of the non-dual insight. Maturation of the non-dual experience/understanding is accompanied by stage specific changes in self - identity, changes in motivational, behavioral, cognitive and perceptual spheres, and psychosomatic manifestations. The main changes, however, affected the character structure.
The author reports the observations of the different types of non-dual consciousness, supporting them by the comparative analysis of little known authentic texts from traditions of Advaita Vedanta, Hesychasm and Sufism. The possible developmental tracks through the life spans will beidentified. This phenomenologically grounded developmental model understand the spatial representation of consciousness ( the “body”) as a code to ego-transformations in the process of development of non-dual understanding/experience/identity.
A NONDUAL APPROACH TO ADDICTION AND RECOVERY
Noelle M. Poncelet, Ph.D.
With the support of Twelve Steps recovery, a multi-level 'being' approach is offered that focuses first on a process way of developing the inner compassionate witness. Through Voice Dialogue, the client's 'I' is naturally deconstructed into personality parts held by this witness with the 'addict' part now belonging to wholeness. To balance the critic, a mentor is called forward as an inner guide, an empathic and creative force of greater strength and inspiration than the addict energy. Clinical experience shows that presence to be a remarkable nondual wisdom teacher. Demonstration included.
THE POWER OF TRUTH
Presenter: Dorothy S. Hunt, L.C.S.W.
Founder, San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy
Practicing psychotherapist since 1967
Authorized teacher in the spiritual lineage of Adyashanti
Author of Only This!; contributing author to The Sacred Mirror: Nondual
Wisdom and Psychotherapy; editor, Love: A Fruit Always in Season
This presentation will include an experiential meditative invitation into the Truth of Being, which cannot be known or defined by the mind of thought. Participants will be invited to taste the silent Mystery that cannot be acquired or lost, but is present in each moment as it is. From this non-place and non-position of undivided awareness, we will explore what it means to work from our deepest integrity in the moment. In discussing the importance of working from one’s own integrity, participants will be encouraged to be very honest with themselves about where their psychotherapeutic work is coming from, and what is true in their own experience. We will investigate the difference between living and working from an idea, a self-image, or from the truth behind images. Clinical examples will be used to illustrate the healing power of simple truth-telling for both therapist and client in the psychotherapeutic relationship, and how it is possible to emerge from behind a false egoic identification while still maintaining the therapeutic boundaries of time, place, and functioning. The presentation will include a differentiation between the “ego’s” ideas of truth-telling and the truth-telling or truth-inviting that comes from our own true nature.
MOVING WITH THE FLOW: FORM TO EMPTINESS, EMPTINESS TO FORM
Bonnie Greenwell Ph.D.
CA.LMFT 15308
C. G. Jung identified four primary categories of human functioning: thinking, feeling, sensing and intuitive, in addition to an orientation that is either introverted or extroverted. The thinking and feeling functions relate to the world of mind, the energies that govern our personal conceptual framework through thought and feeling, and cause us to sense ourselves as a separate “me”. Jung called these the rational functions. Because of these functions the mind collects an entire range of associations and past experiences, which become the conditioned self. The sensate and intuitive modalities are the form and formless aspects of being as experienced before thought and feeling respond to them. Jung labeled these the irrational functions. Our sense perceptions and intuitive knowing are always present in the background, providing orientation in space, but we are not always consciously aware of them. They act spontaneously. They can be used as portals into the direct and immediate recognition of what Buddhists call our true nature, the presence or awakeness that exists prior to personal identification. The psychological value to the psyche when one awakens their true nature is the sense of wholeness and contentment, and a renewed capacity to live authentically and spontaneously in response to life situations and experiences. This course is designed to show the links between Jung and Buddhist thought, and use guided awareness practices to enhance understanding of how awareness interacts with the four functions.
THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE WOUNDED CHILD: SKILLS FOR HEALING DUAL REALITY CONSCIOUSNESS
By: Deborah Dooley
Dual consciousness is a normal and required developmental stage. The early developmental patterning to the external world results in a preconscious splitting of the self. In adult life, the historical child’s paradigm and defense system is perpetuated until the ego is skillfully dismantled and reorganized. Healing a dual consciousness state requires a healthy adult ego. The adult’s skills track the child’s habitual defended patterns and internally resources the lost aspects of self. The internal state of inner bonding shifts the neurological patterning in the body. This internal union opens a nondual state of consciousness and an experience of personal essence emerges in the body. This lecture will review the healthy ego’s skills for healing and transformation.
THE INQUIRY AT THE HEART OF HUMAN LIFE
By: Daniel N. Berkow
Living an intelligent human life requires self-inquiry. However, when inquiry turns toward the one who is living, it encounters the anxiety that existential psychologists Yalom, Becker and May consider fundamental to personal identity. This identity comes from an intention to maintain continuity. Yet, as observed by Suzuki, Loy and Krishnamurti, only insight that opens to the underlying discontinuity of identity can resolve the deepest individual and communal questions. Psychotherapy, as it is conventionally conceptualized and practiced, cannot uncover this discontinuous truth because it focuses on the continuity, expression, conceptualization and processing of experience. Therapy can, however, facilitate the courage to inquire into identity which may extend beyond therapy and lead to a deep questioning of self-identity.
This presentation will explore the nature of existential anxiety and death anxiety, and the connection of personality formation with the experience of anxiety. The relationship of a self-structure that continues and existential anxiety will be discussed. The audience will learn how psychological continuity is intertwined with inherent limits to psychogical inquiry and therapy, due to process, focus on expressing experiences, and desire for self-effectiveness. The ways that inquiry into life and self can deepen into an understanding of discontinuity will be offered. The nature of nonsuperficial treatment, appropriate termination and ethical issues in psychotherapy will be discussed; also the relationship of therapy, deep inquiry, and the experience of the therapist will be explained.
AWAKENED PRESENCE: THE OPEN RADIANT NATURE OF MIND AND REALITY
Presenter: Lama Palden (Caroline Alioto, MFT)
Description: This workshop will use meditation and inquiry to experientially explore nonduality. Nonduality needs to be known as the truth of what is- first understood usually in "glimpses," and then stabilized through recollection and familiarity. If nonduality remains in the conceptual realm of our experience its transformative effects do not occur and we are not provided with the key to full and complete liberation. When we clearly understand the nature of mind and reality, pure being is actualized. This is not only liberating for oneself but is also the means to benefit others, both clinically and in all aspects of our lives.
WHEN NONDUAL WISDOM GOES AWRY
By: Mariana Caplan, Ph.D.
The nondual realization lies at the core of all spiritual and religious traditions. However, all too often, what is understood as nondual realization in modern times is incomplete and misconstrued, and therefore misunderstood. In order to become effective carriers of integrated, nondual wisdom, we must educate ourselves regarding the traps and pitfalls if this perspective and learn to be ruthlessly self-honest in our own self-evaluation. Such discernment provides protection to ourselves and those who we help, prevents stagnation on the path, and reveals the endlessness of spiritual unfolding, maturation, and integration. A perspective of “Enlightened Duality” will be offered as a healing response to these challenges.
DECONSTRUCTING OUR EGOIC IDENTITY WITH PSYCHONOETICS
Jeff Eisen Ph.D.
The therapeutic strategy of PsychoNoetics combines autokinesiological testing and intentional clearing to deconstruct the perceptual filter of egoic identity. PsychoNoetics is based on the principal that our experience of reality determines both our emotions and their actions and it is in turn formed by our perceptions, both sensory and cognitive. However, we perceive from what we are, from our identity, so in a sense, every perception is a projection. Just as an eye cannot see itself, an “I" cannot see itself. We cannot see what we are; therefore, it is unconscious to us. On the other hand, we inescapably see from it or through it and this limitation or subjectivity inescapably distorts our perception, creating sensory illusion and cognitive delusion. What we perceive comes from what we are, from our identity. For instance, if we have an identity as a victim, we will create the experience of a victimizing world.
Our identity is created from our developmental experiences, our genetic makeup, collective consciousness and perhaps, incarnational causation. Perception from this identity guides the self-evolution in a continual feedback loop. This transperceptual approach has both explanatory and therapeutic power. The presentation will demonstrate the technique, explain the theory and provide a powerful, clearing experience.
NONDUALITY: “COMING FROM,” “GOING INTO,” AND “TALKING ABOUT”
By: Kaisa Puhakka, Ph.D.
As an idea, nonduality is paradoxical because it sets up a duality from the get-go—between the thinker or talker and the object of the thinking or talking (which is the idea of nonduality). Yet this idea is pointing to a shift in consciousness and, in the context of working with a client, in how one relates to the client. The state in which consciousness is divided into subject and object is frequent and pervasive enough in the experience of therapists and clients alike to be considered the norm. But there are moments in the therapeutic encounter when one or both participants shifts from such a state into one in which consciousness is nondual or not divided. It is in these moments that significant therapeutic change is likely to occur. How to discern and facilitate these shifts is a concern of this course. However, the exercise of this concern will activate the paradox mentioned above: Talking (or even thinking) about the shift, or about nonduality, sets up a duality. So, how does one “come from” or “go into” nonduality without talking or thinking about it?
THE IMPACT OF NONDUAL UNDERSTANDING ON CLINICAL PRACTICE
By: Panel discussion with
John J. Prendergast, Ph.D. (moderator)
Sheila Krystal, Ph.D. (panelist)
Ken Bradford, Ph.D. (panelist)
Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT (panelist)
Richard Miller, Ph.D. (panelist)
Description of Content: This panel of experienced clinicians grounded in the nondual perspective will explore issues of critical concern for therapists opening to nondual understanding, including, but not limited to:
1) The role identity and role function of the therapist
2) The pressure of the therapeutic framework to identify and solve problems
3) The meaning of working from Presence in the now
4) The importance of a therapist’s authenticity and integrity
5) Assessing clients’ capacity to face existential emptiness
6) Discerning and navigating the multidimensionality of client experience ranging from psychological deficits originating in childhood conditioning to the intuition of the Ground of Being prior to thoughts, feelings and sensations.
