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“These three roles or movements - bringing our clients more fully into the present moment of lived experience, bringing in spacious awareness / being / witnessing / Self, and deconstructing the thought-forms that block this awareness - seem to summarize very well the approach to therapy that is called non-dual.”
I cannot believe that I am responding to my own post. However, I have not been able to stop thinking about the above three roles of a “translucent” or nondual therapist. It seems that there are actually three toolsthat can be used in therapy to facilitate each movement. Nondual therapists are usually not that keen on technique. But, I am a fledgling nondual therapist, so maybe it will be OK for me.
Technique #1 – Mindfulness meditation – defined as “awareness of present moment with acceptance” – the best technique for “bringing our clients more fully into the present moment of lived experience”
Technique #2 – The self-inquiry of Ramana Maharshi – “Who am I?” “Who is witnessing this?” “Who is aware of these thoughts and emotions?” – the best technique for “bringing in spacious awareness / being / witnessing / Self”
Technique #3 – The Work of Byron Katie – questioning our stressful thoughts and the stories that we believe that block our awareness of Truth – the best technique for “deconstructing the thought-forms that block this awareness”
A practice that incorporates some of each of these will be “killer.” Also, a therapist who uses each of these in their own lives will be a “killer” therapist. The one that I am the least knowledgeable of is Tech. #2, but I am learning more about it now. I really need to take some courses / classes in mindfulness so that I can become more proficient at teaching it to others.
I really find all of this very exciting. I can certainly see developing a very successful therapy practice out of these three. Hell, I could see developing a successful practice out of just The Work. My only concern is the fact that social workers are expected to use empirically validated approaches to therapy. I need to look into this more and see what the research shows. I know that there have been many papers written about mindfulness. I even have a textbook on using it in therapy. Not too sure about the rest though.
Any thoughts from anyone else about this?
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