Here is a layman s guide to a process of psychotherapy based on the author s experience as a psychologist, counsellor, and psychotherapist in a career spanning more than forty years.
Emotional distresses that are common in our current culture are valuable tools for growth once we know how to make use of them. If we can discover how our childhood patterns show up as problems in our adult family and work relationships, we can learn to live more consciously in the present as we gradually resolve the issues of childhood through integrating them constructively into day-to-day living.
The author describes his therapeutic style, one of direct communication that invites a self-revealing dialogue. By using familiar words and expressions, psychological jargon is minimized, and therapeutic principles are tailored to meet the individual person s frame of reference. Words and language are used in a more personally meaningful way than is often the case in much of the broad healing profession.
True stories of clients are used to illustrate the four-step process of awareness, acceptance, containment, and self-expression that moved them beyond the stuckness of disorder and into the ongoing excitement of living their lives to the fullest.