Embodied Imagination Dreamwork

In my prior blog post, Dream Incubation: Planting Seeds, I discussed Robert Bosnak's Embodied Imagination dream incubation technique. As I mentioned, Embodied Imagination dream incubations are performed by psychotherapists or dreamworkers who have been trained in this technique as a way of helping to "plant seeds" in the dreamer's unconscious mind to work on areas that are important to the dreamer.

Embodied Imagination Dreamwork

These areas might include: health issues, creative blocks, relationship issues, career decisions, or any other areas of a person's life that are meaningful to him or her. Dream incubations have also been used to help actors with their roles.

In the fictionalized account from the last blog post, Donna's therapist assisted her to come up with a composite of the images, physical sensations, and emotions associated with her desire to overcome her creative block and increase her motivation to do her artwork. This composite consisted of the various trigger points in her body, and her therapist used these trigger points to help incubate a dream for Donna to overcome her creative block.

The following scenario is a continuation of the fictionalized account about Donna's incubation:

Donna spent a few minutes focusing on the trigger points related to her dream incubation every night, as her therapist suggested. Although Donna was aware that everyone has, on average, 4-6 dreams every night, during the first three days, Donna couldn't remember any dreams.

Embodied Imagination Dreamwork

But on the fourth day, she had a dream that she wrote down immediately upon waking up so she wouldn't forget it. She remembered that her therapist told her that it was very important to write the dream in the present tense. When she saw her therapist again, she recounted the following dream:

I'm in a coffee shop seated by myself. I notice an old friend, Nina, that I haven't seen in at least 10 years. I walk over to where she is. She's delighed to see me. We chat and get caught up with each other. The scene changes: Later on, I'm standing in the corridor of an apartment building. Somehow, I can see through the wall into Nina's apartment. I see her getting ready to go out to see an old boyfriend. Somehow, I know that she wants to get him back again. She's sitting in front of her dresser mirror and putting on makeup. I can only see her in the dresser mirror because she has her back to me. I notice how determined she looks. Her eyes are very intense. She is very focused on looking "just so" because she wants her date to go well.

According to the Embodied Imagination technique, Donna's therapist listened carefully to the dream and tuned into what resonated for her in the dream. Then, she asked Donna to tell the dream a second time in the present tense. Then, the therapist asked Donna for any associations to the dream. Donna responded by saying that she has always admired Nina for being someone who is very determined to get what she wants. Donna said that, in reality, Nina isn't as manipulative or as calculating as she came across in the dream. The dream presented Nina's determination in an exaggerated way.

Donna's therapist helped Donna to get into a waking hypnogagic state so that she could reenter the dream state. As previously mentioned in prior blog posts, Embodied Imagination is not about dream interpretation or dream analysis. The therapist started by helping Donna to feel the physical environment in the coffee shop. Once Donna resonated with the physical environment, she told her therapist what she noticed in the dream when she saw Nina, what emotions she felt, and where she felt them in the body. All the while, Donna was able to maintain a dual awareness of the here-and-now as well as the dream state.

Then, the therapist helped Donna to "transit" into the Nina character from the dream. She did this by, at first, having Donna descrbe how she felt about Nina and what she noticed in detail. As Donna got closer and closer to Nina's experience, at a certain point, the therapist asked Donna to allow herself to be "embodied" by the Nina character. She asked her to look through Nina's eyes, while, at the same time, maintaining an awareness of herself in the dream.

Donna was amazed at how much she was able to get from taking on the dream character, Nina's perspective. She felt Nina's determination through the energy in the eyes and the torso. She experienced it as an energy that started from just below her navel and came up through her body and out through the top of her head. She even felt the warmth of the energy as it circulated through her body.

Towards the end of the dreamwork, the therapist helped Donna to feel a composite of all the trigger points from her own dream character as well as Nina's trigger points. Donna had a strong felt sense of the images, physical sensations, and emotions from the dream. Her therapist helped her to blend together all of these trigger points to give Donna an integrated experience of the dream.

After they worked the dream, the therapist suggested that Donna use the composite, including the energy and determination of the Nina dream character, to overcome her creative block. She encouraged Donna to spend at least a few minutes every day practicing experiencing the composite of the trigger points in her body.

Over the next few weeks, Donna practiced experiencing the trigger points in her body.

Embodied Imagination Dreamwork

Whereas before, she had problems motivating herself to do her artwork, when she immersed herself in the trigger points from the dream, she felt renewed energy and vitality. Soon, she was able to return to her artwork with the passion that she had felt before.

Embodied Imagination dreamwork is not magic. It works best if you're working on something that is really meaningful to you.

To find out more about Embodied Imagination, visit their website: http://www.cyberdreamwork.com.

I am a New York City licensed psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR therapist, and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I also enjoy using Embodied Imagination incubations and dreamwork.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Dream Incubation - Planting Seeds

During a recent dream intensive training with Dutch Jungian analyst, Robert Bosnak, I learned an extraordinary technique, which is part of Mr. Bosnak's Embodied Imagination technique, called dream incubation. In a prior blog post Dreams and Embodied Imagination, I wrote about his Embodied Imagination mind-body psychotherapy.

 

Dream Incubation - Planting Seeds

What is Dream Incubation?
Dream incubation has been used for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks visited the Temple of Asklepius in Epidauros, Greece to have a healing dream to cure themselves or loved ones from illness. 

Asklepius was the god of healing. The cult of Asklepius was very popular around 350 BC. Many people came to the Temple of Asklepius in hopes of incubating a healing dream, which they believed to be sent to them from the god Asklepius. If they had dreams, temple priests helped them the next day to understand the dreams and the healing messages from the dream so they could cure their illnesses.

Embodied Imagination Dream Incubation:
In Robert Bosnak's Embodied Imagination, if you want to incubate a dream, you work with a dreamworker who has been taught this technique. 

The purpose of incubation is to have dreams about something that you really want and use what you learn from those dreams to attain your goal. You are more likely to have dreams related to your incubation if it's something that you really desire. 

In his private practice in California, Mr. Bosnak works with clients who have chronic illnesses (cancer, AIDS, and other chronic medical problems). But dream incubation can be used for problems related to your relationships, career, creative endeavors, or any other areas where you might feel stuck and need help or inspiration.

Embodied Imagination and the Mind-Body Connection
There are many different types of dream incubation techniques. Most rely solely on the power of suggestion using cognitive methods. What I really like about Embodied Imagination dream incubation is that, like its name suggests, it incorporates the mind-body connection.

As previously mentioned, to use the Embodied Imagination mind-body technique of dream incubation, you need to work with at least one person or a group of people who know the method and can help you to "plant the seed" for the dream incubation. Even if you know the technique, it's hard to do for yourself. To start, the dreamworker asks you to remember a time when you really desired and were most in touch with the thing that you're trying to incubate.

The following fictionalized vignette will give you an idea of how Embodied Imagination dream incubation works:

Donna:
Donna is an artist in her mid-30s. Up until a year ago, Donna was passionate about her artwork. Her paintings had been shown in NYC galleries, she has received very favorable reviews, and she has been able to support herself through her art. But during the last year, following a very successful art show, she has felt "stuck" and uninspired. Whenever she has tried to paint, she found herself staring at the empty canvass for long periods of time feeling anxious and frustrated. At first, she was not overly concerned, but as time went on and she was unable to overcome her creative block, she began to wonder if she would ever be able to paint again.

When a year had gone by without her being able to paint a thing, she decided to see a psychotherapist in NYC who was familiar with Embodied Imagination dream incubation technique. Since she had always been a very visual person with vivid dreams, Donna decided to see if she could overcome this unconscious creative block through Embodied Imagination dream incubation after hearing from a close friend about how well it worked for her to overcome issues in her relationship.

After getting Donna's history, the psychotherapist asked Donna about the last time that Donna felt most in touch with her desire to paint. Donna had to think about this for a few minutes, and then she remembered a specific memory of a day when she was immersed in her art work, feeling passionate and creative. At that point, the work flowed for Donna. She felt that it was almost effortless.

As Donna described this memory, the psychotherapist helped her to slow down so Donna could enter into a waking hypnogagic state. Hypnogagic states are states that we all experience just before falling asleep or waking up. We might not always be aware of it at the time, but the hypnogagic state is that in-between state between being asleep and awake. People have often described the hypnogagic state as a feeling of floating. (Lucid dreams, which are dreams where you know you are dreaming, occur most often in the hypnogagic state. But that's a topic for another blog post.)

The therapist helped Donna to experience the time and place of this memory, which happened to be in an art studio that Donna shared with several others artists. As part of this memory, Donna remembered that another artist, Susan, who shared the space, stopped by to see what Donna was working on. Donna talked about how she had always admired Susan and her work. She also liked how passionate Susan was about the creative process. Susan was 10 years older than Donna. Donna considered her to be a mentor of sorts. Donna knew that Susan had gone through her own creative slumps, but Susan seemed to always find a way out of them. In Donna's eyes, Susan was very energetic and she had a positive attitude most of the time.

Using Embodied Imagination techniques, first, the therapist helped Donna to bring herself back to the art studio and sense what that felt like in her body. She helped Donna to really feel her emotions from that memory of doing her art work that day (the passion, happiness, excitement, and creativity) and feel into where she felt those emotions in her body. As Donna closed her eyes and felt into her body, she felt the happiness and excitement in her chest, and she felt the passion in an area just below her navel. The therapist worked with Donna to help her to deepen and amplify these feelings. She also helped Donna to anchor these feelings as trigger points in her chest and lower abdomen.

Once these feelings were anchored in Donna's body, the therapist directed Donna back to the memory and asked her to observe Susan in her mind's eye. When Donna had a clear picture of Susan, the therapist asked Donna to describe what she saw starting with a basic description of Susan (what she looked like, what she was wearing, how she was standing, etc). Then, she asked Donna to sense into Susan emotionally. At first, Donna began telling the therapist what she thought, but the therapist redirected her away from her thoughts and more into her sense impression.

Embodied Imagination is not about your thoughts--it's about your sense impressions or sense memories from your body. This is similar to what actors do when they use sense memories to embody a certain character or role. (As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, Embodied Imagination is used with actors, including the actors of the Royal Shakespeare Co.)

When we're asked to sense something, we tend to go to our thoughts, since that's how we usually relate to the world. But in Embodied Imagination, going with your thoughts can lead to unintentional fabrication (just making it up or making up what you think it should be). This defeats the purpose of Embodied Imagination.

So, Donna took a few moments to go back to her sense impressions and she felt into her experience of Susan from the memory of that particular day. As she looked at Susan in her mind's eye, she sensed Susan's enthusiasm, excitement, happiness, and her inspiration. Now that they were back on track, the therapist helped Donna to get closer and closer to Donna's experience.

At a certain point, the therapist helped Donna to "transit" into Susan's experience. In Embodied Imagination, transiting into another person's experience is sensing into that experience until you feel embodied by it. All the while, Donna maintains a sense of dual awareness, much in the same way that a person maintains dual awareness in hypnosis. In both methods, the person maintains a sense of the here-and-now as well as the there-and-then.

According to Robert Bosnak, who describes himself as a phenomenologist, transiting in Embodied Imagination is very different from Gestalt therapy. In Gestalt therapy, Donna's sense of Susan's experience would be considered to be a part of Donna. In Embodied Imagination, we do not consider Susan's experience to be a part of Donna. In fact, we have no preconceived ideas about this phenomenon. We just experience it.

Once the transit is complete and Donna feels embodied by her experience of Susan, while maintaining dual awareness of the here-and-now, Donna describes her experience of "Susan-ness." With the therapist's help, she is able to sense into the experience and identify Susan's various emotions and where she feels these emotions in her body.

All the while, the therapist is helping Donna to deepen and immerse herself in this experience. Generally, the waking hypnogagic state is a relaxed state. Accessing the hypnogagic state deepens and strengthens the experience more than just "thinking about" the memory.

The therapist assists Donna to anchor the embodied emotions that she senses from Susan. Combining Donna's anchored embodied emotions with Susan's, the therapist helps Donna to form a composite of this experience in her body so she can hold all of these experiences together. Robert Bosnak, who is a Jungian, uses the metaphor of the alchemist who combines and stirs all the alchemical ingredients to bring about a transformation.

Once Donna has all of these experiences anchored in her body, she returns to ordinary consciousness and the therapist gives her a diagram that she has made for Donna that represents the composite. The diagram is a body map consisting of the general contours of a body with all of the anchor points labeled with the location and the corresponding emotions.

The therapist instructs Donna to meditate on the composite with all of the corresponding emotions and anchor points in the body every night for a week to incubate a dream to inspire Donna to overcome her creative block. Donna will need to do more than just think about it--she will need to feel the feelings from the dream incubation in her body. Since her creative blocks is a problem that Donna really wants to overcome, she is highly motivated and she uses the composite every night just before going to sleep to incubate dreams about her problem.

Once Donna has incubated one or more dreams, she brings them to her therapist, who uses Embodied Imagination techniques to assist Donna with the dreamwork. Very often, people who have dreams after an Embodied Imagination incubaton don't always recognize these dreams as being related to their incubation, which is why it is important to work with a therapist who knows Embodied Imagination.

About Me

I am a licensed psychotherapist in New York. 

I use clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and other mind-body oriented psychotherapy modalities. 

I work with individuals and couples.

I also enjoy doing Embodied Imagination dreamwork, which is a creative method to help clients overcome problems where they feel stuck.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also, see my articles about Transforming Nightmares Through Creative Dream Work
and Dreams and Embodied Imagination

Jungian Workshop with Marita Digney, DMin.

During the last few weeks, I have been familiarizing myself with Jungian concepts as part of my preparation for an upcoming dreamwork intensive with contemporary Jungian analyst, Robert Bosnak. When I trained as a psychoanalyst at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health (1996-2000), we studied everything from Freudian to contemporary/modern psychoanalysis, but we didn't study Jung.

Jungian Workshop With Marita Digney, DMin.

Learning about Carl Jung, his life, and how he developed Analytic Psychoanalysis has been a very enjoyable process for me. I've noticed that, lately, there has been a lot more dialogue among Jungian analysts, Freudians, neo-Freudians, and contemporary psychoanalysts which, in my opinion, is long overdue. As I acquaint myself with Jung, I see that many Object Relations and other contemporary non-Jungian psychoanalysts have been influenced by Jung.

I consider myself to be eclectic and an integrationist of many different ways of working. I often combine psychodynamic ways of working with EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, clinical hypnosis, and ego states work. No one way of working will be good for all clients, so I enjoy having many different ways and combinations that I can use to suit the particular client's needs.

During the last several years, I've become dissatisfied with the mainstream psychoanalytic concepts for dream analysis/dreamwork that I learned while I was in psychoanalytic training. As I mentioned in my January 30th blog post, when I saw Jungian analyst, Robert Bosnak, demonstrate his work at the annual NIP psychoanalytic dream conference in January of this year, I became excited about his method of dreamwork called Embodied Imagination (see my January 30, 2011 blog post: Dreams and Embodied Imagination).

Embodied Imagination dreamwork fits in very well with my mind-body-oriented way of working in psychotherapy, especially when combined with clinical hypnosis and/or Somatic Experiencing.

As part of my preparation for Robert Bosnak's dream intensive workshop, aside from reading books about Jungian theory, I attended a recent workshop at the Jung Foundation in NYC called "Original Harmony: Poetic Resonance in the I Ching and the Bible" presented by Marita Digney, DMin.  Dr. Digney is a licensed psychologist, a Jungian analyst trained at the C. G. Jung Institute Zurich. She is presently an intern chaplain at the University of Virginia CPE program. She has a private psychotherapy practice in the Blue Ridge Mountains in VA.

Dr. Digney's presentation focused on the symbolic parallels in the I Ching and the Bible as it relates to Jung's concept of individuation and the archetype of initiation. The first part of her presentation was a review of the various stages of initiation: separation ("the call"), ordeals, encounter with the divine, and return. She talked about male and female initiatory rites in various tribes as well as contemporary initiations in our own society.

As I've mentioned in a prior blog post, we often don't think of initiations as a concept in modernity. However, even though we might not think of them as initiations, as a modern society, we do engage in certain rites of passage in our everyday life that can be viewed as initiations: spiritual rites (baptism, communion, confirmation, Bar and Bas Mitzvah), Sweet 16, the high school prom, high school and college graduation ceremonies, fraternity and sorority initiations, and even gang initiations. All of these are examples of rites of passage in our culture.

In the afternoon, Dr. Digney had the audience randomly break up into various groups for the experiential part of the workshop. There were three practice groups: "the anthropologists," "the analysts," and "the poets." I was grouped in with "the anthropologists."

Then, she provided a question that was posed in one of her groups from another workshop that could have been posed to the I Ching. "The anthropologists" had to come to a consensus as to which phase of initiation (separation "the call", ordeals, encounter with the divine, or return) this question represented. After "the anthropologists" decided on the phase of initiation, "the analysts" analyzed the stage of individuation. Following that, "the poets" selected which complementary passages from the Bible and the I Ching best represented that stage of individuation.

The question that Dr. Digney provided to us to analyze was: "What about my pursuing my psychoanalytic training this year?" The query was made from a former group participant who was contemplating starting analytic training that year and was consulting with the I Ching for information on the advisability of starting this long process.

As you might expect, this question had elements of all four initiatory stages, and it was up to my group to come to a consensus on which stage we would choose.

A case could be made for it being part of the the separation ("the call") stage of initiation since contemplating this type of change (and similar changes) could represent "a calling" to do this type of work with people. In addition, while contemplating such a change and also while undergoing psychoanalytic training, there are separations to contend with regarding time away from loved ones to devote to study, conducting psychoanalytic sessions with clients, one's own psychoanalysis at least three times a week; and a "separation" from a good deal of money for the expense of the training and multiple sessions per week of personal analysis.

This question could also be looked at in terms of the ordeals that would be involved. Although psychoanalytic training is usually very stimulating and enjoyable on many levels, like any big change, it involves ordeals: financial, time, challenges to one's established views, the "fish bowl" effect of being viewed by psychoanalytic instructors and personal analysts in a consuming and intensive training where one is immersed on many levels.

For many people contemplating becoming a psychoanalyst, there is some form of soul searching about undertaking such a big commitment. This soul searching might involve an "encounter with the divine" (or not) as one questions whether or not to pursue this rigorous training.

Jungian Workshop with Marita Digney, DMin

The initiatory stage of returning (usually returning to the community to contribute in a worthwhile way) can also be viewed as a returning to oneself (to one's inner world), once again, as a soul searching for what's important to oneself.

With regard to the question that Dr. Digney presented to us to discuss, our group was divided between two stages: separation ("the call") and ordeals. After some discussion, we chose the initiatory stage of ordeals as being the best choice, but we also recognized the important aspect of feeling a "calling" (as part of the separation phase) to do this type of work.

"The analysts" group discussed our choice and decided that the ordeals relating to the original question about whether to pursue analytic training or not in the current year represents the archetype of the Self in terms of individuation.

"The poets" group found many relevant complementary passages in both the Bible and the I Ching. Never having compared the Bible and the I Ching, I was surprised at how many parallels could be found in both books. Many of them had beautiful poetic resonance.

Doing this group exercise was a form of experiential learning that was so much more meaningful than if the presentation had remained on a didactic, cerebral level.

About Me
I am a licensed psychotherapist in New York City.

 I work with individuals and couples.

I provide contemporary psychotherapy, clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing and EMDR therapy in my private practice in NYC.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

The Power of Creating Personal Rituals

In a prior blog post I discussed The Power of Rituals.  I'd like to continue the discussion in this blog post by discussing the Power of Creating Personal Rituals.

The Power of Creating Personal Rituals

What Do We Mean by Creating Personal Rituals?
As I discussed in my last blog post, we all have mundane personal rituals that we engage in, whether we're aware of it or not. For some people, it's having a cup of coffee or tea in the morning or reading the newspaper, listening to the weather report, or other similar rituals. Even these simple rituals can bring a certain amount of comfort and a sense of stability. The personal rituals that I'm referring to are rituals that we can create for ourselves that have special meaningful for us.

Examples of Personal Rituals:

Several years ago, a close friend's mother died. My friend, who was very close to her mother, arranged for a wake and a memorial service. She was very grateful for all the comfort that she received from relatives and friends during that time. But after it was over, she felt empty inside, as if she needed something more.

The Power of Creating Personal Rituals

When we talked about it, she told me what she missed the most was having her morning conversations with her mother. She talked about picking up the phone on many mornings to call her mother, after her mother died, and then suddenly remembering that her mother was gone. These moments filled her with so much sadness. And yet, she felt, on some level, that her mother was still alive in a way.

As we talked about it, it became clear that my friend's experience of feeling that her mother was still alive was her own internal experience of her mother, which was very strong. I suggested to her that, even though her mother was not alive any more, she could still "talk" to her mother in her mind through meditation or in a ritual that she created for herself to honor their relationship.

Since my friend had never done this before, she felt a little strange at first. But as she thought about how she wanted to do this, she began by setting a special place on her bedroom dresser where she placed a few pictures of her mother and herself at various ages, including pictures of her mother and her when my friend was a child, a teen, an adult, and more recent pictures of them before her mother died. These pictures represented the various stages in their relationship from a close relationship when she was a child to a rocky adolescence with her mother, and to a more stable period when my friend became an adult and she and her mother reconciled their relationship. After she arranged the pictures to her satisfaction, she decided to place her mother's favorite flowers, irises, in a beautiful vase near the pictures. Then, she added a candle in her mother's favorite color, pink.

As she was creating this special space for her mother, my friend told me how comforting it was for her to set up this area that was dedicated to the memory of her mother and their relationship. She said it was also very satisfying to be creative and have this space be exactly as she wanted it to be. Then, when she was ready, she sat in front of the pictures and the lit candle. She allowed herself to do whatever felt right on that particular day without worrying about what she "should" do or how it ought to be. On certain days, she meditated silently. On other days, she "talked" to her mother about how she felt or her cares, concerns, or positive things that were going on in her life. On other days, she cried. On other days, she told her mother about the funny and wonderful things that were going on in her life.

After a few weeks, my friend felt that she was really connecting to her mother. She didn't make any judgments about what this meant, whether it was purely an internal experience or whether it was also a connection to her mother in the hereafter. She just allowed herself to have the experience and she knew that it was very comforting to her. After a couple of months, she no longer felt the need to do the ritual. By then, she was able to remember and experience her mother as being alive within herself without the ritual, and all she needed to do was think about her whenever she wanted. The ritual has served as a transitional time and space in her mourning.

During the next year or so, a couple of other friends lost their mothers. As we talked about these losses, we decided to get together and perform our own group ritual for the loved ones in our lives who had died. It was sort of a small, personal, memorial service. Each person brought pictures and a special memento that related to their loved one who had died. I brought pictures of my paternal grandfather, including a young, handsome picture of him in his Army uniform and more recent pictures of him before he died. Other friends brought pictures of their parents, siblings, friends, and pets.

We sat in a circle with candles lit on a low, small table and each one of us took turns "introducing" our loved one and saying something about him or her, whether it was a special memory, a story, or why this person was so special to us. In this way, we honored our deceased loved ones in this shared ritual.

Other personal rituals might include setting an intention for the day when you wake up, meditating at a time that feels right for you, praying, reading inspirational literature at a certain time of day, using visualizations, taking a special bath with herbs and candles, or whatever other rituals that would be meaningful to you.

The Power of Creating Personal Rituals

When people create their own rituals, they often experience it as liberating, creative, and emotionally satisfying, especially if they can give themselves permission to create the ritual in whatever way is most meaningful to them without judging themselves.

When we create meaningful rituals for ourselves, we often reach deep inside ourselves and connect to the core of our being. The symbolism of the rituals, including using particular pictures, colors, scents, music, and visualizations helps to deepen our experience, which is deeply satisfying on an emotional and psychological level.

Meaningful rituals often touch us in a deeper way that just using our logical, rational minds alone could ever do. And when we're immersed in a meaningful ritual, we often realize that, in our everyday busy lives, we've neglected that part of ourselves that needs to feel connected to deeper meaningful experiences.

Creating Your Own Meaningful Personal Ritual:

I've given you an example of how a friend created her own personal ritual, which helped her through a difficult time. You can create your own meaningful personal ritual and it can be to honor anything that you want including: a way to express gratitude for what you have in your life, a relaxing ritual at the end of the day to calm and soothe yourself (a bath with your favorite bath salts, oils, candles and incense can be very relaxing), a celebration of an accomplishment, and so on.

If you feel you would like to do this and you've never done it before, give yourself permission to be creative without judging yourself. No one needs to know about your personal ritual if you feel self conscious about it. Creating a personal ritual can get you in touch with that childlike, playful side of yourself. One of the keys to creating your own ritual is that it must feel meaningful and special to you, regardless of what you think others might think or what your own inner critical voice might be telling you.


When you create your own ritual, you often enter into your inner world in a special, timeless, transitional space, especially if you allow yourself to become immersed in the experience. It might feel like a solemn place where you just want to be quiet, or it might feel like a light, uplifting experience where you feel like you want to dance or sing.

The great thing is that you have the freedom to create whatever you want and it be as spartan or as elaborate as you want it to be. You can use whatever symbols you need to help in deepening the experience for yourself. You have the freedom to do it for as long as it feels meaningful or to change it in whatever way that you want or stop whenever you want.

Journaling about your experiences with personal rituals can also help to capture the feelings, thoughts, and ideas that you have while performing the ritual. By journaling, I don't mean keeping a diary where you feel obligated to write something everyday. By journaling, I mean writing whatever captures the experience. It could be one word. It could be a drawing. It could be pages long if you feel inspired to write. 

Journaling about your experiences with personal rituals helps you to dialogue with yourself, if you want to, about the experience. It also helps you to look back on these experiences and to remember them.

People who enjoy creating rituals often experience their personal rituals as a part of having a meaningful life that helps them to feel more emotionally and psychologically balanced, while also continuing to take care of the everyday things that need your attention.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist. I work with both individuals and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Exploring Synchronicities - Part II

In my prior blog post, Exploring Synchronicities - Part 1, I discussed the nature of synchronicities and gave a brief summary of Carl Gustav Jung's theory.  I also discussed how Jung's ideas on synchronicities and the occult was a contributing factor to the rift between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud.

Carl Jung

Demystifying Synchronicities 
As I mentioned in the prior blog post, Jung's theory dominates the professional literature about synchronicities. However, there are other theories, which are psychodyamic explanations about the nature of synchronicities. One such theory is by Gibbs A. Williams, Ph.D. My intention today is to explore his concepts, which are detailed in his new book, Demystifying Meaningful Coincidences (Synchronicities) (2010).

I recently attended a professional talk with Dr. Williams in his West Village office, where he has been for the last 43 years. The talk was based on his research, which he writes about in his book. According to Dr. Williams, he has been exploring synchronicities for many years, including his own and his patients' synchronicities. Dr. Gibbs has recorded a fascinating collection of meaningful coincidences (or synchronicities) in his book.

Dr. Williams theory about synchronicities is in sharp contrast to Jung's concepts. As you may recall, Jung believed that when people have synchronicities, they are connecting to transcendent, spiritual experiences. Jung's theory is that synchronicities are connected to the collective unconscious and to spiritual archetypes. He also believed that these experiences could not be researched because they were acausal and unpredictable as to when they would occur. (For more on Carl Gustav Jung and his theories, go to the C.G. Jung Foundation in NYC website: (http://www.cgjungny.org).

Synchronicities as Naturalistic, Psychodynamic Experiences
Gibbs A. Williams' psychodynamic theory is that synchronistic experiences are not connected to any mystical or spiritual experiences, and they are not part of the collective unconscious. Dr. Williams' theory, as I understand it, is that synchronicities are naturalistic, psychodynamic, experiences. Rather than being part of the collective unconscious, synchronicities are part of the individuals' personal unconscious. As Dr. Williams explains it, these meaningful coincidences are a combination of 1) internal, creative processes and 2) an attunement with the environment. According to Dr. Willilams, the environment provides us with so much stimuli to choose from that, when we are having synchronistic experiences, we selectively attune to those that relate to our own internal creative process that we are undergoing at that point in time.

Synchronistic Experiences at "Stuck Points"
According to Dr. Williams, these synchronistic experiences tend to occur when people are either at emotional "stuck points" or impasses in their lives (the proverbial "fork in the road"), or if when these individuals are searchers or seekers of their own internal truth. He gave many interesting examples of his own and his patients' experiences with synchronicities. All of them are uncanny experiences. These and other experiences with meaningful coincidences are outlined in his book.

There are also other psychodynamic theories about synchronicities, including the theories of M.D. Faber in his seminal work, Synchronicity: C. G. Jung, Psychoanalysis and Religion. According to Faber, synchronicities are naturalistic, psychodynamic, regressive experiences. According to Dr. Wiliams, who takes Faber's concepts one step further, synchronicities are not only regressive experiences--they are also progressive experiences, providing opportunities for psychological synthesis and an internal cohesiveness for the individuals who have them.

Dr. Williams continues to do his research on synchronicities, and if you're interested in learning more about his theories or contributing your ideas and experiences, you can go to his website: http://www.gibbsonline.com.

Synchronistic Experiences and Intuitive Dreams
I've been interested in synchronicities for many years. My own experiences usually occur through intuitive dreams where I have a dream that something will occur and within a short time, it actually occurs. My experience has been that I tend to have synchronicities when I write down and focus on my dreams. Over the years, I've had many intuitive dreams, mostly about people in my life, but also about impersonal experiences. Some of them have been uncanny experiences.

The intuitive dream that stands out in my mind was when I had a dream that I was visiting a friend, L. We were standing in her living room, and she told me about a car accident that our mutual friend, R, was just in. When I woke up, I wrote down the dream, but I didn't think much of it since I had just seen both of my friends and they were both fine. However, about a week later, I was visiting L and we were standing in her living room in the same spot where we stood in the dream, and she told me that she had just heard that R was in a car accident. She described the accident in the same way that she described it in my dream. Fortunately, R was not seriously injured.

Needless to say, I was shocked. In the past, I had other synchronistic experiences, but nothing like this. For me, this was truly an uncanny, awe-inspiring, meaningful coincidence. L and I talked about my dream and how it related to what had just occurred. We both agreed that this was surprising. Neither of us had an explanation for it at the time.

As I explained to Dr. Williams when I met him, it seems that, as far as I can tell, my own experiences with synchronicities don't fall neatly into Jungian concepts or into Williams' or Faber's explanation of synchronicities. I didn't experience them as part of a collective unconscious or related to archetypes. They were neither regressive experiences nor did they occur during emotional impasses. You could say that they are intuitive experiences, but this doesn't seem to be the whole explanation. So, it seems that more research is needed.

On the day that I attended Dr. Williams' talk, one other psychoanalyst attended. Since there were only two of us, we had a chance to have a conversation with Dr. Williams about his experiences as well as our own synchronicities rather than it being a formal presentation.

There was also an interesting coincidence that day: The other psychoanalyst had an office in the same small West Village building where I have my own office; she has been there for about the same length of time as I have been there; we're both there on the same days and travel up to our offices on the only elevator in the building--and yet we've never seen each other before until we met at this talk about synchronicities.

If you're interested in exploring your own synchronicities, I recommend that you keep a journal with your dreams and synchronicities. Dr. Williams also recommends that you include the context of what is going on in your life at the time and compare your synchronicities to your life experiences to see how they might relate.

To find out more about synchronicities, you can explore the following resources:

Websites:
Gibbs A. Willilams, Ph.D. website: http://www.gibbsonline.com.

Carl G. Jung Foundation in NYC: (http://www.cgjungny.org

Books:
Memories, Dreams, and Reflections: Carl G. Jung

Man and His Symbols - Carl G. Jung

Demystifying Meaningful Coincidences (Synchronicities) Gibbs A. Williams, Ph.D.

Synchronicity: C.G. Jung, Psychoanalysis and Religion M.D. Faber

I am a NYC psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist. I work with individuals and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Exploring Synchronicities - Part I

What Are Synchronicities?
Have you ever had the uncanny experience of thinking or dreaming about a person, place or an event and then having your thoughts or dreams actually manifest in your life?

Exploring Synchronicities

For most people, when this occurs, especially if these experiences occur with any regularity, it can be an awe-inspiring event that seems mysterious and even perplexing. Some people attribute these uncanny experiences to a connection with the divine. Others believe they are intuitive experiences, and others aren't sure what to make of them. But, for the majority of people who experience these uncanny events, they feel meaningful, and in many cases, they can be life changing experiences. But how are we to understand these events?

Psychoanalytic Theories About Synchronicities:
There are many views about synchronicities and their origins. Most theorists agree that synchronicities are meaningful coincidences. They seem to occur out of the blue and from nowhere. Often, synchronicities are pleasurable experiences that leave people feeling more integrated and that they are part of something much larger than themselves, as if their internal experiences are, somehow, connecting to something external that is much larger than themselves.

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung:
Most of the literature on synchronicities is dominated by the writings of Carl Jung, who wrote about his experiences with synchronicities after he and Sigmund Freud had an irreparable falling out about the occult in the early 1900s.

Carl Jung

Sigmund Freud

Prior to their falling out, Freud, who was the father of psychoanalysis, viewed Jung as the "heir apparent" for psychoanalysis, the person who would carry on and continue to expound and develop Freud's views on psychoanalysis. Based on the literature and their letters to each other, it seems that Jung also saw himself in that role before their falling out. He used Freud's psychoanalytic theories with his own patients, but it seems that he felt that there was something missing in Freud's theories that he wanted to explore on his own.

Early on, Jung revered Freud. Jung was young enough to be Freud's son. Based on their correspondence to each other, Jung seemed to see Freud as his spiritual father. Jung's own father was, supposedly, very distant with Jung and his relationship with his mother was severed at a very early age due to her mental illness, so Jung grew up being a lonely child. So, his relationship with Freud was very meaningful to him, like the father that he never had. In their early correspondence to one another, there is a tone of father-son affection between them.

But for Jung, although he had great admiration, respect and reverence for Freud and he used Freud's psychoanalytic theory with patients with some success, he came to feel that there was something missing. He continued to explore psychoanalytic concepts on his own, and he came to the conclusion that Freud's psychoanalytic theory placed too much emphasis on sexuality and resolving the Oedipus Complex. Jung came to feel that Freud's psychoanalytic concepts were devoid of a much-needed sense of spirituality and were missing the importance of the pre-Oedipal period of infancy.

As you may know, Freud was essentially an atheist and a rationalist. Jung, on the other hand, had a strong sense of curiosity about all types of spirituality from different cultures and also about the occult. Freud was also curious about the occult, but only to a point. He was wary of what he came to see as Jung's obsession with the occult and this is what eventually lead to the break between them.

One fateful day, Jung and Freud were talking about psychoanalysis and the occult in Freud's study. Apparently, Freud warned Jung against getting too involved and obsessed with the occult. If we can imagine this scene: Here were two geniuses who, until then, liked and had a mutual affection for one another, who were beginning to clash over ideas that each of them held very dear. According to the story, Jung began to feel very angry, as if he was burning up inside. Then, suddenly, as if from nowhere, they were both startled by a loud noise from Freud's bookcase. It seemed to come from nowhere.

As the story goes, Jung told Freud that this noise was evidence of occult phenomenon. Freud was curious about what just happened, but he wasn't buying that this had anything to do with the occult, so he dismissed Jung's assertions, which angered Jung even more. So, Jung told Freud that he would prove to Freud that the noise was an occult manifestation and predicted that it would happen again. And, sure enough, the loud noise occurred again and Freud was startled and amazed by this.

After this Freud and Jung each explored what this sudden noise might have been. Jung continued to attribute it to a mysterious occult manifestation. Initially, Freud was curious about this and he didn't completely dismiss it as out of hand, especially after Jung seemed able to predict that it would occur a second time. However, over time, Freud concluded that the noise occurred due to a change in temperature in the room and the bookcase, which was made of wood, creaking (although he seemed to have no explanation as to why it occurred a second time, as Jung predicted). After that, he dismissed Jung's ideas about the incident completely, which continued to infuriate Jung.

As previously mentioned, early on, Freud saw Jung as the "heir apparent" who would carry on his psychoanalytic theory and his legacy. But as Jung continued to explore the occult, Freud became concerned that Jung's ideas would be harmful for psychoanalysis. As the story goes, Freud feared that people would view Jung's ideas about psychoanalysis and the occult as outrageous and this would lead to the demise of the development of psychoanalysis. Freud had dedicated his life to developing his psychoanalytic theory, and he very much wanted to have a proponent of his ideas, his "heir apparent," to be taken seriously so that psychoanalysis would continue to grow and develop throughout the world.

After the incident in Freud's study, their relationship became more distant, which must have been painful for both of them, but it was especially painful for Jung. After the break in their friendship and professional relationship, Jung had what Jungians have come to describe as "a creative illness, " essentially a nervous breakdown. However, being the creative genius that he was, he was able to continue to see patients through this period and he also began writing about his own internal experiences in the Red Book, including his experiences with meaningful coincidences, also known as synchronicities.

Jung saw synchronicities as being inspired by the divine. In his view, which is the view that dominates in professional literature, when someone experiences a synchronicity (or a meaningful coincidence), he or she is getting in touch with the collective unconscious and archetypetal figures in the spiritual or occult realm. Jung felt that, because these uncanny experiences occurred suddenly and out of the blue, they could not be researched or explained in any other way.

Exploring Synchronicities - Part II:
Also, see my article: Exploring Synchronicities - Part II where I continue to explore the fascinating phenomenon of synchronicities and present an alternative, psychodynamic theory, based on the work of the NYC psychoanalyst, Gibbs A. Williams, Ph.D., that differs from Jung's archetypal/collective unconscious theory.

In the meantime, keeping a journal of your synchronicities can be a fascinating experience, especially if you include the context of what's going on in your life at the time.

About Me

I am licensed New York City psychotherapist, contemporary psychoanalyst, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist.

I work with individuals and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Opening Up to New Possibilities in Your Life

As a psychotherapist in NYC, I am continually amazed at the new possibilities that open up in people's lives when they work through old wounds or trauma that have kept them trapped, sometimes for many years, in old, constricted patterns that have robbed their lives of joy and aliveness.

Opening Up to New Possibilities in Your Life

I have many different treatment modalities that I use, including psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral treatment, and mind-body oriented psychotherapy like clinical hypnosis, EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing, depending upon the needs of the client. I usually find that clients' lives often begin to open up in ways that they never imagined possible when they work through problems that they didn't even realize were holding them back in their lives.

The following vignette, which is a composite of many cases with no identifying information (to protect confidentiality) is an example of this phenomenon:

Nina:
Nina was in her early 40s when she came to see me. At the time, she had not been in a relationship for several years.

She was very lonely and wanted to be in a relationship, but whenever she began dating someone that she liked, she was overcome with so much fear and self doubt that, without realizing it at the time, she would find a way to sabotage the relationship before it could develop any further.

Nina realized that she was sabotaging her relationships

It was only after the relationships ended that she realized that she had sabotaged them, but by then it was too late. She knew that she was caught in an old pattern that was keeping her stuck, but she didn't know how to break the cycle.

Not surprisingly, she had the same pattern with her prior psychotherapists. She would become so uncomfortable in her therapy that, even when she liked the therapist at the start of therapy, she would become too anxious to stay in therapy when she and the therapist began delving into some of her core issues.

At the point when she came to see me, she was feeling the same fear and ambivalence about what might come up in therapy that might make her want to run out the door.

Given how fearful and ambivalent Nina felt about beginning therapy again, it was important to begin the work by helping Nina to have a sense of safety in the therapy. We began by doing some emotionally grounding exercises to help her feel calm.

We also worked on her picturing in her mind's eye various friends, allies and protector figures that she could call on in her mind to be with her when she began to feel afraid. In addition, we worked on Nina establishing a safe or relaxing place where she could go in her mind whenever anything that we talked about made her feel too uncomfortable.

Just from doing these simple, but powerful, exercises, I could see her breathing calmed down, her jaw unclenched, and the color came back into her face. These exercises helped Nina to stay present in the sessions and, knowing that we could stop whenever she began to feel too uncomfortable, allowed her to feel safer and in control.

We also worked with her problems in a titrated way. We didn't dive into the most traumatic issues immediately because these issues were too emotionally activating for Nina. Instead, we would do a piece of the work that felt tolerable to her in each session and, based on Somatic Experiencing principles, we might go back and forth between the talking about the problem and Nina visualizing her safe or relaxing place.

In Somatic Experiencing this is called pendulation, which means that the client and therapist "pendulate" between Nina actively working on a problem and experiencing the calm and safety of visualizing the safe place or her supportive friends, allies and protective figures.

This pendulation might happen several times in a session, depending upon Nina's needs. However, as Nina began to build more resilience and emotional capacity over time, she relied on these techniques less.

With regard to Nina's fears and self doubts in intimate relationships, as we explored her family history, we began to make connections between her current feelings and how she was shamed in her family as a child.

Her parents, who were otherwise loving and well-meaning people, were very concerned that their children shouldn't developed "swelled heads" or become too egotistical. So, to counteract this concern, their pattern was to down play any of their children's accomplishments.

So, when any of the children, including Nina, brought home an "A" from school or won a prize for accomplishing something outstanding, rather than praising their children, they would warn them about the dangers of "resting on their laurels" and becoming complacent.

The effect for Nina was that she could almost never feel a sense of healthy pride or joy about what she accomplished. Instead, she developed a pattern of discounting what she had accomplished, and she worried about what she would have to do next. At an early age, her life was robbed of the joy, aliveness, and self confidence she might have felt if she was allowed to bask in healthy pride.

Nina's parents were also very worried and insecure about the future. Even though, from a practical point of view, the family was financially secure and there was no objective reason to think that they would become destitute, both parents lived their lives as if their financial security could be robbed at any moment.

They imparted to their children that they all had to be very careful and on guard about what might happen in the future that could take everything away at a moment's notice. No doubt, Nina's parents were very affected by their own experiences of trauma in their families of origin, and they never went to therapy to work this out.

In addition, although they were well liked in their community, when they were behind closed doors at home with Nina and their siblings, her parents warned them against trusting people too much outside of their family.

As a child, whenever Nina brought home a new friend, her parents were polite and friendly. But when that friend left, her parents expressed their wariness about what these friends' parents might be like and that Nina had to be very careful with "outsiders."

Although Nina could see, even when she was a young child, that her parents' fears and worries were extreme, she couldn't help internalizing these fears herself. As an adult, she realized that these fears that she internalized kept her from getting very close to men.

She wanted very much to be different from her parents, but her parents' repeated warnings, from the time that Nina was very young, caused the internalization process to go very deep in her. So that, even though she wanted to be different, she continued to have these same fears.

Nina described her pattern in romantic relationships to be one where she started out really liking the man that she was seeing and wanting to spend time with him. But then her doubts and fears about herself and about this new man in her life would take over and she would find a way to end the relationship.

To start breaking this pattern, we worked gradually to disentangle Nina's positive feelings from her doubts and fears.

There is a technique in Somatic Experiencing called "uncoupling" where the Somatic Experiencing therapist helps the client to disentangle two or more emotions that have become over associated in a distorted way.

These over associations (or "over couplings", as they are called in Somatic Experiencing) can be very powerful and this can take time. Often, we don't even realize that these over couplings are a part of our emotional makeup until we start working on these feelings.

Very often, once a client has "uncoupled" a tangle of emotional distortions, they feel a sense of new energy and new possibilities opening up for them. In Somatic Experiencing this is often compared to having a bunch of colorful pipe cleaners that were tangled together and which are disentangled and separated.

After these feelings are uncoupled, clients can often see what belongs to them now and what are the old feelings from "back then" that no longer apply. It can be a very empowering experience.

Nina and I also worked on allowing herself to feel good about her accomplishments without allowing those old feelings that crept up on her ruin her healthy sense of pride and joy. This involved another uncoupling process to separate out healthy feelings of pride, which are normal, from feeling shame and fear about feeling "too good" about herself.

Whenever Nina was able to allow herself to feel good in session, we worked towards helping her to amplify those feelings in her body and allowing herself to bask and luxuriate in them so that she could re-establish a sense of joy, vigor, and healthy pride in herself.

The work was not easy for Nina but, over time, she began to see that she was opening up to new possibilities in her life. She was more open to allowing herself to take more emotional risks by opening up more to people, which would have been unthinkable for her before. She started dating again and when she felt her fear and self doubt beginning to get in the way, she used the resources that she developed in our therapy sessions to overcome them.

Her emotional range of resiliency continued to expand until she could feel a real sense of aliveness and joy that she had not felt in many years. She described it as feeling more like herself. She began to trust her judgment more with regard to choosing healthy relationships. She was more open to meeting and connecting with new people so she was no longer lonely. She also met the man that she eventually married.

Nina successfully completed therapy

By the time Nina successfully completed therapy, she almost looked like a different person. The worry, fear and doubt that had been etched in her face were gone. She had a sense of aliveness and vitality. She also allowed herself to take in the love from her husband that she needed and deserved and she was also able to allow herself to give love freely to him in return.

Getting Help in Therapy
Often, people are stuck in old patterns that keep their lives small and constricted. Their emotions are tamped down. These patterns rob their lives of aliveness and joy, but they don't realize it or, if they do, they don't know how to change it.

If you're aware that you have emotional patterns that are preventing you from living life fully, you owe it to yourself to break free from these patterns by getting help from a licensed psychotherapist who has experience working with these issues.

To overcome these patterns, my professional experience has been that mind-body oriented psychotherapy offers possibilities that regular talk therapy often doesn't offer.

As I mentioned earlier,I work in many different ways and I often combine different techniques, depending upon the needs of the client. Every client is unique and my work is collaborative, so that each treatment plan is a collaboration with the client.

About Me

I am a licensed psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist in NYC.

I have helped many clients to overcome old emotional patterns so they can open their lives to new possibilities and a sense of joy and aliveness.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.