The Approach: What is Psychosynthesis?

Psychosynthesis is a model of human experience that is hopeful, as it rests on the premise that each human being has within a drive to evolve and become more fully and satisfyingly themself.  

The first step in Psychosynthesis therapy is the development of self-knowledge and awareness.  We will start with exploring what has brought you to therapy – the uncertainty, pain or crisis you are currently facing and work together to hone your ability to move within your inner world with ease and confidence.  For this to happen, we must come into relationship with your thoughts, feelings and memories and connect to the roots of your ways of being in the world.  

As humans, we all experience tension between being true to ourselves and being the person we need to be to stay in relationship with others and the world.  Part of our work will be to uncover parts of ourselves that have been hidden or exiled, perhaps because they didn’t fit in our families of origin and we needed to adapt to stay safe and survive, or perhaps they don’t match with the conscious image we have of ourselves or with the dominant cultural norms. We may have buried precious aspects of ourselves so deep that we have almost lost touch with them entirely. 

 We all play different roles in life – depending who we are with, what we are doing and how we are feeling.  For example, we may be entirely different at work than we are as a parent or partner and different again if we are feeling safe and relaxed to the person we become if we are feeling angry or shy.  There may be aspects of the self we feel are entirely unacceptable and they have been split off out of reach; There may be a war raging internally between different parts of ourselves. Perhaps our “Critic” is constantly berating our “Dreamer” or “The Saboteur” ruins the very things we want most.  Our task is to bring some clarity into this confusion and to observe with compassion how these patterns are playing out in our current life.  

There needs to be someone in charge – an Inner Leader – perhaps like the conductor of an orchestra – who can step away from being over-identified with any one aspect, observe, understand, mediate and direct.  Like any good leader this aspect needs both compassion and dynamism and needs to include and value all inner voices without allowing them to dominate.  Psychosynthesis therapy helps us to strengthen this centre, this sense of “I”, leading to a greater sense of inner freedom and choice.   

Psychosynthesis Therapists talk of seeing and holding people with “Bi-focal Vision”.  This means is seeing both the pain, conflict and struggle that an individual is experiencing on the level of personality, as well as holding the sense of that person as a Soul on a Journey, a Being already perfect and complete, in full possession of what they need and connected to the greater whole.  This aspect of the person sometimes called “Higher” or “Deeper” Self is the source of qualities such as compassion, creativity, justice and wisdom and can be seen as a blueprint of who we are before life and personality bends us out of shape.  Of course, none of us can live at this level-  it’s just not how we are made – but we can move into greater alignment and allow more flow, in other words “strengthen the I / Self connection”.  The founder of Psychosynthesis, Roberto Assagioli,  postulated that it is not just painful experiences and trauma that are repressed and pushed into the unconscious but also our connection to the Sublime.  Psychosynthesis values and includes this “Transpersonal” aspect of the individual alongside the “Personal” and seeks to restore the connection between the two.

For me the most important aspect of the Psychosynthesis mindset is the idea that lost connection with our authentic Self shows up as “symptoms”  in our lives – whether that be in the form of a sudden crisis or breakdown, long-term gnawing anxiety or depression, addiction, relationship difficulties or perhaps a vague sense of something missing.  This pain contains an opportunity.  Not in the sense of “what we suffer makes us stronger” and not to diminish the immense pain and torment our personal issues cause- we will of course pay ample and  necessary attention to this –  AND we will recognise that struggles are alerts to indicate what is trying to emerge, cracks where the light gets in,  the cry of the Soul , opportunities to renew and restore our contact with Self, our vitality and sense of connection to the whole.

“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door.  If you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”  
– Clarissa Pinkola Estes