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What is Process Oriented Psychology

Process Oriented Psychology (POP) - also known as 'Process Work' - was founded by Dr Arnold Mindell. This awareness-based approach is applied in a broad range of fields such as counselling and psychotherapy, personal development, couple/relationship work, innerwork/meditation, group process, organisational development, conflict resolution, and ecology. Strongly influenced by Jungian psychology, Taoism, Quantum Physics and Shamanism, the form of process-oriented interventions emerge from feedback and the nature of the moment.

Gary Reiss interview – Child & Family Work with Extreme States – Process Oriented Psychology
If you are interested in working with Process Oriented Psychology with Children and Families in Extreme States you may find my interview with Gary of interest. Gary Reiss PhD PW Dipl has applied Process Oriented and earth-based methods in the field of child and family therapy for many years. He is a regular visitor around [...]
Signal oriented Trauma work with a Child
This moving piece can be found on Arnold and Amy Mindell’s website, and demonstrates how carefully following a child’s signals after the tragic loss of his mother, helped to move a cycling process move on, leading to the child moving from an experience of helplessness to experiencing his strength. Perhaps the example of a child [...]
OCA-Y – Open Channel Awareness – Yes!
I suggested the acronym OCA-Y for Open Channel Awareness – Yes!!, as a fluidity of awareness that we can discover to meet different situations
Held in Mind
Being held in someone’s mind is no small thing. It is known to be a huge factor in child development whereby the child experiencing themself to be held in the mind of their parent becomes increasingly self-aware or self-conscious, learns about the separation and connection of self and the other. When children deal with separation from [...]
The boy with a glint in his eye
A youngish teenage boy came to see me each week in his secondary school. He sloped into the room for his session and lolloped onto his chair. People were concerned about this young man’s low mood and that he had a tendency to being bullied and then not attending particular lessons. I was quite unsure [...]
“A Somewhat Something Moving Dreamlike on the Changing Road”
A three day seminar using a Process Work approach to movement. Conor McKenna & Clare Hill 7 -9 October 2011 Moscow In our day-to-day world, movement is usually just an aid to living and getting around. Our bodies are subject to our will and our need to get things done. Movement itself, however, contains at [...]
A 16 years old life-path explored through vectorwork
I am a sixteen year old girl who suddenly has come to terms, or is trying to, with the fact that every day I am making decisions which will ultimately affect the rest of my life. Without overdramatizing things, I believe that today there is an incredible amount of pressure on young people, and for [...]
Depression & Transformation – let your hands be the medicine.
If you are ever feeling depressed or hopeless or struggling with inner turbulence generally, here is a simple exercise that will help you to resolve it quickly. Trying to understand moods is generally not useful. Relating to the mood or depression through vision and movement usually has much more success. All that is required is that you suspend your normal rational thinking for a few moments only and follow experiences that arise within you – the key to resolution is almost always within the problem itself. Have a piece of paper and pen ready.
Exploring Process Work and Attachment with children and families
Amazing research has been done around the neurobiological development of a baby/child’s brain and the impact of the long-term effect both positive and negative through the relationship experiences of these early years. PW ‘s sensory-grounded signal-based approach for engaging in relationships is an excellent complement and practice to work alongside and with the attachment and [...]
Voiceless
I met a teenage girl at the high school. She would barely speak a word and her body twisted in upon itself like a gnarled tree. What circumstances had caused her to turn-in on herself so? She wanted to see a therapist, but her parents must not know.

Rank, privilege, abuse, revenge

Diversity, Group/Conflict, Relationships No Responses »

Mar 202011

Rank and Privilege
The term “rank” refers to one’s power position in any given system or social/ interpersonal context. The term “privilege” refers to the benefits and advantages of one’s rank/power position. One of the central tasks of creating sustainable social change is to help all groups, mainstream and marginalized, to become aware of their relative powers and privileges.

Everyone belongs to the mainstream in some way and has some rank and privilege. For example, anyone who is white in a white, Euro centric society has privilege; anyone who is male in a patriarchal society has privilege; anyone who is heterosexual in a hetero-sexist society has privilege; anyone who is an English-speaker in a predominantly English speaking culture has privilege; anyone who has a college degree has privilege, as education is tied to social class and earning power; anyone who has access to economic resources has privilege; anyone who is Christian in a Christian dominated society has privilege; anyone who can vote in the country they live in has privilege. A person with high self-esteem has privilege relative to a person who struggles with self-dislike. Someone who has worked through his or her personal history has advantage over someone who has not. Someone who has suffered through a traumatic or violent childhood and has come out strong may be more centered than a person who has led a sheltered life. A person who feels close to a spiritual source has a great luck and may learn to use that for the benefit of all. Those who have been close to death have a connection to eternity that others lack.

One privilege that all people with rank share is the privilege to not be aware of the suffering of the other side. When an individual or group with rank can open up to the agony of the other side, a deeper level of connection may occur.
Unconscious power or privilege leads us to keep-out or ignore those who are different. Having higher rank, power or privilege can even lead us to think that we are innately superior to those with less power or privilege. Thus, those with less rank in a given situation seek justice and revenge for past hurts and abuses.
Mainstream groups project parts of themselves onto minority groups and vice versa. Worldwork includes helping individuals and groups embrace disavowed parts of themselves. This is vital for the health of mainstream and non-mainstream alike. Thus, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, etc., requires not only legal and political solutions, but identity work, healing and education.
Abuse and Revenge
Issues of abuse and revenge are a problem of every system where power, rank and privilege differentials exist. Mindell* defines abuse as the use of physical, personal, or social/political power or force against an individual or group who cannot defend them. Groups typically rise to power and seek to punish formerly powerful groups or any group, which threatens their identity. Through studying history, we can see this cycle of privilege and revenge, as groups continuously overthrow one another.

Because of past abuses and the unconscious need for revenge, those in power become unconsciously addicted to their power. We do not experience our privilege because we are still hurting from our own past abuse. Thus, working on rank and privilege requires working on abuse and the desire for revenge, on all sides.

Growing up in oppressive, racist, sexist, classist and homophobic cultures is abusive to us all. Living under political dictatorship is another form of abuse. People surviving such political systems speak of the terrible psychological and emotional damage done to them. Abuse, whether familial, social or political, severely undermines people’s capacity to participate in society. It drives people inward, silences them and destroys their confidence, and makes them afraid to speak up or say what they believe to be true. Without knowledge of the effects of abuse and oppression upon individuals and groups, sustainable and democratic social change rarely happens.

*Arnold Mindell: “Sitting in the Fire, Large Group Transformation Using Conflict and Diversity” Published by Lao Tse Press, Portland 1995