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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.

Insomnia - why not let your body solve it.

Later life, Relationships No Responses »

Mar 202011

From time to time we will post various ways of helping you to sleep if you suffer from insomnia. In all of these methods we will use the bodies natural processes of vision, sound, proprioception (feeling) kinaesthesia (movement), the relationship of roles involved with identity, and earth wisdom itself.

If you have trouble sleeping at night your body may hold the answer. Let’s see if we can discover if the body, rather than our thinking processes, holds the key to glorious sleep, to beautiful restful experiences and to our deepest wisdom. And perhaps let us discover how to travel, with awareness, over the border into dreamland and become more fully awake to our fullest natures while consciously dreaming. The following exercise will bring you straight into the realm of the body and is designed for you to have experiences from your body’s own perspective.

But a note first – our thinking process likes to direct the world and work out our problems – tell your arm to more and it will faithfully move if it is able. If we determine to do something in the world and provided we exert enough will it should happen. However, the body, at the level of its own awareness, does not follow our directions, in fact it hides from them – love, for example, cannot be manufactured,, nor can one sleep for an exact predetermined period. We need to work with the body in partnership; this is a deeply democratic procedure where thinking takes a less important role. The body searches new meanings in every moment and, like a river, it never really repeats itself in the same way twice. At its subtlest level, it loves to work with you but it cannot be controlled. You cannot make it go to sleep but the body will aid you to do so almost always – providing sleep is needed.

If you suffer from insomnia then read through the exercise so as to become familiar with the steps. Then try the exercise while sitting in a comfortable chair in quiet surroundings. Doing this will help you to remember some of the steps in the middle of the night. We will add further steps to this exercise in the coming weeks, and include the earth wisdom.

1. First consider that your thinking itself is keeping you awake. That the thinking may gently need to relax from its occupation. Being against, or agitated with thinking produces more thinking – thinking polarised with itself, so treat your thinking gently, if you can. You may, if you wish, use a soft voice and gently say something like “I love your attempt to help me but may I put you on one side for a few minutes even though I know that you must continue.” Or, in some way that works for you, allow your thinking to be dulled, softened, or clouded. Simply bringing awareness to the process of thinking, however, may be all that is needed.
2. Scan your body slowly with your awareness from top to bottom or visa versa, while breathing slowly. Take your time and when you’ve completed the scan notice which part seemed to respond to your attention the most, or reacted in some way, or mat have a pain there. Each time you do this exercise a different part of the body may attract you.
3. Consider that the part that catches your attention has awareness and a quality of wisdom that is somewhat different to your thinking; that your thinking maybe limited in its ability to understand this type of awareness, but that it can follow it. Simply stay with this body experience, give it the sort of attention that you would give to something really precious to you. As your awareness follows the experience, notice that you may be alternating between thinking, then following, following, then thinking. Notice also, after a few minutes, if your body is more relaxed. This relaxation is good feedback that what you are doing is effective.
4. If you feel that your body is leading and that your normal identity is a little quieter, then you are in the right condition for sleep. Remain in this condition of following your body experience, continuing to allow it to lead you. If you notice that thinking begins to dominate again, then recall that the body itself has the answer and allow it to lead once more. When you fall asleep you may become aware that you are still conscious in your dreams.

We will continue these steps to include the interface between you and your more extensive Processmind that includes your body, your environment and the world beyond.

Deep Democracy & Diversity

Diversity No Responses »

Mar 042011

There are a wide range of beliefs about the nature of diversity and best ways to approach or work with diversity issues. In 1988 Dr Arnold Mindell developed the idea of deep democracy, which he describes as a “feeling attitude towards life… which recognizes the basically equal importance of: consensus reality[1] issues and concerns… dreamland figures… and the essence (common ground) that connects everyone.”[2] Mindell here suggests that our

“If a group succeeds at diversity, it is a successful community and will work. If it cannot do this, it fails at the deepest spiritual level of community, becomes unsustainable within itself and does little good for the world around it.”[3]

[1] Consensus reality is a term used to describe a reality that we adopt by general consensus

[2] Amy and Arnold Mindell’s Website http://www.aamindell.net/worldwork_terms.htm

[3] Dr Arnold Mindell – Sitting in the Fire. P20