Part Four - Appendix Material

The Psychosynthesis book study ends this week.  Our assignment for this time was to read through the several items that form Part Four - The Appendix. Some of the materials are quite straightforward, while others are really complex and technical. For example, two of the articles include discussions of psychological research in projective testing or imagery for diagnosis and treatment. The first, "Initiated Symbol Projection" describes use of "twelve motives" (motifs) such as walking through a meadow, up a mountain, visiting a house, visualizing a person of the same sex (who is often a person who has "a personality the subjects believe they should or could develop"), visualizing a pool of water in a swamp, etc. The purpose of using these various symbols is to ascertain more about the personality of the patient, as well as to indicate in what areas the person needs assistance to grow, to achieve a psychosynthesis.

The second of these two article is "Meditative Techniques in Psychotherapy." This article was written by Dr. Wolfgang Kretschmer of the Tubingen University Psychiatric Clinic and first published in 1951. It focuses on the use of deep relaxation and imagery to elicit deep unconscious symbolic material, bring it to consciousness and to transformation. It ends with this paragraph:

Meditation has a good chance of eventually becoming one of the leading therapeutic techniques. All the newer systems with which the writer is familiar look for a development in this direction. But whether this development takes place depends completely on a deep-going reformulation of psychotherapeutic training and the practice of psychotherapy. It is of the greatest importance that psychotherapists continue to study meditation. We can only hope that meditation will continue to develop into a systematic technique which can aid men towards their goal of developing their highest psychic potentialities.

Since this was written imagery and visualization have become ubiquitous in psychotherapy. There are training programs specifically in the use of imagery, guided imagery, guided imagery with music, and so forth. Meditation of all kinds is extremely popular. It is offered by teachers at many different levels, psychotherapists, spiritual leaders of many faiths, yoga practitioners, and medical personnel. Meditation is being taught in jails, prisons, hospitals, schools, and churches. This is something to celebrate.

At the same time, we still need for psychotherapists themselves to practice meditation. And there is also need for ongoing research into the effects of meditation, not just research from the "outside" of the mind, as happens when the brain of meditators is imaged by very high-tech machines, but also from the "inside" as advanced meditators share their inner experience. May we, humanity, develop our highest psychic and spiritual potentialities and see what happens next!