The Primacy of Experience
Foundations of Contemplative Psychotherapy
Course Description
Contemplative Psychotherapy is rooted in Eastern and Western spiritual traditions and modern Existential-Phenomenological psychology. At the center of the contemplative psychotherapeutic model is the therapist’s unwavering openness to the way people construct reality and their way of being-in-the-world. As phenomenological psychotherapists informed by the primacy of experience, it is our intention to embody a therapeutic attitude born out of openness, clarity of awareness and intersubjective presence. In being open to the felt immediacy of the moment, therapist and client place their trust in the vulnerability of uncontrived experiencing, direct awareness and compassionate inquiry.
Course Objectives
- Introduce a foundational non-dual, non-deterministic framework of contemplative psychotherapy and the phenomenology of direct perception and knowing
- Introduce and practice experiential exercises that cultivate and develop full attention, therapeutic presence, mindfulness, and empathic openness
- Describe and discuss the contemplative/phenomenological perspective of identification and how it contributes to existential and psychospiritual suffering
- Discuss ways in which participants can integrate the foundational experiences of contemplative psychotherapy into their current clinical practice and supervision
Course Outcomes
- Participants will be able to:
- Explain and discuss the core principles and competencies that scaffold into the
foundations of contemplative psychotherapy - Discuss and experience rudimentary metaskills of calm abiding, mindfulness, therapeutic presence, compassion, and surrender and their application to clinical practice
- Apply phenomenological deconstruction toward processes of disidentification
- Identify and discuss ways to integrate foundational contemplative psychotherapeutic principles, metaskills and experience into their current clinical practice
Workshop Dates
Workshop Dates
To Be Announced
Registration
As class dates are finalized, registration information will be made available.
Note: This course has especially been designed for psychotherapists who are seeking an alternative intersubjective perspective that can engage clients in more openly conscious and experiential ways. The content and experiences contained in this course are meant to enhance, not replace, a participant’s current mode of practicing psychotherapy. Psychotherapists of all clinical identifications and experience are welcome.