What does it mean to take a Holistic, Integrative, Transpersonal approach to psychotherapy?

The lowering of the parasympathetic nervous system using breath work and meditation is a key component of a holistic mind-body approach in Integrative, Transpersonal, psychotherapy. The Transpersonal goes beyond the personality structure, beyond the person. We are not just looking at spiritual aspects but also the psychological, using this information as the groundwork leading us to the soul nature, connecting mind and spirit, connecting the body with consciousness.

What does it mean to work to take a holistic approach to psychotherapy?

Integrative, Transpersonal psychotherapy allows Psychotherapists to connect the mind, body and soul whilst taking a bespoke approach suited to each client's individual needs versus one purist approach.

Working holistically, is to recognise that parts of us are all interconnected. To obtain the best therapeutic results, we must look at the person as a whole system in context, responding to the client on an emotional, spiritual, cognitive, behavioural, and physiological level, bringing these elements together.  An Integrative, transpersonal therapist places emphasis on therapeutic relationships and a pluralistic approach is taken, applying non-binary thinking committed to the whole project of psychotherapy, rather than just taking one theoretical approach. We follow a path of constant learning and apply a mix of theories that best serve the client's unique requirements. By being open, we experience the breadth and depth of possibility, making creative use of our personal experience in therapeutic practice and having an expansive vision of life. We do not avoid anxiety about the unknown but explore it, aiming to discover the authentic self. The transpersonal goes beyond the personality structure, beyond the person. We are not just looking at spiritual aspects but also the psychological, using this information as the groundwork leading us to the soul nature, connecting mind and spirit, connecting the body with consciousness.

            By way of example, I have taken 4 different approaches that contribute to the Integrative, transpersonal way of working, illustrated with short case studies. 1) Freud’s Psychodynamic theory 2) Carl Rogers for a humanistic approach 3) Spinelli for an Existential approach and 4) the CCPE model: The Elements and Alchemy

Freud – A Psychodynamic Approach

As part of a holistic approach, we use Freud’s psychodynamic theories to help us identify a client's defence structure, embodied by repressed emotion to identify how these defences impact relationships and behaviour. These defences have been built to protect and might increase the client's functioning after trauma. However, the effect of these defence structures becomes instinctual as they cease to be helpful and they start to impede our progression in life. Freud recognised that we are victims to these instinctual mental processes that fall out of our conscious awareness and these unconscious motivations are formed in early life. Key to Freud's work was his recognition of the powerful unconscious interchanges of negative and positive emotions between himself and the client and how these interactions represented repetitions from the past to give insight into neurosis. Key to this approach is identifying what is going on in the room, by recognising patterns of unconscious communication via transference and counter-transference. I will explain and show how Freud's theory can be used to understand what is really going on in the therapy room.

The Ego and its role in moderating our instincts

Freud created a model of the mind by identifying the importance of the dynamic unconscious. He felt the unconscious realm of ourselves was more responsible for the way we behave than the conscious, and he put a structure to it. The ID which underlies everything, our irrational instinctual drives containing all our unconscious impulses, feelings, sexual urges, ideas, and memories. The superego, our moral conscience, binds our instinctual energy with control and regulation but also encompasses punishment and guilt showing us reality.  The ego mediates between the id and the superego. When the client is acting out, this creates fear, because there is a conflict between the instinctual ID, the superego and the ego. Psychotherapy aims to strengthen the ego to a point where our instincts are recognised and regulated, without taking over.

Freud theorised that in early life, we pass through a series of sexually developmental stages that are linked to the pleasure-seeking energies of the ID: Oral, Anal and Phallic. He argued If these early stages are not completed successfully and issues were not resolved at the appropriate time, we can get stuck in a stage, which can cause repressions or fixations in later life.

The Oedipus Complex

Freud identified that those we love are also competitors and that at ages 3-5 years in the masculine, the Oedipus complex occurs. This is when a boy becomes sexually attracted to his mother and regards his father as a rival. If the child relinquishes hostile feelings and accepts his father through fear of castration, this results in the formation of the superego. If this is left unresolved and the boy was never reclaimed by his father, he has a weaker sense of his masculinity and will experience problems with relationships, self-love and be more predisposed to other types of mental illness.

The feminine version is the Electra Complex when a daughter's longing for her father creates competition with her mother. When she realises, she does not have a penis, she feels that she has been sent out into the world ill-equip and exhibits resentment towards her mother, internalizing her mother’s attributes.

The superego evolves from the ego as the child navigates the Oedipal phase with the internalisation of the standards and expectations of the parents which forms the child's moral conscience and self-esteem.

The Pleasure Principle

Freud identified the driving force of the ID seeking pleasure, avoiding pain via the immediate gratification of all needs, wants and urges. As a child the ID rules, so they have not yet learnt how to endure the pain of deferring pleasure.

The Death instinct

Freud felt that there could be another unconscious, prehistoric, instinct at play, in opposition to the pleasure principle. The death instinct is the tendency to veer towards self-annihilation through aggressive and destructive behaviour. This is created to undo the whole person, taking pleasure in what is painful and disturbing to the client.

In applying Freud's theory, I will demonstrate how as a result of being shamed, repressed and minimised as a child, my client K has been stuck in the anal phase, characterised by rigidity. This has caused her to have obsessive tendencies such as cleaning and shopping, making her unable to move forward or to break away from her mother's influence.

K was 50, single, childless, and now finds herself caring for her schizophrenic mother and brother. She experienced an abusive childhood at the hands of her violent father whilst experiencing a coercive controlling, co-dependent relationship with her mother.

When our sessions started, she had overwhelming anxiety and I found it challenging to contain her emotions. Her negative transference showed in shouting and anger, but I knew it was not aimed at me, but at herself. Her ego was weak and at the mercy of impulses such as compulsive shopping, hoarding and she had a disorganised attachment to money. Her death instinct, which Freud saw as self-destructive behaviour, was seen in her punishing herself, to destroy possessions she loves as a form of self-sabotage. Her defended ego showed up in therapy through the grandiosity with which she talked about her abilities. She told me how she is so much more talented than any of the celebrity florists. My felt sense was one of choking, I saw a split through her projections of her knowing her capabilities and yet, not being able to achieve success. Her feeling of unworthiness and yet knowing her, self-worth.

There were signs that K has been caught up in the "Electra Complex" with huge resentment towards her 'toxic' mother who had 'stolen her life’. K never experienced individuation and did not have the opportunity to separate from her mother's influence. She felt repressed and had internalized her mother's attitudes towards money. She could not bear spending money and certainly couldn't imagine earning it, gaining freedom. The transference was one of rage, like a steaming volcano. 

Her inner critic told her, just as her mother always did, the money will run out, or you don't deserve it. A conflict existed between the ego and the superego which lessened her self-esteem, causing shame and guilt, as the ego cannot live up to the high standards of the superego. I saw a naïve child. My role had become that of a good mother, someone who championed her and challenged her out of repression. I realised the importance of restoring her crushed self-worth.

We identified the origin of unconscious conflicts and compulsive buying which she did to feel safe because her mother always made her give her things away. This had caused her to feel unworthy. She once bought 20 yoga mats because they were cheap, gave most of them away but kept one. She bought a truckful of flower bulbs 'enough to fill Hyde Park' but did not have a garden, they went rotten. She tells me about the shame she experienced that she hadn’t nurtured them and had spent so much money. This is a pattern we identified that repeats itself along with the self-sabotage of 'accidentally' destroying things because she believed she didn't deserve them, or that her mother wouldn't approve.

In working with K, we lessened the infantile impulses by identifying the triggers of her compulsive behaviours in Freud's language, 'Where the id was, the ego shall be" (Dryden and Reeves, 2011. p.28). Together, we relived the process and reasoning behind why she bought so many flower bulbs. We have normalised the impact of her mother in her current life. In strengthening her ego, K began to individuate and free herself from her mother, creating healthy boundaries and assertiveness in her relationship with others. I experienced positive countertransference when Kallia bought some packets of seeds, not a truckful of bulbs, which we noted with humour, was encouraging!

In conclusion, Freud's model is useful to resolve conflicts of the past by breaking down intrapersonal defence mechanisms, lessening the strength of the impulsive superego, to strengthen the ability of the ego to tolerate a wider range of emotional responses. As therapists, we aim to identify the origins of harmful patterns of behaviour to regress the client, in this case, to get K to mentally separate from her mother. The relationship between therapist and client is the focus of the treatment, as is the transference which Freud described as 'the unconscious displacement by the patient onto the therapist of new editions of old feelings and fantasies that the patient originally experienced towards a significant other' (Dryden and Reeves, 2011, p.31). In modern psychotherapy, clients don't necessarily seek out help for a definable neurosis but do so for general unhappiness, anxiety or depression. Therefore, Freud's model could be seen as judgmental by 'negative labelling' and too rigid in its application. Freud aimed to negate 'symptoms' which could be seen as rather limiting compared to the openness of the existential, humanistic therapeutic approach and the spiritual aspect of the transpersonal. In working with a client, due to transference and countertransference, integrative transpersonal psychotherapy cannot be regarded as purely 'scientific' as Freud would have it.

Spinelli –  An Existential Approach

Existential therapy concerns itself in the ‘here and now’ to grapple with the big questions in life: concerns about death, freedom, isolation and the meaning of our existence. It is designed to challenge our fixed beliefs. It is relational and phenomenological in its approach and based on philosophy. It finds its roots in the work of Heidegger (1889- 1976), who applied a phenomenological method to the understanding of recognizing ‘being’ and the importance of time, space, death and human relatedness revealing how the person sees themselves subjectively in a structured interpretation seen in the psychodynamic tradition.

Spinelli sees existential therapy as a distinct approach with a specific take on the issues that remain central to therapy. The therapist aims to search for the truth with an open mind rather than adhering to a pre-established framework of interpretation, as seen in the psychodynamic approach, challenging our fixed beliefs. This allows us to make new choices, by being aware that our lives are constantly changing highlighting the importance of context. The social, cultural and ideological aspects of a person's dilemma are explored alongside unspoken assumptions, prejudices and fears that disturb them. Spinelli says: Key to this approach is just being-for the client expresses the existential psychotherapist’s willingness to attempt an increasingly adequate ‘resonance’ with the client’s worldview as it presents itself in the therapy world.  (Spinelli, 2015, p. 109)

The existential psychotherapist’s client-attuned presence makes clients more likely to respond to the presence of a non-judgemental other who tries to describe and embrace their worldview by accepting the client just as they are. This makes clients more willing to see alternative possibilities to their life scripts within the safe boundaries of therapy. Buber (1958) cites the I-THOU being the moment where the therapist and the client surrender to the between of the relationship, a process where the other’s humanness is confirmed.

This therapy is relational, a place where both parties hold the space and where both humans can encounter each other as freely as possible. The challenge is to connect on a deep level and the healing part of the therapy is being with the other with a complete lack of judgement in a profound place of contact which proves the meaning of existence, the catalyst to healing.

Spinelli identified 3 key principles:

1)        Existential relatedness

Therapy cannot stay in the realms of the client’s subjective experience, instead, it rests on the foundation of relating to others to experience and understand their place in the world. Therapy is about the therapist, as much as it is about the client. This relationship is an embodiment of what is unfolding and presenting itself in the interaction between the client and the therapist.

2)        Uncertainty

Eric Fromm states “The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning” (Spinelli, 2015, pg. 105).

Through the client's willingness to engage with an uncertain and imperfect therapist, shifts occur. The client has the recognition of the ‘other’ not being blocked in a subjective way of thinking and consequently, the client begins to question their uncertainty. This invites a critical examination of their perspective on the world. The outcome is unpredictable and can throw up other concerns that in turn need to be explored.

Spinelli identifies four approaches to uncertainty: Denial (a problem simply does not exist), Resolute (stays steadfast), Coping (treads water but doesn’t get to the bottom of the problem), Engagement (engage, face up to and live with uncertainty to identify all the possibilities). Our possibilities are stunted in our growth if we refuse to engage with the uncertain and simply not knowing, which opens the path for something else to emerge. We cannot know if we can accept this uncertainty and we must let the truth unfold. This often causes suffering but knowing that this suffering is universal, is healing in itself. This is where the connection with the client is key when realising, they are not alone on this path of unknowing.

3)        Existential Anxiety

Spinelli writes: “The Principle of existential anxiety follows as a direct consequence of the first two principles, in that it expresses the lived experience of relational uncertainty” (Spinelli, Pg. 29). We cannot eradicate the anxieties of life, but we can embrace them, so as not to become slaves to our fears and become paralysed rather than to use anxiety, in a positive way to drive us forward into new possibilities.

Spinelli outlines some existential themes:

1)        Authenticity

Is the possibility to ‘just be’ without preconceptions? To be able to meet uncertainty and accept that by being free and open, we can experience ourselves in our true capacity through the connection with the other. We are, after all, relational beings in context, self in the world, with the other.

2)        Meaning / Meaninglessness

 It is instinctual for humans to find meaning but what if there is no meaning to anything? Existential therapy explores both polarities of meaning and meaninglessness and the acceptance that it is Ok for there to be no answer, we must learn to accept that and find peace with it. In a world where there is no meaning, the aim is to construct our own which makes life bearable.

I have had first-hand experience working with a client with true existential dilemmas who came to me with symptoms of high anxiety, not sleeping or eating well. I can highlight how Spinelli's principles are demonstrated in my work with A.

Aged 58, of West Indian heritage, having worked in the NHS in mental health for over 30 years, A was working under a new boss who terrorised and humiliated her.  She was being ostracised and she felt there was a racial element. She made a complaint and from that moment on her work life was made a nightmare, she had to take sick leave from extreme work-related stress. All other aspects of her life were good, a kind husband and a close-knit extended, family. When we met, she felt weakened, dejected and supremely underconfident questioning her professional ability and most importantly her life and her future. She wondered if her professional sacrifices had been worth it and she was horrified in realising just how replaceable she was. She had no drive or fight left in her and was trying to cope with what had become an unbearable burden for her emotionally. We worked on this uncertainty. Without the NHS there was no full stop to her life, no container or sense of belonging and this coupled with taking legal action against her aggressor, had sent her into a state of existential anxiety.

For many sessions, I was just there to try to appreciate her worldview. I listened and listened to what seemed like her entire career history repeatedly, which was challenging at times however I was her container, a secure base to project all her fears and anxiety and we built a trusting relationship. She had been given a new position, but it was a demotion. The main question was, whether she should return to work or not or just retire, the unspoken question was how to face her dawning years.

She was drawn to going back and accepting this new role regardless of her humiliation, that is all she knew. We sat in anguish and the unknown for many weeks. She wanted me to give her the answer to her dilemma, I said I could not tell her if she should go back to work or not. I made her aware that I did not know the answer as I was not her, I could only serve a mirror to facilitate her own decision making. I aimed to help A explore and recognise the choices she had made and accept responsibility for the past, present and future.

We explored what gives her life meaning and discovered that to some degree her work had come to define her, that without the NHS she felt like her life would have no meaning. She was not living her authentic life but just going through the motions, doing what she had always done, out of fear of change. We openly explored what would happen if she did or indeed if she didn’t leave. If she left the NHS would she and her family cease to exist? Would she suddenly self-combust? What would be the consequences of staying? We questioned and discussed this realm of uncertainty. I asked her to imagine returning to the building where she had spent 30 years and doing a body scan to tell me what she felt. She said she felt pain in her heart and was nauseous.

It was clear that A had been living with existential anxiety for many years, she was putting up with microaggressions and not being able to hold her boundaries for fear of the consequences. I asked her what would she do with her days if the anxiety of working in a toxic environment was removed. How would this feel? The answer is a huge sense of relief! Could she imagine leaving the NHS and starting a new life? What would this look like? Her answer was, It would be terrifying. Why terrifying? What would be the worst that could happen? We explored these questions in depth. I expressed that however challenging it is to remove the full stops in life that bring us to a false sense of security, entering into the unknown can bring so much opportunity. The chance to live authentically, spend more time with loved ones, to congratulate oneself on past efforts, by doing things we love. We worked on the theme of change and what it meant for her and the theme of freedom. How would feel to be free from her toxic manager? We discussed how work did not and could never, define her as a person.

A was a clear example of how we can learn through suffering, gain awareness and through this, we become ourselves. Over the months we related to one another coming together in her uncertainty, she took the courage to fight her case, winning her legal battle, receiving her pension early and leaving the NHS. She was living authentically, the life she deserved, she had normalised the impact of her working trauma and taken responsibility for her decision. She had started to come to terms with her retirement, had taken up took up yoga and when we last spoke, she had thoughts of setting up her counselling service for disadvantaged children. I didn’t incite her to change her life, she did. My role was to make the therapeutic space open, just be there, stand beside her and accept her, without judgement. A recognised the choices she has made in the past and accepts the things she can’t change. Our genuine relatedness to one another helped her confidence grow.

The three underlying principles discussed above – relatedness, uncertainty and existential anxiety – are necessary to any explication of the existential-phenomenological theory according to Spinelli. They provide a basic ground plan, that existential phenomenology must be able to address as well as the primary means for its definition, and in contrast to, or comparison with, other systems of psychotherapy.

Existential psychotherapy’s view of conflicting issues reveals a different stance from that of other approaches. It proposes that our struggles are an inevitable condition of human existence, that arises from the client’s current worldviews and their own lived experience. Existential psychotherapists do not pathologize the various symptoms that are expressed by the client via his or her world- view as one might see in the Psychodynamic approach. Nor do they look to ameliorate or remove ‘symptoms’

Criticisms include that the very nature of Existential therapy is based on philosophy requiring clear thinking from the client so it might rather favour those of high intelligence or lesser mental health concerns which means it might not be the best approach for say, young people, those with learning difficulties or severe psychiatric diagnoses.

In Spinelli's work, he works on a more integrative level as there is common ground with the Humanistic and Transpersonal aspects of therapy in the ‘here and now’ without the power dynamic seen between therapist and client in the Psychodynamic approach. Existential therapy in general, can be seen as more rational than the embodied, Transpersonal approach due to its reliance on philosophy however it is based on ancient traditions and there is spirituality, due to the fact for it to work, the unexplained I- Thou connection with others, is vital.

Carl Rogers – A Humanistic approach

Humanistic psychotherapy is client-centred, and relational and focuses on self-actualization. It looks at the whole person and the uniqueness of everyone. It is built upon the close, intimate, and specific observations of behaviour in a relationship, observations which are believed to transcend to some degree the influences of a given culture. Rogers believed that all individuals exist in a continually changing world of phenomenal experience and react to it according to their perception and field of reality. Some of that perceptual field becomes integrated into the client’s belief system and the structure of the self is formed.

In client-centred therapy, the therapist becomes a genuine alter ego for the client to see their attitudes, confusions, feelings, and perceptions more accurately. (Carl Rogers, 1965, pg. 40) The therapist seeks to understand and perceive in the same way the client perceives and understands, showing the belief they have in the worth of the client. The aim is to enter the client's internal frame of reference, with respect for the capacity of that individual.

Carl rogers most important theories are:

1)        Self-Actualization

Is the concept that we all inherently, strive to be the best versions of ourselves and that we need to reach our full potential. Rogers describes this as a movement away from meeting expectations and pleasing others, towards trust of self and self-direction. The key is being open to experience and the acceptance of others also seen from the existential perspective. It is a movement away from fixed ideas to openness.

2)        The Development of the Self 

People with a stable sense of self have a greater ability to function in the world, they are more resilient in the face of adversity and have more confidence. He believed, rather like Freud that this is largely dependent on childhood experiences. Children who had unconditional love have a better sense of self as adults than children who were expected to ‘earn’ love often showing up as a lack of self-esteem and self-worth in adulthood.

3)        Unconditional regard

For therapy to be successful, Rogers believed that therapists should have unconditional positive regard for their clients so that they can express themselves freely without fear of judgement.

4)        Congruence

Rogers suggests congruence is a defining characteristic of mental health. He uses the word congruence to refer to the precise combination of three elements: experiencing, awareness and communication. For example, If I am accurately aware of what I am experiencing in the envelope of my being, I am internally and externally congruent.  (Dryden and Reeves, 2014, Pg.132.)  When our self-image does not line up with our ideal self, we are in a state of incongruence. As a result of life experience, the person we think we should be our ‘ideal self’ quite often has no parity with our perceptions of who we are today. To receive positive regard, incongruent clients could lead false lives and they do not reach their full potential. Other people’s attitudes cause them to lose touch with their authenticity to meet their approval putting them on the defensive and this falsely seems to diminish the threat but doesn’t penetrate the root cause.

5)        The Fully-Functioning Person

A fully functioning person is completely congruent and living an increasingly existential lifestyle in the here and now. They do not distort it to fit their self-concept but allow themselves to live fully through experience. If we are successful in self-actualizing, we could in effect, be fully functioning and for this process to occur, unconditional positive regard plays a critical role. Those who receive non-judgmental support and love can develop the self-esteem and confidence to be the best person they can be and live up to their full potential. They have a flexible sense of self, are open to experience, can connect with others and have unconditional regard for themselves.

I will demonstrate how the humanistic approach was beneficial to someone like S who was 19 years old from the UK. Her father left when she was about 11, her mother had a new partner and S's half-brother was 8 years old. She had been estranged from her family since her mother threw her out of the home at the age of 13 years old, so she went to live with an abusive boyfriend. She had a baby at 14 years old but gave it up for adoption and her boyfriend went to prison for domestic abuse and rape. During our therapy, she was living in sheltered housing. Rape and abuse from male figures had been an ongoing occurrence in her life. She presented with depression, anxiety, PTSD, self-harm and suicidal ideation. When I met her, she was alone, she had no sense of self, low self-worth and lack of confidence. She just wanted to die and told me, she just wanted to be loved by someone, anyone.

Key to my approach in working with S was to perceive and accept her for who she was. I used reflective listening and tried not to intervene too much apart from reiterating back, asking how she was feeling and constant mirroring “that made you so angry didn’t it?’, and “you have missed out on cuddles” as I see her hug her teddy bear. This technique showed her I was on her side, I saw her, reassured her that I was listening with empathic regard.  I was genuine and honest with her and try to be on her level despite a huge age and cultural gap. To ‘just be’ in the sessions sometimes filled me with doubt and made me often reflect if that was enough. If I asked what she had done that week, the answer would always be nothing. On letting her have the space, richness of information came forward.

I tried to be open and enter her reality and this was very hard for an empath. To see fresh cuts on her arms, I frequently left the sessions feeling sad and tearful, however, in that hour with S, I was constant and emotionally balanced. It was very difficult to accept that S would choose death over life, but I did not say anything in the session to prevent her, just respected her viewpoint and made sure she stayed safe by saying “see you next week” which seemed like the only way I had of keeping her alive in the short term. I think having a very calm and matter-of-fact, non-judgemental reaction to seeing her cuts and talk of suicide, somehow reassured her. Keeping things real to some degree allowed her to explore her reality.

The key aim was to work together to develop a stronger sense of self, which had been greatly diminished by her past and childhood. S was very intelligent and sensitive however for a young woman she had childlike qualities. Her self-image (ugly, stupid and unlovable) was incongruent with her true self (charismatic, clever, and lovable). She told me about her poems and over the sessions, she read many out. They were brilliantly written, I told her she should be proud of her writing skills. I was self-involved to some degree in encouraging her to keep on writing to get a sense of the process of self-actualisation and congruence. We examine her life together and see that she was very fixed in her view of herself as unworthy. At times, she is quite hopeless that her situation will not change.

S told me she was so anxious her heart was coming out of her chest. She wanted to tell me something but said she couldn’t. She said I would disapprove, be disappointed and tell her off. I related to her with unconditional regard. I told her she did not have to tell me anything and I would not tell her off. That her life is her life and I have no judgement. She did get the courage to tell me about a friend taking advantage of her sexually. We discussed her rights in this situation and explored the theme of boundaries towards others around us. I showed S that I respected her and that I valued her as a person. This was perhaps the first time in her life anyone had shown her any attention or care and this in itself, was helping her become a fully functioning person. Over time, I saw she mentioned suicide less and had stopped cutting herself, she tried to get work as she felt greater control over her life.

The humanistic approach was a rebellion against the perceived limitations of the psychodynamic approach which was seen to be dehumanizing. Humanistic therapists do not believe that clients can be labelled or must conform to strict theoretical types. The therapeutic space should be open and non-judgemental seeing everyone as unique. It is not, theory, symptom, treatment or problem-centred like the psychodynamic or existential approaches.

CCPE Elements and Alchemical model – A Transpersonal Approach

Transpersonal Psychotherapy goes much deeper than pure psychology which focuses on the mind and thinking alone. It is concerned with connecting the mind with the body and spirit. The transpersonal approach is vast and the CCPE offers one perspective using techniques such as creative imagination, meditation, visualisation and dreams, amongst others to access the unconscious with the ultimate aim of revealing the client's soul nature.

It works on the premise that in our early lives we can develop defences and ways of survival which can be helpful, but these can cover our soul nature. By using the transpersonal approach, our main task is to identify the nature of the client, see them for who they truly are and understand their purposes and challenges in life. We help the client develop a healthy ego structure, so they can hold their spiritual essence, and not be hijacked by it. In short, it helps move past the person, beyond thinking, connecting to themselves and others.

The CCPE Model is based on the Elements, the Alchemical model of transformation and Planes of Consciousness, the latter I will not touch upon in this essay.

The Elements model

This is a transpersonal map of qualities based on these four elements of Earth (our will), Water (our emotion), Fire (our energy) Air (our mind) that helps us discover clues to a client’s soul nature and to identify their patterns of behaviour (Gruber, 2007). It works on the predisposition that at birth, we have a soul nature that is unique to us and that as we go through life, we can use the elements to identify what element is present and what is needed to fulfil our potential. This model aims to create a balance between the four elements and when this is the case, we feel able to change and grow and when the opposite occurs, we need help to get back to our core nature. The elements can present themselves in 'active', 'balanced' or 'receptive' states and are represented by 12 Archetypes or groupings of qualities and sometimes these can become distorted.

The aim of the model is not to change or correct a person's self but allow them to inhabit it more fully. It is a base which helps us see the distortion of qualities that is the root of our problems and from which we can identify the necessary elements to create emotional equilibrium. The psychotherapist asks the question: What qualities does my client have? What are the distortions of these qualities? What could other elements bring? We need to notice which elements are present, which are present too much or too little and investigate the causes within their therapeutic journey.

The CCPE Alchemical model

Is based on ancient civilisations and revived by Carl Jung in the 1920’s, allowing us to understand the client's psychospiritual transformation process, the journey to becoming more spiritually ‘whole’. This journey allows the person to achieve self-realisation, free from fixed and constraining thought patterns and behaviours acquired through life experience. In effect our soul becomes leaden, and our natural openness becomes obscured leading to dysfunctional thoughts and feelings. The transpersonal goes beyond the person into a spiritual realm that demonstrates life crisis as an opportunity to evolve and grow.

The premise is that we move through distinct identifiable stages towards our path to healing:

Stage one, the stage at which most clients seek help, Nigredo (primal matter, leaden and blackened, psychodynamic, earth) is when someone is in conflict, they might feel depressed and unable to cope. At this stage, the therapist provides a non-judgmental, safe container for the client to expel anger or sorrow and explore their conflict.

In stage two of the therapy, Albedo (whitening, metallic silver, moon, existential, soul) the client begins to question who they are, there is an awakening. They might feel vulnerable, fearful and uncomfortable as begin to see their unhelpful behavioural and thinking patterns which are why empathy is so important to support the client face the challenge to step into the unknown. At this stage, they get a glimpse of their potential and they might have a sudden realisation and greater understanding as links to the past are made.

Stage three is Citrinas (yellowing, sun, spirit/source, Spiritual) there is a loss of individuality towards the deeper self. A very subtle perhaps unidentifiable understanding of the spirit or intelligence that goes further than life. There is a deeper connection of understanding formed between the client and therapist.

Stage four, Rubedo (Reddening, heaven/earth, embodiment, whole) signifies the awakening, rebirth into life and an expansion of the heart. The client has the challenge of implementing their self-discovery to move forward in their lives by making changes. The therapist's role is to help this advancement by working with the client to set achievable goals and to see them through the challenges these changes might bring. The lead has been transformed into gold and with this consciousness, life can be transformed.

This alchemical transformation process is not linear and one stage might not necessarily follow another on the journey to self-realisation. This process continues throughout our life. A client will perhaps oscillate between Nigredo and Citrinas several times in the therapy before a more profound transformation can take place. Within these stages, there are alchemical operations that occur which accelerate the transformation and they are closely connected to the natural elements: 

Solutio is purifying and connected to the water element and involves dissolving the client's concerns in the Nigredo phase of transformation. In visualisations or dreams, clients will see rivers, floods, rain etc.

Calcinatio is also purifying but firey and the opposite of Solutio reducing vapour to dry powder and can occur in Negredo and in Albedo and Rubedo. It represents a phase of recognising the ego's hold and a move to liberation from unconscious behaviours.

Sublimatio represents transcendence purified by the Air Element, a perspective of the higher self. It helps us gain insight and some detachment from problems. It can occur in Nigredo but it is not yet fully understood or embodied. There can be a false sublimation when people feel enlightened or manic when they have not faced their unresolved emotional issues and are actually in a fleeting state of spiritual bypass. Images would include birds, climbing, mountains.

Coagulatio represents the purification of the Earth Element which is heavy and fixed, a starting point from which the client develops. It is about the materialisation of spirit, the concretisation of concepts, aspects of self, perspective and bodily incorporation not found in the mind. In Negredo, the ego has become too constricted and the soul has been burdened by over-identification with the ego and needs transformation. Images such as prison or confinement might be seen. This shows up in relationships that coagulate, hence its importance in therapy. Rubedo is a positive ego state which allows for the expansion of consciousness.

Mortificatio represents the Death of the old sense of self and the breaking down of the ego. In the transformation process, we reconnect with the soul and it is necessary for the death of old thoughts and behaviours for the true self to emerge. In Nigredo this death of self is seen in the bodily manifestation of our concerns, in Albedo it's all in the mind only in Citrinas do we see the self as an individual in transcendence. Images a client would see would be dark, everything we would associate with death and destruction and the theme of the death of the old King, to make way for the new ruler is the key principle.

Separatio refers to the process of filtering and separating mixed components, sorting the new from the old. Within the alchemical process, the destruction and then refinement and recombining of the prima materia to create new materials and release of energy representing the release of the soul from the body. It represents the separation of worldly concerns from transpersonal reality. The ego is in development as one might see in a midlife crisis and the start of this might likely be seen in the Citrinas stage with the true rebirth in Rubedo. We perceive and identify splits and the struggle of opposites in our clients. The images a client might bring to the sessions would be concerned with knives, justice anything to do with cutting or carving.

Conjunctio is the stage where purified opposites unify to make a whole. Gruber writes “it is driven by transpersonal love which generates and multiplies having the capacity to transform all base materials into the gold of spirit. (Gruber, 2019) The Alchemical marriage of spirit and matter and the final union of opposites. It is represented by Marriage and the integration of the stages and healing of splits in a non-idealised or repressed way. Images are of opposites in a union such as the sun and moon, king and queen, and other personified opposites engaged in marriage or sexual intercourse. In therapy, this might appear in the final stages of a cycle in the process where a client comes to acceptance and a feeling of contentedness, free from the struggles they had faced previously.

To demonstrate how I have taken a transpersonal approach I will use K again, who had a brutal father who used coercive control and beat her, who interned her in a mental health institution at the age of 16 years old and then lived in the clutches of a religious cult that had enticed her mother, who also controlled her with money and did everything to stop her advancement in life. She says she was oppressed and treated like a slave, surrounded by negativity and made to feel shameful, isolated and not worthy of anything. She commented that she was denied her femininity. Today she suffers from what she sees as a wasted life and lost opportunities. She is filled with frustration that she has been unable to fulfil her dreams due to the embodiment of extreme fear. 

I have used transpersonal techniques with K to great effect, so it is interesting to show a different perspective to the psychodynamic theoretical approach previously described. I identify K as a born, balanced fire type seen in the Knight archetype in distortion, making her impulsive and destructive. She should be someone who should be confident, successful, open, useful, independent, and truthful and yet when she started therapy, she was in a deep state of Negredo shown by very low self-esteem, little self-worth, overwhelm, anxiety and depression making her unable to work or achieve her goals. There were signs of dishonesty, elements of failure, and neediness. She looked unkempt, she felt tearful, reduced, unsure of who she really was or how to move forward in her life, often relying on superstition and prayers to comfort her. She felt exhausted and burnt out.

For many sessions in this Negredo stage, my role as a therapist was to just listen, contain, show empathy, understand and hold difficult combinations of elements showing as flooding of water in solutio, too much pain and fear and the outpouring of tears. Indeed, in a short meditation, she always visualised her favourite place, a river in Germany and this brought her great comfort, she felt that if she could cross the bridge across this river that would represent her freedom from fear (up until now she has put a few feet onto it, big progress, but not let go of the fear associated with crossing it). A natural fire type, her distorted fire showed up as rage, self-sabotage and grief for a life not lived. Her earth was flooded, and I could visualise her feed stuck in quicksand starting to drag her under. The meeting of distorted fire and water causes steam and distorted air leading to irregular thinking patterns and confusion causing. She came to therapy to rid herself of the huge fear that was holding her back from being independent and releasing herself of the inner critic, personified in her mother. We started at the very beginning to regress right back to the start of everything, to her childhood.

In the early part of therapy, her anxiety was so extreme we start sessions with a short meditation and using the earth breath to ground her to release her anxiety. She told me about events in her early days surrounded by toxic people, even today she is obsessed with the toxic florists who she believed blocked her advancement in the world of flowers like weed killer. After some weeks, I was curious to understand who she was as a child. She brought in a photograph of herself at the age of 6 years old at a christening and this photograph evoked memories of that day leading her to describe her childhood in detail. She told me how she was in survival mode all the time in fear of being beaten.

We did an inner child meditation which was a pleasant experience for her. She felt positively reminded of herself and described herself as cute, excitable, cheeky a bit rebellious. She told me how smart she was, but no one nurtured it. She seemed full of fire qualities to me, but her spark was taken away. I asked her to do a body scan and to breathe. She told me she felt disgusted and that she had a poisonous taste in her chest. I asked her to expel the air, exhale and use the air to dissolve the pain in her heart. As the air came out, she felt like choking and coughing.

I have also done some creative visualisation with K, we did the pebble exercise in creative visualisation and the pebble got stuck in the throat. She realised she has never had a voice; she had been put down and prevented from speaking up. She faced the pain of the loss of a life not lived. We worked on this area and she imagined the blockage burning into cinders, the cinders blowing away in the breeze to leave space resembling mortificatio. The use of strong imagery and symbols such as the bridge the vision of her future, old-fashioned weighing scales reflecting her attitude to money and guilt and religious images connected to shame was ever prevalent in the work.

The use of all the creative imagination techniques has made K less in the head and more routed in her feelings without being out of control.  Earth qualities were becoming more prevalent, the process seen in cogaulatio, and her fire qualities have become balanced as a driving force to get work rather than rage and anger. There have been glimpses of K in Albedo when she discovered that perhaps her mother suffers from mental illness and is not evil, her hatred turned to love. She made the links between self-sabotaging and her past and the connection to her self-worth.

The CCPE transpersonal model can be viewed as a holistic health model and differs from other approaches such as the psychodynamic, humanistic and existential approaches because it uses metaphor and symbols to represent processes and stages, that are ever-changing. It is not a rigid theoretical approach but one that goes further than the body and the mind to reveal the essence of the soul.

The transpersonal approach does not diagnose or respond to specific symptoms as seen in the psychodynamic model and there are some commonalities with the humanistic and existential however it is unique in its spiritual approach to reaching a higher self. It helps us get a deeper understanding of the unconscious, it is more human, creative and less judgemental although some would say less structured than the psychodynamic approach. 

The transpersonal approach is useful to me as it helps me get a deeper connection with myself and my clients working from layers of wounding that veil the soul. We are not just ego-like in the psychodynamic model, but our true nature is spiritual. Consciousness is multidimensional and different realms of consciousness access a deeper understanding of ourselves. Humans have urges towards finding wholeness going further than just the need for self-actualisation as seen in the humanistic model.

How do the four chosen approaches come together? 

As integrative therapists, all models give us a clue to the authentic self and there are commonalities, however not one approach alone, can give us the full picture. Some purists might argue that integrative transpersonal therapists do not go into enough depth into any theoretical approach, but I regard it as the most adaptable approach, we can tailor-make our work to each client, and we take a creative approach to therapy. It is truly holistic which helps us get a deeper understanding of the client from many different perspectives that also transcends the physical body. Most importantly it brings clients to an embodiment of feeling.

As part of the work, we use several models The Psychodynamic focuses on early life and shows the defence structures, the key to healing is building a strong ego. However, if we don’t have a psychological understanding of our early life impact, we might be led towards the transpersonal in search of happiness, leading to a spiritual bypass (false enlightenment). Transcendence is the work of transformation. On the other hand, an individual's experience cannot tell us at the deepest level, what our most fundamental sources of dread are because it is not just the facts of our life that dictate this, but also our unique selves in context.

The Humanistic approach is person-centred, towards self-actualisation which is the goal in all therapy in a way, to be a better, more refined self, however, the transpersonal takes this further into spiritual realms considering us to be greater than our physical bodies. There is a spiritual context to the great unknown.

Existentialists help us come to terms with loss, meaninglessness, freedom, and death, towards a place of acceptance. Like the Transpersonal model, there are as many unique expressions of Existential therapy as there are unique beings who practice and benefit from it. The future becoming present is the primary concern of Existential therapy in direct opposition to the Psychodynamic school. Where psychotherapy models confront, deal with and seek to rectify the problems of living, Existential therapy concerns itself with the issues of existence that underpin the problems of living. So as Integrative therapists, we are fortunate to have access to all the models they all serve their purpose.

The Transpersonal goes the furthest beyond the physicality of a person expanding the consciousness and adding a spiritual dimension by using unique creative techniques that enable us a unique glimpse of the client’s unconscious world. Therefore, a transpersonal integrative approach to psychotherapy might be considered the most holistic approach to attain body-mind union whilst honouring the urge to go beyond the self.

References:

Dryden, W & Reeves, A, (2011). The Handbook of Individual Therapy. London.: Sage

Gruber,A. (2019). The Alchemical Model of Transformation: CCPE Handout.

Spinelli, E. (2015). Practising Existential Therapy. London.: Sage

Buber, M. (1958) I and Thou. Tr. By R.G. Smith. New York.:

Scribner Classics.

Rogers, C. (1965) Client Centered Therapy. Boston.:Houghton Mifflin Company.

Billington, D. (2022) Alchemical Operations: CCPE Lecture.