To transcend those limitations and that limited sense of self is to become more alive and to live more freely. - Michael Korson
Psychotherapy and Transcendence:
A Greater Sense of Freedom
With the help of my clients,
I have been thinking lately about transcendence. Generally when people talk about
transcendence, they are talking about some exalted spiritual state. In both Eastern and Western religions, there
are concepts that connote an experience
of a realm that is not human, that transcends the human. When people speak of God, they are speaking
of something of that ethereal experience.
Many find a transcendental
experience through nature. Emerson,
writing in his essay on Nature, describes his experience of beholding through
nature a realm beyond the human. In his
experience, he transcends the sense of an isolated individual: “…all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent
eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being
circulate through me; I am part or particle of God."
Others have talked about such
transcendent experiences through a deep appreciation of art, intimacy and
sexual relations. As in Emerson’s description above, these experiences describe
the individual merging with something else and experiencing oneself in a
greater context. Often that experience is achieved through a kind of
obliteration of the small self and an experience of (capital S) Self which is
more broadly understood.
In an interesting way,
psychotherapy takes a different approach in order to reach a similar goal. I once heard a saying that has stuck with me
for years: to transcend the self means to first have a self. That saying points in the direction that psychotherapy
travels. We can say that psychotherapy
is aimed at helping with the formation and further development of that sense of
a self. People often come to psychotherapy
with a constricted or perhaps nonexistent sense of themselves. They often lack a sense of who they are, what
they think and feel, and especially what they want. Or they may have formed core beliefs about themselves
and the world which are rigid and limit their experiences.
The goals of psychotherapy are
centered on integration and freedom. The
experience of merger afforded through psychotherapy is found in the process of
integration; in particular, connecting or reconnecting with aspects of one’s
self which may have been repressed, ignored, or disavowed. Freedom is the experience of letting go of
beliefs and attitudes that constrict one’s life. The result is a sense of
release -- to be released from some previously binding patterns, a constricted sense
of self, or habitual and uncreative ways of thinking. I believe the experience of release is tantamount
to transcendence. To transcend those limitations and that limited sense of self
is to become more alive and to live more freely.
I have worked with clients
who have had this experience in psychotherapy.
For some it was the experience of being able to open up to intimate relationships
where previously they were closed down and guarded. For others it was a release from a particularly
pernicious self-critical part of themselves so that they now have a more
benevolent and compassionate view of themselves. And for others this experience involved more
fully connecting with their wants and needs, which were perhaps shut down for
many years. While these experiences may
not be of some transcendent reality beyond the human realm, they are for me no
less spiritual. Where there once was
some sort of constriction, there is now an openness and greater range of
experiencing life. Release and freedom:
those are the key words in my mind to describe the aims of psychotherapy. To
experience release and a greater sense of freedom is a transcendent experience
and one that, when it happens with my clients, provides me with a joyous and profound
satisfaction.
Michael Korson, MFT, CGP has a private practice in San Francisco and Berkeley, California. Michael works with individual adults and adolescents, couples and families. He is a certified group psychotherapist by the American Group Psychotherapy Association. Michael provides supervision to interns at local counseling centers and has a private practice intern under his supervision. For many years he was the chair of the Intern Support Committee for SFCAMFT. He is a first-year candidate at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California. More information on Michael can be found at his website www.michaelkorson.com.
Labels: core beliefs, integration, Michael Korson, psychotherapy goals, small self, transcendence