It is a wonderful time to be a therapist. We have many powerful tools that help create enduring positive change and quicken that process.
Central to my healing practice is a model of therapy called Internal Family Systems (IFS) and I am a certified IFS therapist.
Among the other tools in my healing toolkit are “Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing” (EMDR) (make this a link to the EMDR website), “One Eye Brain Integration”(link), “Brainspotting”(Link), and a relational mindfulness practice that I have been developing since 2000, “Structured Self-Presence© (SSP) (see neighboring tiles for more info on each of these).”

In addition to these tools and models of working, my practice, ways of thinking and doing, are deeply informed by the perennial wisdom of the world’s wisdom traditions as well as current behavioral and brain science.

As a clinical psychologist, healer, trainer, and consultant, I use all of these tools, modes of being and knowing, to help people restore a wholesome relationship between their cerebral intelligence and their natural intelligence.
I teach people that problems are, almost always, a path to greater vitality, freedom and enduring peace.
I also help individuals, groups and organizations enjoy an ever deeper felt connection with the spiritual dimension of their lives and their communities. I teach them how to seamlessly fold transformative psycho-spiritual practices (within and beyond their particular religious tradition) into the fabric of their professional and private lives.

I love this tool.

OEI is similar to EMDR but the quality of processing, the pacing, the experience of ones mind, are quite different.
I’ll explain my sense of how this works.

Each of our eyes has four optic nerves. Two of these stay on the same side of the brain as the eye in question, the other two cross over to the other side of the brain. For some reason, 2/3 of our vision in each eye is mostly viewed through the opposite side of our brain.

Because the brain/mind of each of the two hemispheres knows the world somewhat differently, when we cover one eye, our experience of our world will be colored by the mode of knowing that arises from the opposite side of our brain.
The right side of our brain is more fully connected with the mammalian and reptilian parts of our brain. It has a more holistic mode of knowing the world. It is more flowy and informed by our visceral and emotional knowings of the world.

Our left hemisphere is more separate from these deeper structures of the brain. The world generally feels cooler when viewed primarily through our left hemisphere. This view is oriented more around sequence, ordering, and logic. It is a more analytic way of being in the world.

Typically, when we are triggered by something, our reptilian and mammalian brain/mind will be on fire. Our more primordial sense of safety, belonging, beingness will feel threatened and set off alarm bells deep within our brain and being. We will feel this mostly through the modes of knowing and being that belong to our right hemisphere and the deeper structures of the brain.

There are two primary modes, with MANY variations, of dealing with this. We either shut down and become rigidly governed by the cooler left hemisphere mode of being. Or, we become flooded and overwhelmed. Neither is a particularly pleasant way of being in the world.

I use OEI in a number of ways. First of all, I use it in my journalling practice to help me process difficult patterns that I’m wrestling with (see Journal Writing Protocol). This protocol is a crazy helpful tool for unpacking and working through your stuff.

In my practice, I use it in a variety of ways. When someone is really mired in a certain painful dance of some kind, OEI very quickly helps dis-identify or unblend from that dance. It helps us to get to know, in a very visceral and vivid manner, the parts of our mind that have been doing that dance and it helps the brain/mind find it’s way to a more interesting and functional way of dancing with that slice of the world.

When we are flooded with emotions, anxiety, despair, or intense anger or rage, if we are able to bring even a sliver of our witnessing mind into the room, OEI can, almost immediately help to reduce the intensity and help the brain/mind to transform our relationship with whatever situation is the occasion for these intense emotions. Things will settle pretty quickly.

If we are cut off from any of the fires burning deeper within our brain/mind, as long as we can access even a little bit of body awareness, that frozenness will, in a very gentle manner, begin to thaw so that we can access the underlying heat, and begin to cool the fires.

EMDR: Using eye movements, gentle tapping, or sound, to alternately stimulate the right and then the left sides of our brain, EMDR interrupts the rigid and reactive pattern of our brain. While we focus on the center of our dysfunctional pattern, on the dysfunctional core belief, and the felt presence of pain or fear, EMDR gently nudges first one and then the other side of our brain inviting each hemisphere with their different inherent forms of intelligence, to be awake to the unprocessed material. The back and forth prevents the brain from falling back into stuckness and allows the two hemispheres, in conjunction with the deeper structures of the brain that carry the wound to cooperate and restore the brain’s natural wholeness making processes In a sense, EMDR helps to jump start and restore the brain’s organic capacity to heal itself.

In order to transform and heal old wounds, we must access the deeper structures of the brain where, it is theorized/believed, that traumatic experiences are stored. EMDR seems to foster a connection between the deeper and harder to access structures of the brain, and the front of our brain.

EMDR nudges the brain into a rhythmic groove so that its natural healing abilities are restored and allowed to operate on the unifinished business of this or that memory.

When we have a cut, and there is dirt in the cut, our body, is, most efficiently and effectively, drawn to deal w/ the cut and the dirt that may be interrupting or standing in the way of the healing process. In my experience, the same is true of every dimension of our being and of life. It is, therefore, also true with our brains.

When we are gripped by emotions that disrupt the ability of our brain-mind to function smoothly, when, underwritten by pain or fear, we find our lives governed by behaviors, patterns of reactivity that are not ecological, our brain’s mind wants to tend these patterns and restore wholesome functioning. Because our brains are relational organs (more on that elsewhere -link-), we often need help, our brain needs help jumpstarting, catalyzing, the process of digesting and transforming unhealed wounds. It’s not so different when we have a bad bad cut or a bad infected cut. The pain is overwhelming, we may not be able to reach around to look at and clean the wound. So, we need help. We need another set of hands and eyes. The same is true with psychological pain and wounds. The very organ and instrument that we need to tend our wound, is compromised. So, we need another heart and mind’s eye to help us develop a more free and clear relationship with our own pain. The heart and mind’s eye of the other, the helper, offers a kind of wholesome mirror that allows us to look and see what is going on and then begin tend our own wound.

In addition, when we sustain psychological wounds, it is the deeper structures of our brain, the structures whose primary job is to preserve psychophysiological homeostasis, and deal with danger through the actions of fight, flight, or freeze, that are involved. For many reasons, it is hard to talk to these deeper structures. There is a kind of firewall between our higher cortical brain and these deeper structures. They are gripped with the business of survival and are not easily accessed. When triggered, we watch helplessly as these less than happy patterns have their way with us. The challenge is to activate the reactivities of these deep structures and keep the front of our brain in the room at the same time. “Dual attention” is essential to transforming these wounds.
Brain integration techniques help us to find the “dirt in the cut,” the felt center of the wound animating the dysfunctional pattern and then, depending upon the particular brand of brain integration technique, catalyze the brain’s organic capacity to process and transform the “dirt,” the no-longer-functional core beliefs, or undigested pockets of pain or terror.

I call this cluster of tools, “brain integration” tools. I’m not certain that this is a totally accurate naming. They can be strangely, almost magically powerful and it is worth having an experience with one or all of these so that you can see if your challenges and your brain, your particular system, is responsive to these healing technologies.

Chanting
At Temple Emanu-El in Providence, Rhode Island, I have been co-leading a drumming and chanting service since 1996 or so. I have used chanting in this spiritual community, in groups that I lead as well as in individual therapy. It always has a salutary and often transformative impact upon the intra and interpersonal relational field.
If we want to draw upon science, there seems to be evidence that singing helps wake up and harmonize different areas of the brain. When we are singing, or chanting, it is hard to be depressed or anxious.
I have developed a kind of protocol that makes use of chanting to accomplish a number of ends. It is a great tool for becoming more grounded. When we chant to and even from various kinds of inner challenge, our relationship with that inner challenge begins to change, soften, become more alive and wholesome. When we chant to and from one another, the relational field becomes more awake and sweet. When we direct our chanting to different dimensions of the relational field, those dimensions light up and contribute to a relational context that is fat and juicy and alive.

Prayer
Prayer is, so often, a neck up experience and so often misunderstood. Prayer is, most basically, a conversation with that which some people call God, some, an “Intelligence greater than our own”, others, Source, Spirit or Tao. Because we are, ongoingly, a byproduct of what I sometimes speak of as (an) evolutionary Intelligence, and therefore are never separate from God, Source, Tao…., all that is needed to enter into a conversation with the Source of ourselves is to turn towards (in the jewish tradition, teshuvah), remember, or be awake to what is true. As we turn, awake to the truth of this situation (our situated-ness within the field of Spirit and of Spirit), lies the possibility for a conversation.

Our ego, this ephemeral “I” born amidst the sea of Consciousness, is the byproduct of an evolutionary development of the higher cortical brain. It’s true and highest purpose, is to act as the butler to existence, to remember that everything that arises is a flower in God’s garden and treat all that arises accordingly. When we treat all that arises in this manner, then we become who we have been given to be….that essential ingredient for transforming our world into Eden! This is the proper function of the ego. And, this is the essence of prayer.

When mind and body are more or less in harmony, individual and group prayer becomes a radically different and often transformative experience. A dimension of the work my clients and I do, sometimes veers into this prayerful domain. For those of my clients for whom this is an important aspect of their wholeness work, much of our healing work dwells implicitly and sometimes explicitly within this sweet prayerful domain.

Developed by Richard Schwartz Ph.D, Internal Family Systems or IFS, is a powerful way of mapping our inner world and the relational fabric of our families and communities. It also provides simple and powerful tools for working with that inner world and all aspects of the relational fabric of our world.

 

SSP Map= Maps the dimensions of reality and the relational field. It prescribes a general mode of conduct and intentionality relative to how we approach and treat all that arises within that field.

 

IFS Map= IFS provides a key to that map. The key describes the different kinds of bio-psycho-spiritual denizens that occupy our inner world. Falling into two broad categories, protectors and exiles, IFS helps us to understand the basic nature of these “parts” of ourself and how they are wont to interact. IFS’ description of these parts feels strangely familiar and natural and also wonderfully accurate. Further, because these parts have particular functions relative to one another and relative to the functioning of the self-system, IFS helps us to understand and track the basic dynamics of that system. Our inner world becomes intelligible and navigable. WOW! That is huge.

 

Further, and beyond SSP’s more generally prescribed modes of conduct and intention, IFS prescribes what I think of as basic and WILDLY powerful and utterly transformative relationally hygienic practices with our parts. In various wisdom traditions, it is said that nothing stands before love. The mapping and relational practices of IFS demonstrate what I call the reliable and transformative magic of the physics of love.

 

If SSP awakens the field, reveals it’s many dimensions, making way for that which calls for healing and providing a luscious healing milieu, IFS provides simple and accurate tools for more structurally clear mapping of our inner world, and for the reliable and wholesome transmutation of wounded or extreme aspects of our inner world.

 

IFS offers a simple love-arithmetic. It is an essential tool for healing ourselves, our communities and our planet.

For more information on IFS, check out these links:

What is Structured Self Presence (SSP):
Structured Self Presence© is the name that I have given to a relational mindfulness practice that I developed, or that developed me back in the mid 1990’s.
Drawing upon and expanding upon traditional mindfulness practices, SSP awakens and illuminates the many dimension of the relational field. It provides a living map and a simple set of tools to help us develop familiarity with and skill at navigating and peacefully inhabiting various kinds and dimensions of reality, of human experience.

SSP Mapping
SSP mapping – differentiates sensations, movement impulses, mood/emotions, and the quality and content of our mind-space from the blur of human experience.
SSP chunks down experience to the basic building blocks.
It simplifies and clarifies and organizes the practice of mindfulness.
SSP mapping also helps us to identify and work with different dimensions of reality. It helps us to know where we are and thus helps us to know how best to operate within that domain.

Heeding the Call
The structure of self and the emergence of our ego/I as an essential part of that structure is the byproduct of an evolutionary process. If the word intelligence means anything, it is clear that this evolutionary process is Intelligent. We are, in fact and ongoingly, a byproduct of this evolutionary Intelligence. When ego/I is born, when this locus and perspective within that vast sea of consciousness/reality achieves it’s quasi-distinctness, that Intelligence, that Process is able enjoy a relationship with itself. We can say that creation and the Creator gives rise to this mote of light (that’s us) within the larger field of Being so that it can enjoy a relationship with itself. We, you and I are, therefore, part of the discursive life of Spirit. We live within, our being is the embodiment of the life of that discourse and we are ever humbled servants and co-creative participants in the life of that discourse.

Remembering
As our ego develops, so does our sense of being a discrete individual being. From this vantage point of relative freedom and identity, we are called to remember who we are and where we come from. THIS IS VITAL. We are spirit. We come from spirit. Through many different means, Life calls us to attend to the ground of our arising. When we do, we close the divine discursive circuitry and are able to make our home in that cosmic self-relational discourse.
The practice of SSP is a highly structured practice of learning to heed that call. SSP also provides a basic map so that we remain oriented within that call. When we are oriented, we are more able to effectively honor that call and participate in that discourse.

SSP is a Rigorous Practices of Skillful Love
Develop and strengthen the self-relational circuitry.
One basic function of SSP is to help the ego to mature.

The practice of SSP helps the ego become more strong, supple, transparent, and skillful.

Self-Presence
Like any mindfulness practice, the practice of SSP helps us develop the capacity to remain skillfully self-presence to ALL of life.

Through systematic self-presence, life begins to reveal to us the many dimensions of reality within which we always already dwell.

SSP’s mapping helps us to recognize and navigate these different dimensions of reality so that, even as we move in and out of these different modes of being and knowing, our capacity for self-presence is able to grow.

Biological Circuits
With the practice of SSP, we strengthen the circuitry that connects our higher cortical brain with our reptilian/autonomic and mammalian/limbic brain. Unless we have been raised to pay attention to our bodies and our emotions, the ‘roads’ connecting our pre-frontal lobes with these parts of the brain will be more like narrow country roads. Through the practice of SSP, these become eight lane highways.

When we practice SSP, we not only improve the circuitry within the brain, but we improve the various kinds of circuits that connect brain and body. The brain is connected with body through many means. There are electro-chemical connections, hormonal connections (neuropeptides and such), and other kinds of energetic connections. When we practice SSP, these cannot help but be strengthened.

Psychological Circuits
When we are able to pay attention to our physical sensations, the wisdom of our body is now in relationship with our higher cortical wisdom. This is a powerful feedback loop that grows with practice. Because our body knows all about pain, pleasure, and indifference (Buddhism’s three poisons), our relationship with our body will tend to be governed by the impulses of attraction, aversion, and indifference. With SSP (and other mindfulness practices) we learn to ride the waves not only of our bodily experiences but of our patterns of reactivity to those experiences. We develop a relationship with our body that transcends and includes these patterns of reactivity. This allows us to dwell in a stable relationship with the rich wisdom of our bodies.

The same is true when we practice attending to, and not drowning in the life of our moods and emotions. Our moods and emotions give us our feeling of aliveness. Through our emotions, the world get’s to be felt and we get to feel the world. This is a challenging but also delicious mode of knowing the world. As we learn to ride the waves of our moods and emotions, our feelings of aliveness become ever more able to flow unencumbered through the circuitry of brain and body. Our emotional mind and our higher cortical mind are able to be in an ever more robust and flowing discourse.

Spiritual Circuitry
When we practice SSP, we are heeding the call of evolutionary intelligence. We are turning, so that through us, Spirit turns to complete a primordial circuit. This circuit is a strange circuit. It is like a möbious strip. One end of the strip dwells in unfathmable and fertile mystery. The other end, is the end that we hold in our hands; incarnate, seeming solid, and somehow more real than the mystery from which it arises. When we turn back to the Source of life, we connect the two ends of that twisted strip of paper and participate in creating an incarnational expression of God’s infinite wisdom. That is, when we join the two ends of that twisted strip of paper, we join the temporal and the eternal. This, according to Kierkegaard is an act of love.

Within the embrace of this larger, spiritual circuit, all other circuits are transformed, transfigured. We are able to sense in the biological circuitry the work of an Intelligence that is unfathomable, powerful, wise, and blessed. In our psychological circuitry, we are able to sense the intimate and almost personal presence of a Creator of which we are clearly an expression and which we are given, in love, to serve.

For SSP, Spiritual Practice Begins at Home:
We begin with the Body
With SSP, we are interested in becoming skillful at tracking, naming, and representing the 3 basic dimensions of experience; our sensations, mood/emotions, and qualities and contents of mind.
SSP treats primary impulses, sensations, mood/emotions, and mind as expressions of the life of Spirit.
For SSP, every experience, every piece of every experience is viewed as a flower in God’s garden and should be treated as such.

Spirit wants to make our brain and bodies it’s playground.
Like most mindfulness practices, one goal of SSP is to harmonize brain and body and mind and body.
Spirit calls us back home – to our bodies, to the experiences that rise up and move through us.
When we return home to the ground of emergent experience – our primary impulses, sensations, mood/emotions, and thoughts – it is as though ego (an aspect of and servant to the life of Spirit) answers the call of of Spirit and meets Spirit at the gates of existence.

Spirit, evolutionary Intelligence, has created the higher cortical brain, that part of our brain that allows that which we call ego/I to arise. Then Spirit calls us to turn that “I” over to Spirit so that Spirit can appropriate and make use of our higher cortical functions for its own incarnational and evolutionary ends.
When we return home, – SSP embodies this return home – when we agree to meet Spirit, Spirit comes into an ever more coherent and unencumbered and complex incarnation and Self-Realization.

SSP is Very Relational
Most mindfulness practices are solitary.
Even when practiced in a community, most mindfulness practices teach us to work within ourselves.
SSP is a practice that is practiced not only with oneself, but also with others. SSP is interested in learning to track the life of Spirit as it animates and shapes not only the intra-personal but also the inter-personal relational field.

Value of SSP
Like any mindfulness practice, SSP helps to quiet the mind.
Because it brings structure to the practice of mindfulness, it can be easier to stay with and explore than some mindfulness practices.

SSP helps us develop familiarity and a loving relationship with our patterns of mind and body.

SSP is a transformational tool. As we identify our patterns, SSP teaches us to relate to the intelligence animating these patterns. When we do, we cannot help but fall in love with these various intelligences. This is the beginning of the transformational action of SSP.