Deep spiritual attitudes and beliefs manifest in everyday life and of course therapy. These deep spiritual attitudes should ideally permeate and shape all therapist’s interventions, approaches and tools.

Behind our therapy methods and interventions, and behind your own day-to-day interactions, lie feeling attitudes. These are called these metaskills, and it is these feeling attitudes and approaches to life that strongly impact my life’s work.

When we have an awareness of feeling skills we can transform our life into a spiritual experience. Bringing metaskills to all that we do adds a quality of feeling. We are not aware of how we all go through life ‘doing’ missing out on the feeling. We are not present to ourselves or others and we are treating life as a to-do-list.

Metaskills are not what we have learned, it’s not the know-how or skills we have gathered through life, it is how we practice our skills in life. We still need continue to learn and grow with knowledge and skills, but how we interact with ourself and others is where metaskills reside.

It is through feelings and the atmosphere they create that our spiritual values about life spring to life. While they are not named, they are always there influencing our interaction and techniques.

While some techniques stress behavioural change and insight, it is the feeling that we bring to life that is at the core of life.

So you know what we are talking about, lets name some metaskills – compassion, humour, playfulness, curiosity and detachment. When we can foster these metaskills in our life, we are supporting the deep spiritual values that we hold.

Forgiveness, while not exactly a metaskill, it is a deep spiritual value that can permeate our life. When we can bring the value of forgiveness into our relationship with ourself and others, there’s a lot that can change. It’s not easy, but forgiveness is a work in progress for everyone.

Our continual work is to seamlessly weave in these metaskills, model them, live them and talk about them, so you can begin to see how when living from a place that appreciates the spirituality in us, supports your life and relationships at the core foundation.

Most of us are aware of how hypnosis can support changing addictive or unhelpful behaviours through making suggestions to the mind in altered states of consciousness, where the mind is more open to repatterning.

This is the main type of hypnosis that most hypnotherapists work with – one which is known as suggestive hypnosis to induce a trance and implanting thoughts into the subconscious mind that are triggered under certain conditions. In suggestive hypnosis, a clear goal is required as the suggestion is designed to support the goal.

The second kind of hypnosis is called process-oriented hypnosis.  This is where the conscious and subconscious mind join forces to work together as a unified whole.  The therapist and client also form a functional unity that encourages the healing process. In process-oriented hypnosis, there is an underlying faith in what Carl Jung called the ‘urge toward wholeness’.

Our entire approach is founded upon a belief in this collective urge towards unity or wholeness within ourselves. What this essentially means is that energy within the subconscious mind, even destructive energies, are always urging us, even in their challenging ways, towards our ultimate healing or reunification with our wholeness.

What Is Wholeness?

Wholeness or unification is the idea that we have a fundamental nature that is pure unconditional love at it’s centre, that embraces all polarities and all diversity as part of ourselves, rather than separate, disconnected or ‘other’ to us.

The Difference Between Suggestive Hypnosis & Process-Oriented Hypnosis

For instance, with suggested hypnosis and permission of the client, the therapist will implant a suggestion to not smoke, for example that cigarettes taste bitter. Or there may be a substitute suggestion where the impulse to smoke is replaced by the impulse to take some deep breaths.

Sometimes these suggestions can stick. Sometimes, these suggestions hold for a few months after which the root cause of the addiction in the first place reemerges, sometimes stronger. The outcome varies and depends upon the readiness of the client to change. Often though if the deeper issues are not dealt with then the addiction returns.

What suggestive hypnosis fails to respect or reverence is that even addictions that can be self-sabotaging and destructive are, at some level, there to serve us and take us towards our wholeness and healing. Often an addiction can hold an important new pattern that needs more support. For example, a very simple example is that a person with an addiction to alcohol might need to learn to bring the confident, ‘free’ state experienced under the influence of alcohol into everyday life (without the substance).

Recognising The Importance & Value Of Addictions

If we fail to recognise the important role that addictions, and other things we want to eliminate, play, then we fail to give reverence to the parts of our identity that also need the addiction. We all know that to go cold turkey can be a very debilitating experience that only works for some. In our culture, it’s over emphasised as the cure.

Our approach, while recognising the need for cold turkey under certain circumstances, also embraces the need for a gentler, more compassionate, inclusive approach that allows for a deeper understanding of certain destructive patterns. There’s a powerful little exercise called ‘Feeding Your Demons’ which beautifully illustrates the power of witnessing, listening and feeding our demons with what they need deep down. This doesn’t make them bigger and more aggressive, it makes them smaller and more compliant.

At heart, this is our approach – to use tools that actually work for you in the long term, rather than give you short fixes, that don’t always work. Process-oriented hypnotherapy has a long term objective of integration and wholeness, which ultimately means addressing the underlying meaning behind the experience. Through doing this, we come back to our wholeness which ultimately brings deeper sense of freedom.

Process-oriented hypnotherapy is open ended about short term goals.  Perhaps your presenting issue is to quit smoking, but underlying that there might be something much more important to address first to get achieve the desired goal. Remember that the urge towards wholeness is taking the form of a habit, it’s something to meet and understand, not eliminate.

When the urge towards wholeness fluidly functions within a client, then “free association”, where thoughts and emotions are allowed to flow freely within, will naturally move the client toward their own resolution (Freud’s main aspect of psychoanalysis), This can effectively resolve many addictions and destructive patterns of thinking, feeling or behaving.

How Freudian Slips & Mistakes Help Us

We go a few steps further and allow spontaneous imagery, movements and sounds to surface. We work with more channels of experience. This is not currently used in traditional hypnotherapy, but it is understood in NLP. Our form of hypnotherapy takes into consideration the whole being and body – we are not just a visual channel, we need to hear, move, make sounds, feel to really change our old patterns and create new healthy ones.

We work with spontaneous visualisations, but it goes further by working with the whole being. The process-oriented approach orients us into the present moment, where there is a direct and spontaneous feedback loop – where we can experience the universal flirts and synchronicities that connect us back into the web of universal life.

Even “Freudian slips,” or the unintended mistakes, or the accidental, are messages from this web of life. These are points when our secondary identity, the part of us that wants to be more lived that always holds these positive new patterns, (but which we usually have reservations about living) slips beyond our usual defenses and limiting beliefs to make itself known. It often does this uncomfortably in its initial stages – i.e. we have a reaction to it.

Our apparent mistakes actually reveal how we actually think and feel, or what we deeply yearn to become more of – whether it’s a powerful woman rather than competent woman, or a man capable of feeling vulnerability, rather than just capable of projecting strength.  These new parts of our identity, that are not integrated or fully lived yet, are closer to our deepest nature. When we are closer to our deepest nature, we are happier.

From the vantage point of process-oriented hypnotherapy, all symptoms including accidents, are striving to move us towards more wholeness and happiness. Deep down our inner being is bringing us events and circumstances in our lives to support more wholeness, even though unprocessed, these experiences feel painful and unnecessary.

Process-Oriented Hypnotherapy & Buddhism

Process oriented hypnosis is a form of meditation rooted in Buddhist Psychology, in both the early Adhidharma form and the Tantric Shamanic form. From a Buddhist viewpoint, difficult events, experiences, symptoms and relationships are known as ‘samskaras’ – which are essentially ripening into karmic experiences where we rebalance energy, bring it back into harmony. While often psychotherapy and meditation are often considered different paths, they can work to deepen the meditation process.

In the teaching of the twelve interconnected causes of sorrow, the Buddha clearly shows how all karmas are related to samskaras (emotionally charged thought impressions that have the potential to react to specific environmental stimuli and when activated become an impulse to do something) that exist in our subconscious mind (the storehouse of consciousness).

The Buddha believed in a universe where all consciousness, thoughts, emotions, sensations, bodies, and matter were constantly interacting with each other to form all the events of our lives. This is something that is now being corroborated by new physics and particularly quantum mechanics.

This urge towards wholeness organises our energy field and the entire universe. This is why we attract experiences that help us realise who and what we are and if processed take us into new parts of ourselves. Part of what drives karma and rebirth, whether you have a belief in that or not, is the innate compassion within our own being, which wants to realise itself. It is a somewhat forgotten axiom of life that love begets love. We can grow in our love and compassion through our suffering. Of course, life shouldn’t only be about suffering, the aim is get to a place where you experience life without suffering.

Joining The Client With Awareness

After working with many altered trance states, we have discovered it’s more effective to ‘join’ the client, to be in the state with them, with our deepened awareness, so to better unfold and more accurately follow the client process. This supports the client to not eliminate addictions, destructive patterns, but to develop an inner facilitator, guide, witness or awareness to change patterns from a deeper orientation.

Process-oriented hypnotherapy allows both client and therapist to work together, the client is not just the receiver and the therapist the giver – there is instead a mutually supportive relationship.  The therapist is surrendered to the client’s urge towards wholeness and supports this energy by following the process as it emerges in the moment.

Our approach understands that there is a ‘right’ timing with the process of change that is beyond us, something we can’t always know. We must honour and surrender to this also, and that when we are in service to the process at large and larger wholeness that’s emerging, we actually align ‘with life’ and this always gets the very best results for our clients.

What matters most is the magical discovery that happens within the natural learning process of the client. When awareness and learning is garnered through process-oriented hypnotherapy, much more than just an addiction is healed. The whole being is supported to change which brings a greater, more profound transformation.

We tend to use suggestive formal hypnotherapy sparingly, but process-oriented hypnotherapy regularly in our retreats.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the most widely used and evidence-based treatment for a variety of psychological difficulties. CBT acknowledges the links between our thoughts, our behaviour and our moods. The research in CBT has shown a 50% success rate in treating anxiety and depression. which is higher than other talking therapies and more effective than medication alone when treating anxiety and depression.

Instead of focussing on looking for the unconscious meanings behind behaviour (psychoanalytic approach), CBT is a structured, action-oriented and problem solving approach.  It has been designed to help people manage their thoughts, behaviour and mood more effectively. We assist my clients in finding and practising effective strategies to address identified goals and decrease symptoms of their mental health problems.

Depending on the nature of the problem, the therapy process can be brief, and direct, driven by only  a few specific techniques, or more long term and complex. In simple cases of anxiety or depression patients will meet with me on a weekly basis for a period of roughly 6 – 15 sessions. The therapy follows a structured process. I usually suggest putting what has been learned in sessions into practice between sessions- a form of homework exercises. and behavioural experiments. CBT can be applied in individual, couples and group settings, and the techniques are often adapted for self-help applications. 

In CBT sessions we focus on current individual problems and interpersonal difficulties, and we help to develop healthy personal coping strategies.

Cognitive aspect

We help clients to become more aware of their unhelpful and dysfunctional thinking processes, and their impact on the emergence of maladaptive behaviours beliefs, attitudes, and negative emotions. We might challenge and modify negative cognitions and behaviour, and this process leads to significant improvements in mood. Oftentimes, we use a style of questioning , sometimes referred to as guided discovery, to help people become more aware of how they reason with themselves and other people. This process stimulates alternative viewpoints and ideas.

Behavioural aspect

In sessions we test new ways of perceiving and acting in order to help clients to appreciate the impact of their behaviour on their state of mind. We help clients to observe changes in their behaviour when they feel distressed. It is typical that responses , such as, reduced activity, unhealthy behaviours, or avoidance can keep or even worsen the problem. In sessions we help clients to acquire new ways of responding to their psychological distress, in order to help they to get out from their vicious circle and gain more control over their symptoms.

Further in our work we target the underlying negative belief patterns which give rise to the dysfunctional thinking and behaviours. Addressing and adjusting these deeply rooted thinking (schemas), leads to permanent improvement in the overall psychological functioning and the sense of wellbeing of clients.

Transactional analysis (TA) is a widely recognised form of modern psychotherapy. It can be a long-term or a brief and solution-based approach. Sessions are designed to explore client’s personality and how this has been shaped by present experience and past experiences – those stemming from childhood.  Sessions can be conducted with individuals, couples or groups.

The therapist works collaboratively with the client, and typically utilises a variety of models, techniques and tools to analyse client’s social interactions. The therapist identifies what has gone wrong in client’s communication and provides opportunities for them to change repetitive patterns or ‘unconscious scripts’ that stem from childhood decisions and teachings and that limit their potential.

At the heart of TA is a theory that every person’s psyche is composed of three ego states: parent, adult and child. The therapy process leads to identifying client’s predominant ego states (parent-like, child-like, or adult-like) which helps them to understand their behaviour.

Homeopathy is a holistic form of complementary treatment. It was founded in the late 1700s in German physician Samuel Hahnemann, and it has been widely practiced throughout Europe since. Homeopathy’s holistic nature means that it treats each person as unique individual. Instead of simply looking at the person’s physical symptoms, the body, mind, and emotions are all taken into consideration in treatment process. It is gentle and yet fast approach to the treatment of physical and mental health problems. 

As a method of treatment, homeopathy is recognised by the World Health Organisation as the second largest therapeutic system in use in the world. It is very well established in India and South America. Over thirty million people benefit from its use in Europe.

How does Homeopathy work?

Homeopathy makes use of substances that are normally found in nature, which are prepared into remedies in the process of serial dilution. Homeopathy uses very small doses of original  in order to avoid side effect of the original substances. In the process of dilution the chemical molecules of the original substance are slowly removed, and what is left is an energetic blueprint of the substance. In this way, rather then acting directly on the cells and tissues of the body, the remedy reacts with the energy of the person. This energetic process enables the body’s healing powers to be activated, and the disease to be eliminated.

The practice of homeopathy is based on the Law of “similars” – the principle that states that, in simple terms, what the substance can cause, it can cure. An example of this principle in operation can be a treatment of insomnia. We all know that coffee keeps people awake and alert. However, very small doses of coffee can help people presenting symptoms of insomnia and overly alert mind. 

How does Homeopathy view disease, and how is it different from classical medicine?

Hahnemann proposed that disease is a process that affects the patient’s whole organism, their body, thoughts and emotions.  He further suggested that medicines can be applied in small, non-toxic doses to treat the whole of the patient, and the disease, or separate symptoms only. Homeopathic remedies are taken on an intermittent basis, until the problem is resolved, and not indefinitely, as is often the case in medicine. 

Homeopathy is based on the premise that health is the harmony of vital processes, and disease begins with the disturbance of this harmony, beginning on the deepest level — the mental and emotional. As a system of healing, homeopathy can address acute cases, or help in acute and chronic conditions without causing any side effects. Medicine, on the other hand, address the symptoms only, and rarely questions their true origins. 

Are there side effects after homeopathic treatment?

Homeopathic medicines are safe to use, they are not toxic, and rarely cause side-effects. Providing that they are taken under the guidance of a homeopath, they can be taken by people of all ages, including babies, children and pregnant or breastfeeding women.

What to expect during the homeopathic appointment?

Homeopathic practitioners begin their work with an initial session that is devoted to creating the complete picture of your disease. As well as asking about your symptoms, a homeopathic practitioner will be interested in your lifestyle, eating habits and preferences, temperament, emotional states, personality, sleep patterns. They will gather all this information in order to form a complete picture of you. This picture will be matched to the symptoms of your illness, and on this basis a particular type and strength of homeopathic medicine will be prescribed.

At the end of your consultation your homeopathic practitioner will give you a prescription for a specific homeopathic remedy,  and will advise you how often to take the medicine. Homeopathic remedies are usually taken in tablets or pillules. They are, however, also available in liquid and powder form.

Your first appointment will take anything between one and two hours. The follow-up appointments typically last 30 minutes. This, however, does vary depending on the practitioner approach, and if they mix this with some other forms of treatment, i.e. psychotherapy.

Gestalt Therapy is a school of psychotherapy developed by Fritz Perls. Gestalt therapy is an existential, humanistic therapy, founded on the principles of choice, responsibility (response ability), and meaningful living.

Rather than maintain a fixed pattern of dissatisfaction and longing, through Gestalt we can begin to experiment with new ways of doing things, expanding daily horizons. In a Gestalt therapy session clients are encouraged to bring more awareness to the present moment and the present context in their lives. During this process, and with the help of a variety of techniques (i.e. empty chair, internal dialogue), clients are discovering feelings that may have been suppressed or masked by other feelings. Further, the therapist helps clients to accept, trust, and express these emotions in a healthy and constructive way. Through this process, a person’s overall awareness increases and they gain a new sense of self.

Couples and relationship issues are increasingly prominent in my private practice. How are these issues addressed within therapy? The presence of a third party, the therapist, changes the dynamic of a couple. There is in the session a sense of a wish to change things and try something different, this alone is often what brings a couple into therapy. It is this dynamic that enables the therapist to bring to awareness aspects that together a couple may not be able to explore.

Issues such as trust are often to the fore of relationship issues. When trust has been betrayed, can it be re-established and how do we go about this? Trust is fundamental to human existence. We are constantly reminded about trusting this or trusting a fellow human. If we do not have trust then what happens to that relationship and to the individual who lacks the feeling of trust? Is a relationship without trust worthwhile? The relationship can then certainly be at a disadvantage and a distance is created.

Feelings of being able to trust come about when we feel confident and have self-esteem. It is then that it is possible to feel that if trust is betrayed by the other, it is not our fault. There is a deserving quality in all of us that can expect and respect trust from another. It is in these conditions that a relationship can flourish and grow. A couple who can relax together enjoy each other’s company and trust each other.

Can a relationship be repaired after a break in trust? Much will depend on the nature of the individuals involved. If the self-esteem and confidence has taken a blow then maybe this can be repaired over time and by looking at what exactly has been damaged. This can be achieved by a close look at the process of self-esteem and the needs that are present. However, there is much courage that is needed and an ability to let those feelings of trust rise once more. Feelings of guilt may also be around from either party. Inquiry into how these feelings arise and the influence they have in the relationship now need to be examined.

The ability to complete the healing that exists after wounding takes time, courage and commitment. It is likely that the relationship will change, to be relaxed within a relationship allows each individual to grow, become closer and intimate. The session in gestalt couples therapy focusses on the contact in the relationship. Blame and fault are not to the forefront, the ability to move forward and solve difficulties in the relationship is the primary process.

There are many different situations that might require faciliation and awareness of conflict dynamics. Whether it’s a difficult relationship at home or work, our work emphasis is on the moment-to-moment unfolding of a relationship.

This work is very different to other types of relationship work in that rather than emphasising decisions that need to be made such as separating or staying together, the focus is on what’s really there in the moment, in the relationship.

Marriage, divorce, and separation are important legal constructs, but they do not accurately reflect the emotional reality of a couple. When we follow and unfold the momentary flow and evolving dance that occurs in a relationship, we connect less with it as a battleground and more with it as a dance.

It might be relieving to hear that separation, divorce, and togetherness are momentary, fluid processes, rather than rigid stuck realities – in other words, we are constantly moving in and out of these potential realities inside our own heads. From this perspective, we may be very close one moment and quite separate the next. Sometimes these momentary states indicate that it actually is time to make a decision to be married or divorced or separated, but there is also flux and change even when these major decisions have been reached.

Another key idea is that relationships have both a practical, everyday part and also a dreaming, infinite aspect. From this perspective, relationships don’t ever end. Even if the daily relating decreases or disappears, an eternal part goes on in a changed form. Postulating an eternal part of relationships has the potential to change our whole perspective on couples separating.

How Is All This Important For Conflict Dynamics?

The idea that there is no absolute right or wrong if people separate, and the idea that relationships are not fixed but always changing, are two sides of the same coin. As we move away from imposing a model of what is right or wrong, we move to a perspective of following the evolution of a couple’s relationship.

Our conflict resolution approach is based upon placing more emphasis on the feeling-level connection between couples. Thus, legally married couples may at times feel blissfully together, but at other times may need long periods of separation or intense conflict. Heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual couples who are not legally married also experience a range of relationship needs. In this fluid perspective, couples define themselves from moment to moment. Some couples may often feel close, others may fight constantly, and both types may consider themselves coupled (or not). In this view, the power of definition lies with the individuals rather than somewhere outside such as the state or church.

We focus upon the changes a person or couple goes through so we avoid the behaviorist tendency to recommend that he change and develop new personality traits or behavioral patterns. We side with change and with awareness of what is happening in any given moment to avoid programming a person to be whole and balanced. We do not suggest change as an outer solution, but support changes as they emerge from the your own or the couple’s process.

There are personal and collective shifts present in relationships. Roles present in relationships also need to shift. If both partners are not able to grow out of old roles to encounter newness in themselves then often relationship endings take place. Collective shifts around men and women issues are constantly being encountered in relationships.

As therapists, we understand the need to learn to speak of these cultural forces present–the force of tradition, the forces of sexism, homophobia, racism, the forces of mainstream thinking, the forces of liberation, freedom, and change. These collective winds blow through relationships and change them, and if they are not named, couples often feel victimised by their experiences.

If we approach the relationship flexibly, the part that no longer works may die, while the part with energy lives on. A couple might want to give up living together but keep their musical or physical relationship alive. In the old model, the entire relationship must end, except for certain legally prescribed forms such as parental rights. We can move beyond the all or nothing approach and we can support you to do that.

At a more esoteric level, these outer manifestations of an ongoing connection reflect the deeper dreaming process that continues after the formal end of a relationship. Relationships have an eternal side beyond ‘death’ in that they are guided by myths reflected in the early dreams and dreamlike experiences of the relationship.

For example, I remember a couple who said that their earliest relationship memory was that they were out to dinner, and the man tried to do a magic trick where he pulled the tablecloth out from under the dishes on the table. The magic only partially worked, and the dishes went all over the place and created a huge mess. These two main elements of magic and mess became two key elements that much of their relationship was organised around. The central difficulty of the couple was when there got to be too much mess and not enough magic, the woman would become disillusioned and they would have bring in more magic. When things got too orderly and not exciting enough, the man became disillusioned. This relationship was not just about two people, but about two different energy states, magic and order, interacting.

The first dream often holds the relationship myths – which are the central dreaming background to relationship. When certain myths are lived out, couples can move on from each other, or they may discover new myths to work on with each other. Some couples have myths that need to be worked on for their lifetimes. Having a myth that takes long-term work to fulfill brings up the eternal side of relationship connections. Eternal connections are not bound by convention, time, space, or marriage certificates.

Similarly, spiritual bonds are not made in the legal realm and can’t be cancelled in the legal realm. I have seen many couples who have done everything possible to destroy their connection, yet the connection still lives. This is not just codependency in which two people live off each other to form a whole. In contrast, deep spiritual connections are built on two beings who are individuals and also strongly connected.

It’s common in couples that one partner will threaten, “If you don’t do this, or if you ever do that, I will never have anything to do with you again.” Then the other partner has an affair, or makes a career change the first partner prohibited. Despite all the threats to end the relationship, the forbidden act, when processed, may lead to an even more powerful connection. Relationships that are meant to continue in some form can withstand all kinds of relationship dynamite.

This sort of endurance is not codependent, such as when an alcoholic and her partner support each other’s denial. In a spiritually rooted connection the couple has to work through all that happens. They do not support each other’s denial, but are instead intimately involved in helping each other wake up and become more aware.

Determining which parts of a relationship persist because of the spiritual power behind the guiding myth and which parts endure because of codependency is a difficult task. We help differentiate between these two possibilities by observing the ongoing dreams of the people in the relationship. For example, codependency will appear as a repetitive problem in both people’s dreaming. These kinds of dreams disturb one or both partners, irritating them into waking up.

In contrast, some relationships are dedicated to helping people become free of their personal and shared addictions, and these are very powerful connections. If a relationship like this is interrupted on the daily physical plane, through separation, divorce, or death, it will continue in dreaming. Even death doesn’t stop an eternal connection. After the death of a partner or parent we can continue to experience enormous positive shifts in the relationship.

Some relationships have no honeymoon period. From the first moment together they were working on deep issues. Such relationships not only focus on interpersonal issues, but the issues constantly challenge both people to develop their whole selves. Such couples will often say, “Why am I with so and so when they push every button I have?”.

Often from the outside these relationships appear to be filled with conflict and suffering, and external observers are often frightened by or disapproving of the intensity present. The relationship may go through many periods of death and renewal, and may need frequent outside help. People who have this as their relationship myth seem to have little choice–they either work with their connection willingly or the relationship difficulties become so great they are forced to do the necessary personal growth and relationship work that is being asked of them.

Another side of recognising the eternal aspect of relating involves accepting death and change. Buddhist teachers often say that the first lesson of Buddhism is the wisdom of impermanence. Everything changes, and our attachment to holding on to the way things are is a major cause of our suffering. Relationships are constant teachers of this principle. Couple’s often talk about how they suffer when their relationship changes, since they were sure that this relationship would last forever in its current form. People are angry at their partner, God, and everyone else when a relationship changes.

Our work is to help people work with their attachment, get to know their detachment, and stay in touch with the eternal spiritual background of their relationships that will continue no matter how the form changes. Relationships that welcome death as part of the process also allow for rebirth. As the old parts of the process and old structures die, the potential for the new grows.We must not avoid death states since they often hold the potential for something new and exciting to regenerate the relationship.

We can help bring awareness of both the impermanent and eternal aspects of relationship. Relationships that lack the fluidity to accept change can die of stagnation. Many couples cannot let go and embrace change without a deep personal sense of the eternal and of spiritual life.

Spiritual traditions sometimes refer to death as the great awakening. Major relationship transformations, including divorce and separation, may also provide an opportunity for great awakenings. Such changes have the potential to awaken people to their own nature, the nature of relationship and the nature of life.

These ideas on the eternal nature of relationship are not meant to replace the importance of knowing when and how to end a relationship. When relationships become physically, psychologically, or spiritually destructive, it is time for them to transform or move on. When relationships are destructive, the daily connection often needs to be broken, while something in the dreaming world will continue.

In situations where a relationship is no longer working, we look for signs that both partners are willing to work with and transform the situation. Often, one or both partners are finished but can’t let go. Letting go then becomes the teaching. The couple’s job is to learn the importance of letting go. When couples can let go, the pain is often great, and so is the relief.

Relationship addiction can also prevent people who need to separate from letting go. People stay together, even in damaging relationships, because they are addicted to each other. We are defining addictive relationship as the kind of relationship (or phase in a relationship) in which there is a large gap between the dream one person has of their partner and the reality of the partner. In addition, an addictive relationship is physically, psychologically, or spiritually harmful.

In addictive relationships usually one or both people gives their partner enough of something to keep them hooked, but not enough to satisfy. This partial satisfaction is very powerful. If someone meets almost none of your needs, it is easy to let go, and if a partner truly meets your needs, there is no reason to let go. However, someone who meets your needs in flashes or moments, or almost meets your needs, or plays with meeting your needs, offers a powerful hook.

At some point, the pain of the frustration becomes so great that it hurts one or both people. It is our job at this point to point out that what is happening is not love but addiction, and challenge the couple to break the addiction. Addiction looks like love, but it is a cheap imitation. People often don’t realise this until they enter a truly loving relationship. We might need to provide information and support in the transition until there’s a realisation of how incomplete and dissatisfying the addictive relationship is.

Addictive relationships, like any addiction, can be difficult to transform. We can bring awareness of the addictive pattern and support with continually confronting the addiction. It is easy for the couple to slip back into the old groove, but there is a moment when an addiction must be faced and broken. Outer signs of when it is time to break the addiction include when one or both partners develops physical symptoms related to the relationship; develops substance addictions; becomes depressed or anxious, or has other psychologically difficult states that become an ongoing pattern. At such times, it is important to check in with a person’s deepest feelings in order to discover a direction.

Our role as therapists is to help couples and families have the courage and awareness to follow the relationship whether the river is calm or full of rapids, whether the relationship is beginning, continuing, transforming, or ending. The emphasis is not on just reaching the end point, but on appreciating and learning from all points on the journey. As therapists, we are aware of the societal pressures couples and families face. Despite these pressures, people will be drawn to follow their own natures, and our job is to support them in this important task.

We can help you create a new relationship model that helps both individuals feel connected to the vitality within the relationship, not only at the exciting beginnings, but throughout the relationship, including at times of transition and ending.

Relationships are challenging. Creating, maintaining and sustaining a successful relationship can be hard work even at the best of times. If you don’t have the skills, you have no time because of work commitments or children then working through everyday problems that arise in relationship can get put to the side and over time this builds resentment and deeper issues.

Every relationship needs care and attention to be effective & safe. Taking care of your relationship means learning about the nature of your relationship and knowing key tools for communication and trouble shooting.

When two people have the will to go deeper with one another, not only confronting their pain, but actively participating in their pleasure, anything feels impossible. The whole is truly more than the sum of its parts

A balance of power enables a long-term, intimate relationship to flourish. But though two people in a couple need to be equal in everything, they are not necessarily equal at everything. A truly nurturing intimacy has the capacity to help each individual heal from the pain of the past, and to empower each one of them, in the present, to reach for their dreams.

Our Couple’s Intensive is a powerful retreat, which will offer tools, deep work and most importantly precious time to revitalise or save your relationship.

Shamanism combines ancient and modern wisdom teachings to support people to journey into everyday and non-ordinary reality for personal growth and healing of self and the wider community.

While traditional psychiatry attempts to convince people that altered and extreme states of reality and the existence of other realms are not real, shamanism focuses on working with them, accessing them without getting lost.

Another key aspect to working with shamanic callings is what shamans call soul retrieval or marginalised parts of ourselves. This focuses on childhood and other times of major life wounds. Soul loss is the effect of trauma, noting that whenever we experience trauma, we react by splitting off a part of our vital essence. Shamanic systems believe that the split-off essence goes into non-ordinary reality where it can be retrieved through the shamanic journeying. 

Shamans worldwide have associated illness with this loss of soul and vital energy, and therefore, soul retrieval offers a spiritually based path of healing. Retrieving lost parts split-off is a process involving both therapist and client together. Parts can need direct retrieval which is an active rather than passive client process and in terms of marginalised parts of ourselves, we may engage in role-playing, expressive and sentient work, and other methods of reintegrating and embodying the effects of split off or marginalised parts.