Process Work theory and history

Introduction to Process Oriented Psychology or Process Work

Amy and Arny’s Introductory talk at the April 2007 International Association of Process Oriented Psychology Conference in London, England gives a personal account of a small piece of history behind the birth of processwork. For details, download the article below. The conference which followed will soon be available to all in book form, from the Research Society for Process Oriented Psychology.

Download Amy and Arny's IAPOP Talk (7.6MB .pdf file)

Introduction to Process Work

Process work or "pw" (often called "process oriented psychology" or "POP" in Europe and Asia) is a multicultural, multileveled awareness practice. Process work is an evolving, transdisciplinary approach supporting individuals, relationships and organizations to discover themselves. PW focuses on awareness to track "real" and "imaginary" psychological and physical processes that illuminate and possibly resolve inner, relationship, team, and world issues. Process Work theories and methods are available for anyone to experience, and can be tested. There are three levels of focus:

1. At the level of consensus reality, Process Work deals with "real" events, problems, and issues connected with the development of individuals, couples, businesses and cities. Groups and individuals use feelings and facts, to describe conflicts, issues or problems.

2. At the level of dreamland, Process Work deals with dreams, deep feelings, the unspoken truths, "double" or unintentional body signals, "ghosts" (unrepresented figures) and ghost roles in the stories and myths of individuals and organizations. History, visions and transgenerational events are important. Here to, the effects of the future on the present may be sensed.

3. At the deepest nondualistic or "essence" level, Process Work deals with the sense of tendencies which can be felt to move us, but not easily expressed yet in words. This area of human life is sometimes like a subtle atmosphere around people and events, an atmosphere, which can be felt as a moving force, which has not yet explicated itself.

a. Taoism speaks of this level in terms of the "the Tao which cannot be said."
b. In quantum physics, Heisenberg spoke of "tendencies" of the quantum wave function. David Bohm spoke of this area in terms of a system's quantum waves or "pilot waves".
c. This level is non-dualistic: here there are no conflicts. It is a "hyperspace" or detached distance from which we can gain an overview of events.

Some history, theory and practice :
beginning with the Dreambody and including the Quantum Mind and Healing

For most of us, and for many therapists, the body appears as a central topic only when there are severe symptoms. After completing my Jungian studies and becoming a training analyst in the 1970’s, I realized that if dreams were meaningful, the same must be true for all dreamlike experiences. So I proceeded to see how the dreaming mind appears not only in our nighttime dreams, but all day long in every little thing we notice in and around ourselves. I was amazed to discover the dreaming process in our everyday minds and in all our body experiences. [more ...]

Acknowledgements : Individuals and Groups

History

In its present form at the beginning of the twenty first century, our viewpoints about Process Work grew out of Arny's studies at M. I. T., and the Jung Institute in Zurich, and Amy's studies at Antioch College and the Union Institute, as well as our contacts with indigenous and modern peoples the world over. Our work is enriched, but also limited by our nationality, education, color, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and present good health.

Grandparents

We acknowledge our heartfelt indebtedness to many people and realms of knowing and belief, which include, but are not limited to:

• Taoism; "The Tao Te Ching" and the "I Ching"

• Shamanism: Especially specific individuals and groups and cultures of the East Coast of Africa, The West Coast of Canada, South Western Australia

• World spiritual and religious systems, Swami Muktananda and the various sects of Buddhism; especially to Zen Master, Keido Fukushima.

• Social Activists: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, John L. Johnson (ProcessWork diplomate in Washington D.C.), and others who support democracy and the equality of all beings.

• The work of C.G. Jung (Download "A letter to Jung on his 125th birthday"), William James, Jacob Moreno, Sigmund Freud, Stan Grof, the Jungian, Humanistic, Gestalt, Transpersonal, and Conflict Resolution communities.

• Science and Consciousness research: Especially physics, both Newtonian thinking as well as the quantum and string theories, especially Erwin Schroedinger, David Bohm, Hugh Everett, Richard Feynman, Edwin Taylor.

• Jazz Musicians such as  Ellis Marsalis: the Great New Orleans Jazz pianist and educator. While studying the land and history of New Orleans, while studying Loyola University, we learned about Ellis Marsalis, regarded by many as the greatest jazz pianist in New Orleans. Today, he teaches music at Loyola and is director of the Creative Arts jazz studies program. In his own words, he follows “the moment and the process while teaching”. We loved hearing him speak (RealAudio file).
  (We are very grateful to NPR radio, to their Jazz Profiles.)

• Puppet Makers, Artists, Painters, Dancers, Poets, and Musicians everywhere.

Individuals and Groups

In our opinion, process work and theory are indebted to, and created by, group consensus and the people who further explore, adapt and express the applications of process work in various cultures. We, Amy and Arny, are especially thankful to our personal teacher(s) who have now passed away; Ben Thompson, Franz Riklin, Barbara Hannah, and M. L. von Franz. We are also thankful to the students and diplomates of pw who have taught us a great deal, and to the whole process work community, who have created worlds to explore, dislike, love, and understand. We look forward to future transdisciplinary and transcultural discoveries and amplifications.

C.G. Jung and Process Work

Jung’s Last Ideas as seen in his autobiography

"Only after I had familiarized myself with alchemy did I realize that the unconscious is a process, and that the psyche is transformed or developed by the relationship of the ego to the contents of the unconscious." From p.209 of Jung’s “Memories, Dreams and Reflections” edited by Aniela Jaffe

Dreambody : notes on the history and theory of Process Oriented Psychology

This article was composed (in German) by the creative spirit of Frau Dr. Annelen Kranefuss from Arny’s various references to the Dreaming Body. This article will appear in the Jung Journal, part of the C. G. Jung Gesellschaft of Cologne Germany (http://www.cgjung.org/jung_zeit.htm ). Download the article (47Kb Word file)

We Must All Breathe : Arnold Mindell, Ph.D. at 61, by Robert S. Henderson (updated July 2007)

From Quadrant, Volume XXXV:2, Summer 2005, C. G. Jung Foundation, New York . Rev Dr. Robert S. Henderson is a Pastoral Psychotherapist in Glastonbury, Connecticut. This interview will be in Living With Jung: “Enterviews” with Jungian Analysts which will be published by Spring Journal and Books. Robert and his wife, Janis, are the authors. Download the article. (68Kb Word file)

Letter to Jung on his 125th Birthday

Download the letter (53kb Word file)

Jung, Processwork and Collective Change : Interview with Luisetta Mudie

This interview occurred in connection with the upcoming International Association of Analytical Psychologists Jungian conference in Barcelona entitled, "The Edges of Experience." Arny enjoyed speaking about his transitions at the edges of Jungian psychology.

Link to the interview...

Some History, Theory and Practice

Link to the article ...

Jungian and Process Oriented Psychology: Interview by June Singer

Download interview (57kb .rtf file)

Arny’s Research, Articles and Reviews In Connection with Jungian Psychology; 1971-1981

SOMATIC CONSCIOUSNESS  by A. Mindell. (Quadrant, Volume 14, No. 1, Spring 1981).

Psychological discoveries may be as bad as they are good. Freud, for example, discovered the so-called “subconscious.” He said that dreams were the “royal road” to the mysterious thing which we today call the unconscious. His followers focused on dreams and discovered a great deal about symbol channels; however, they also inadvertently neglected other channels of the unconscious such as parapsychological phenomena, divinatorial systems, and body phenomena. Every discovery about the unconscious focuses on some new thing and neglects other important phenomena. That may be one reason why we know a great deal about images and symbols today, but very little about body life. …

See the full article Somatic Consciousness. 

TIME: RHYTHM AND REPOSE — Marie-Louise von Franz. London: Thames and Hudson. 1978. Reviewed by A. Mindell. (Quadrant, Volume 13, No. 1, Spring 1980).

See the full article and review of Time: Rhythm and Repose. 

THE GOLEM: AN IMAGE OF GOVERNING SYNCHRONICITY
by A. Mindell (Quadrant, Volume 8, No. 2, Winter 1975 — Jung Centennial Issue).

… I have observed that synchronicities in psychosis sometimes display a particular pattern. The psychotic identifies his ego with God and feels that he enslaves his environment. Also he feels that his environment is manipulated by creative/destructive daemons, and he lives in the fear that they will turn and destroy him. It is this image of man as an omnipotent creator, threatened by his own magical creations. All synchronicities do not, of course, possess this character; we have no complete differentiated pattern of such phenomena. But some do, and a study of this particular recurrent image can help us understand at least one governing image behind synchronicities in psychotic states. …

See the full article Golem: An Image Governing Synchronicity. 

SYNCHRONICITY: AN INVESTIGATION OF THE UNITARY BACKGROUND PATTERNING SYNCHRONOUS PHENOMENA. (A Psychoid Approach to the Unconscious). By Arnold Mindell.
The Union Institute. (Union Graduate School PhD., 1972 Dissertation for Graduation in Psychology) Dissertation Abstracts International 37, no. 2 (1976). Thanks to Mr. Stan Siver for having found this dissertation, and making it downloadable.

Download dissertation (7.6MB .pdf file)

Earth-Oriented Process Work

Earthwalker

Amy’s Earthwalker vision symbolizes for us, everyone’s basic ability to follow the earth. Earthwalker offers the everyday mind new possibilities. The gnome is suggesting a tip about innerwork. His tip is, relax. Meditate and feel the earth around you. Then ask the earth to show you which direction it wants you to walk in today. This answer might seem irrational to your everyday mind. Keep your doubts in mind, but let your body and the earth move you in the direction the earth implies. Move in that direction until you know sense your own earthwalker-ability and what it suggests for your path today. It seems likely that our Aboriginal friends and ancestors, the world over use and used the Earth as one of their main guides in life.

Song About the Universe

Here is a song about the Universe, an aspect of life we are trying to add to process oriented psychology. Thanks to NASA for the use of these pictures and to Lee Spark Jones for pointing us to this wonderful educational, animated song found at:
http://www.care2.com/ecards/p/8020-3532-10346-2209

Process Mind: Whole And Parts

Since June of 2005, we have been researching, and speaking in our classes and seminars about the “process mind”, a unitive experiential aspect of process work which emerges into dreamlike images and into the world of consensus reality as objects, facts and figures.

We have been encouraged and aided by Aboriginal earth based wisdom concerning earth powers, and totem spirits.  Our most recent research focuses upon using awareness to track how the root or essence level “processmind” experience emerges into reality to resolve problems.   The  basic method uses a particular altered state.  This state –which we shall not describe in greater detail here-- reminds us of the words of Erjen Khamaganova, a Russian-English interpreter for the “Sacred Earth Network’s Indigenous Peoples Exchange” in Siberia.

We found her voice on the Sacred Earth Network website, (http://www.sacredearthnetwork.org/ewip/2006june.cfm) as part of a discussion involving Native Siberian and Native American elders and shamans meeting in Siberia.  Ms Khamaganova spoke about the importance of shamans coming together and creating a ceremony in Siberia.  

She said the “mutually created ceremonies bring strength to all to collectively honor the Earth. This helps heal wounds of the past.” Then she said that “In the West, everything is separated and people think they can solve problems by working on the parts.  We don’t think of land, culture, language, spirituality, as divided.” (Bold is ours)

These words are important because they remind us that our “newest” processmind ideas are ancient.

Process Work and Taoism

Quotes from the Mindells found at “The Dao House”:
http://www.geocities.com/dao_house/therapeutic.html

Field of Dreams ~An Interview with Arnold Mindell
www.sonic.net/~billkirn/mindell_interview.html

Stephan Bodian interviews the Jungian therapist Mindell, who speaks of the "dreambody - the unconscious as an active agent constantly expressing itself in our lives." From Bill Kirn's site on Process Oriented Psychology.

"Everyone is a Taoist at heart. Everyone would like to follow nature, but we don't have enough tools yet to put the philosophy into practice... as soon as someone gets sick, they fight the illness, rather than trying to find out the meaning or purpose behind it."

A Conversation with Arnold Mindell
www.sonic.net/~billkirn/conwmdl.htm

Mindell interviewed by The Monthly Aspectarian. His psychotherapeutic approach draws on Daoist principles.

"Frequently we're asked to come in when the Tao is conflict and crisis. We encourage people to let that Tao happen and not repress it. Especially in new age circles, people just hate conflict and try to repress it."

Some aspects, applications and theories of process work
www.aamindell.net/process-work-applications.htm

Outline of process work fundamentals, from Amy and Arny Mindell's website.

" In our minds, an important 'metaskill' in all deeper, ongoing work is

Setting a Context for Metaskills
www.mckinnonmassage.com/articles/intuition/context.html

Chapter 2 of an article, "Sometimes We Call it Intuition: Metaskill Learning and Application in Massage Therapy," by Keith Eric Grant, PhD, draws on the work of Amy Mindell."We also gain the perspective, common to marital arts, that there is an underlying essence of awareness, attitude, and understanding which transcends and transforms technique into something greater and more fluid."

Process Work and Transpersonal Psychology

by Dr. Ingrid Rose

As you may know transpersonal psychology is a school of psychology that studies the transcendent or spiritual dimensions of psychology and humanity. It is concerned with the study of humanity's highest potential and with the recognition of spiritual and transcendent states of consciousness. It emphasizes the "transegoic" elements of human existence such as altered states of consciousness, trance, and spirituality from an academic perspective, striving to combine modern psychology with the world's contemplative traditions, both East and West.

Transpersonal Psychology serves as an umbrella for many psychological approaches which embody its ideas and perspectives, such as Jungian psychology, Archetypal psychology, Sardello's spiritual psychology, psychosynthesis, and the work of many others such as Maslow, Grof, Wilber and Tart. Process Work would fall under this umbrella as well as it embodies many of the same principles of spirituality, and emphasis on deep states of consciousness and expanded awareness. Transpersonal psychology is a philosophically based approach incorporating many paradigms which offer varying techniques for working with individuals and groups.

However, Process Work offers many tools and techniques for expanding awareness in a very practical way. Its methods are applied in many fields such as extreme states of consciousness; coma, death and dying; movement; dreams and inner work; relationship issues; group work and conflict facilitation; body symptoms and illness. It explores disturbance as a gateway to enhanced understanding of little known parts of oneself, cultivating deeper insight into individual process and global and universal tendencies. Below is an extract from my own writing which may define further the work and how it is applied.

"The dreambody begins with a subtle feeling or sentient experience, which manifests in the body in terms of symptoms and uncontrolled movements, in dreams, in synchronicities, and the like" (Mindell, 2000, p. 509). The dreambody communicates through body symptoms and experiences, dreams, relationship issues and world events. Mindell gives an example of an individual who had a dream about a hammer, and while telling the dream taps his foot on the floor. In following the tapping of the foot, one follows the dreaming process, just as one might follow an aspect of the night-time dream. In allowing the movement of the foot to guide one, one enters through a "dreamdoor" into another reality or altered experience, in which the meaning of the tapping foot is accessed for the individual through a process of amplification and unfolding of the initial signal. In entering the dreaming field, one drops one's usual viewpoint in order to get the meaning brought by the dreambody. In integrating this message into everyday consensus reality, one can begin to change one's relationship to oneself, to others, and to the world, enlivening an awareness process that enriches life.
 
The dreambody is your personal, individual experience of the Tao that cannot be said in consensual terms, while dreams and body experiences are like the Tao that can be said. The dreambody is analogous to the quantum wave function in physics. Just as the quantum wave function cannot be seen in consensus reality but can be understood as a tendency for things to happen, the dreambody is a non-consensus reality, sentient, pre-signal experience manifesting in terms of symptoms and unpredictable motions. (p. 510).

Process-oriented dreambody work provides a methodology by which identified aspects of individuals, relationships, groups and systems can be unraveled in order to gain insight into the deeper meaning of what is calling to be discovered, enhancing awareness of these usually unknown or unfamiliar aspects of existence. In order to embark on this journey, modalities such as vision, audition, proprioception (inner body feeling), and movement are used to enter behind the "dreamdoors"; to travel toward deep sentient experiences to re-emerge with new knowledge and awareness.