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Psychologist Frank Haronian, one of the first pioneers of Psychosynthesis, describes here how he works with psychosynthesis therapy and particularly elaborates on the relationship between client and therapist.
By Frank Haronian, Ph.D. Reprinted from Pastoral Psychology, Volume 25, No. 1. Translation Annabritt Jakielski
SUMMARY : Psychosynthesis is a therapeutic direction that is based on personal experiences and thus connects psychological and theological ideas about human nature. Psychotherapy is carried out in the present moment, where the emphasis is on the mutual relationship. Within this framework, many techniques are used. Imagination and intuition are cultivated. The client is helped to identify with his “personal self”, the center of consciousness and will, and to train the will’s control over the therapy process and his own life. Basic principles include the existence of a “higher unconscious”, which is the place of transpersonal needs, of the individual’s connectedness to everything, and the existence of consciousness and will. Positive efforts and continuous growth are emphasized.
I first became interested in psychosynthesis because I was looking for a point of view that could connect psychology and religion; that could span the artificial but heuristic gap that existed between these two areas of knowledge. To me, establishing and studying separate and delimited areas is a provisional strategy designed to facilitate our understanding, but with the further aim of creating a new synthesis of knowledge. In this way, the relationships between all disciplines should become clearly visible. Such a fusion between two disciplines dealing with human nature occurs most easily if they have the same understanding of human nature. When I first encountered psychosynthesis, I thought that Roberto Assagioli’s views had the broad perspective that could provide a continuum from the concepts and methods of psychotherapy to the areas of interest of theology.
Assagioli, the founder of psychosynthesis, was an Italian psychiatrist who continued to write and teach diligently until his death at the age of eighty-six. According to the theory of psychosynthesis, a person has a self that is not just the sum of his social roles, but something else. He has a center of consciousness that is constant even when external stimuli are zero, as well as a will that makes true choices. He has the capacity for religious experiences. In Assagioli, spiritual dispositions exist in themselves, and not only as a defense mechanism against sexual and aggressive drives.
I was delighted to have a genuine “higher” unconscious state because it fitted in with and explained experiences of bliss and ecstasy that had no legitimate place in conventional psychology, either behaviorist or psychoanalytic. I was surprised at how readily my clerical colleagues accepted Freud’s limited picture of human nature, and I was puzzled by their little or no interest in psychosynthesis; especially since the latter sought only to supplement and extend the former—not to replace it. Without any theological sophistication, I guessed that the average clergyman tries to keep his religious and psychological views in separate mental compartments.
It is sixty-five years since (1910) Assagioli first put forward his psychosynthetic view of human nature, of its psychopathology, and of its potential and growth. I wonder whether the clergy are now prepared to seriously consider a psychology which unequivocally asserts the spiritual needs and inclinations of humanity while also accepting the carnal and egocentric aspects.
The experimental basis of psychosynthesis
Roberto Assagioli consistently claimed that his principles and methods were based on solid personal experience. He did not ask anyone to take anything for granted. At most, he asked that someone act as if something were true, in order to test the consequences before rejecting it. I therefore choose to begin this presentation with a few descriptions of my own personal experiences as a therapist, experiences that I believe will explain why psychosynthesis makes sense to me. Then I will describe how I function as a therapist and explain why I consider it psychosynthesis. I describe Assagioli’s view of the structure of the psyche and how his view of the self differs from Freud’s ego concept. I will discuss the will and its relation to values. Finally, as an overview, I will mention the most important ideas and principles on which psychosynthesis is based in my opinion.
Some personal experiences
We all seek values that can guide our behavior, principles that we can use for practical decisions in everyday life. As children, we receive these values from our parents and teachers. As adults, we are responsible for reexamining these old guidelines and consciously choosing the values that fit our expanded and personal worldview. In this process, we use our experiences, from which we seek to generalize life and find principles to act upon.
As I look back on my own search for values through my own experiences, I have discovered that one of the most enduring facts is the satisfaction I experience when I see people grow. It may be a child or an adult; it may be someone who is already an effective adult; or it may be an immature, neurotic client who is succeeding for the first time in breaking out of an old, rigid pattern. I always find it a satisfying experience to witness and participate in another person’s experience of growth; as a participant or a spectator. It is one of the few experiences where I do not feel ambivalent, even when I may regard the growing person as my enemy, or someone who at the time seems to be one. Yet I can rejoice in watching him grow, and when I think about what is happening.
The experimental fact of growth leads to one of the most important principles of psychosynthesis. A principle so obvious that we often fail to notice it—namely, that evolution continues. Evolution is just another word for growth. We are part of it, and we all have a role to play. One way is in our love relationships. To love is to think, feel, and act in a way that promotes the growth of the beloved. One could therefore say that it is love that makes the world grow. According to psychosynthesis, each of us has a responsibility to assess what is happening around us. We must ally ourselves with forces that promote growth—individual, social, or universal—and strive to eliminate ignorance, selfishness, and destruction.
Another frequent experience of mine reveals an important tendency in my own and in human nature in general. When I succeed in overcoming some difficulty or in acquiring a new skill, I temporarily enjoy a feeling of satisfaction and joy that lasts for a few hours, perhaps days, but rarely longer. The satisfaction of accomplishment is momentary, fleeting. Shortly after acquiring a skill, I automatically use it as another tool in my behavioral repertoire; soon it means little to me. My attention is directed to new goals, new opportunities for growth, and of course also new causes of uncertainty and anxiety. I lose my conscious sense of accomplishment because I become absorbed in the new problem before me.
This observation led me to two conclusions. First, we deserve to rejoice in our past achievements, and we should, as Pierre Janet pointed out, take time to reflect on our achievements with a sense of satisfaction; we should remember what we have accomplished and remind ourselves that we do not always have to be on the edge of our potential for growth. Second, after an acquisition we seem to have an innate need to find new and more difficult goals. I am reminded of a quote from Whitman, which I would paraphrase as follows: The attainment of any particular goal always entails the necessity of facing a still more difficult task.
How do these observations relate to psychosynthesis? Because psychosynthesis believes that there is an innate need for growth in man, it gives greater attention to the man’s achievements and positive efforts than to the analysis of his neuroses. Without ignoring the latter, psychosynthesis attempts to strengthen the client’s self-image by helping him to value his achievements, whatever they may be, at the level he is prepared for. As the client’s self-esteem grows, he is able and willing to reflect on his mistakes and to change his automatic neurotic behavior into a more productive pattern, one that is consciously chosen.
Finally, I would like to add a third observation I have made in my time as a therapist. I have repeatedly noticed that as a client gets better, as conflicts are resolved and energy is released, he uses his newfound energy in two general directions. First, he is kinder to himself; he indulges himself in ways that his previously overly strict ego would have forbidden. Second, and more interestingly, he seems to have a need to help others, not in a compulsive or neurotic way, but in response to his new realization of genuine needs for other people.
These observations are in good agreement with the psychosynthetic view of the higher unconscious. According to this view, as we mature, we become more aware of and receptive to higher, transpersonal, altruistic needs. These needs are autonomous and not just a sublimated version of the biological needs of our lower unconscious.
The therapist and client as a dyad
In the practice of psychotherapy, the concepts of psychosynthesis manifest themselves at many different levels and in many different ways. Psychosynthesis is more of an attitude, a stance, or a point of view than a method with a set of techniques. I have mentioned its emphasis on growth and achievement, on personal joy and helpfulness to others. I would now like to address collaboration in the therapeutic process.
When I work with a client, I try as much as possible to meet the client where he is, to affirm his being and presence as he is and as he appears to me in the very moment. I set aside my previous knowledge, my professional training, all concepts of diagnostic categories, and all specific technical aids that I might use with this client or others. I simply try to experience this person as he is here and now, with my feelings, my impulses, imagination, with whatever comes to me. I try to be as real and honest about my experience of him, my feelings for him, my impulses toward him or away from him as possible. If I am happy, I smile. If I am bored, I frown. If the client talks too much or changes the subject, or if he seems unproductive, I would rather say that I am confused by what he is saying, that I cannot follow, and that I wish he would try to express himself more clearly, to stick to the topic, rather than pass judgment on him – that he is displaying evasive and passive behavior.
On the other hand, very early in my work with a new client, I ask him to pay special attention to his feelings toward me, what it is like to come to me, any special events, what happens between us, etc. I emphasize the importance of his being fully aware of the quality of our interaction and the process by which our relationship develops. I further tell him that he should not feel compelled to tell me about all the feelings, ideas, impulses, and fantasies that come to him unless he is ready and willing to do so.
I have mentioned an important concept – the will – which I will discuss in more detail later; for now, however, I will mention two things. First: What I do with my clients is not unusual. It is similar to the approach of Carl Rogers and his successors. However, it shows the psychosynthetic approach to the therapeutic relationship. My psychosynthetic orientation is evident first and foremost in my attempts to create as real, open and honest a therapist-client relationship as possible. My goal is to bring about a psychosynthesis at the dyad level. I constantly try to let myself be completely absorbed in the face-to-face relationship between myself and the other person, in order to create a complete commitment on both sides. In this way, I create a model for the client that shows how I would like to see him act; not only towards me, but also towards others. This means, of course, that in the event that the client acts in an unfortunate way, I will express my disapproval. If the client withdraws from me, I will probably express my awareness of it, my disappointment, etc.
Secondly, it is characteristic of this approach that most therapists, regardless of the nature of their initial training, seem to do just this as they grow in experience. Through experience, they seem to choose to use this method in their work. Psychosynthesis is thus the direction in which we as therapists move as we grow, develop and improve. It is the result of our increased sensitivity combined with our greater freedom to dare to be ourselves as persons, human beings to our clients and not to appear as professionals.
I would like to return to my statement that I tell my clients that they do not need to feel compelled to tell me everything they are thinking and feeling. I want my clients to feel as soon as possible that they are in control of their part of the interaction process. They have not come to humbly confess or belittle themselves, although many feel that way. They want and need to maintain their dignity in the process, but generally they are afraid of being made to feel stupid or act in a way that they consider childish. I want to help them avoid losing face when they say or do something. Generally, however, they are not prepared to accept my acceptance of their behavior. As a result, I try to give them a sense of control over the direction and speed of the process. I demonstrate my recognition that each individual has a will and that I am prepared to respect it. It’s amazing that so many people won’t accept that they also have a say in what we do: “You’re the doctor. I’ll do what you say, doctor.”
The will is one of the main concepts in psychosynthesis. The function of the will is particularly repressed and distorted in clients. When they no longer have adequate communication with the important people in their lives, they also lose the feeling of control over themselves and over their surroundings. We can see this in a dramatic and compulsive form in the schizophrenic, who feels controlled by external forces. It is understood that the client tends to perceive the therapeutic situation as yet another experience over which he has limited control. Therapy can be seen as the process of giving the client back the will and the feeling of control over his destiny, or at least control over how he will react to his destiny.
Therefore, very early in therapy, I encourage the client to express his or her will regarding any issue that may arise during the consultation. This may involve such small matters as the distance between our chairs, the time of the consultation, whether the windows should be open or closed. Both the client and, of course, myself have a say in this matter. We each have a responsibility to be honest with each other, to speak our minds, to air our feelings, and to determine whether we can work together effectively. If we cannot, it is also our responsibility to face this realistically. It is incumbent upon us to recognize that our current limitations as human beings prevent us from creating a therapeutically useful relationship and therefore to abandon the attempt, or at least not for the time being.
This initial aspect of psychosynthesis, as it manifests itself in psychotherapy, can be described as an attempt to create a working synthesis for two people who share the same goal – namely, to facilitate and accelerate the growth of one of these two people. It no longer surprises me when I hear myself spontaneously exclaim to my client: “You are good for me. You are good for me.”
Psychosynthetic therapy
I have expressed the goal of therapy in constructive terms: “To facilitate and accelerate growth.” I am thus expressing a belief that is very important to psychosynthesis: namely, the belief that when we are functioning properly, we are constantly striving to grow and develop, to expand our consciousness, to assimilate experience, to become more effective, to become happy, and to radiate our happiness in a loving way to others. It follows that the process we usually call “treatment” can be viewed as blockages being removed from an essentially normal growth process. The purpose of treatment is to facilitate the emergence of experiences that are blocked or distorted.
Normal growth occurs in two opposite directions – inward and outward. We recognize these directions, but in a different context: that is, in the works of Carl Jung. The mature, effective person who has undergone a process of individuation has thus developed in both directions and can therefore orient himself without difficulty either inward or outward. The West places greater emphasis on the outward-directed skills and functions, while the traditions of the East have moved in the opposite direction. The development towards the synthesis of these two attitudes is evident, for example, today in the fascination of the young people of the West with a multitude of forms of Eastern religious practice or in the preoccupation of the Eastern nations with reaching the technological level of the West. In terms of personality and psychotherapy, psychosynthesis represents an attempt to develop and integrate both the outer and the inner functions. For Westerners, this means that one must make a special effort to develop the inner functions that have remained undeveloped – especially imagination and intuition.
As in Jungian psychotherapy, we believe in psychosynthesis that the most appropriate course of action for any individual is best determined by consulting the individual’s psyche. For this purpose, dream analysis or guided daydreaming seems to be particularly good. When the client is ready, he is encouraged to train himself in relaxation and in promoting the inner world of images, in order to develop imagination (which is grossly undervalued in the modern Western world), because imagination is a source of information about one’s potential, which comes directly from one’s own inner psychic processes.
In psychosynthesis there are a number of special methods which develop the intuitive functions. These methods are generally used in the later part of the therapy. Intuition is another aspect of the psyche which we in the West tend to neglect. Because psychosynthesis once again directs attention to the two functions of imagination and intuition, it seems to integrate the outer and the inner, East and West, within the framework of psychotherapy. I do not think this integration occurs with the same consistency with other points of view.
It is important that each individual has a strong will, but willpower is not sufficient in itself. It is also important that the will identifies with the highest and most valuable functions the individual possesses. This will can unfortunately be a slave to one’s body, one’s intellect, or one’s emotions. However, one should have the freedom to fully experience one’s emotions, but their expression should be controlled by rational considerations. Excessive expression of sexual or aggressive urges and accompanying emotions is only encouraged within the framework of a psychotherapeutic cathartic experience; such behavior is not encouraged in normal daily social situations.
In this connection I recall a letter I received from a humanistic psychologist who expressed her disillusionment with much of what was happening in the human evolution movement today. She said she felt that much of it could be classified as the “animal evolution movement.” I think her view is consistent with psychosynthesis.
The psyche
As I understand Roberto Assagioli, he was not particularly interested in systematizing his ideas, in organizing them into some symmetrical pattern. He adopted some of Jung’s basic concepts of personality, but he modified Jung’s concepts significantly on the basis of his own observations. There is no definitive psychosynthetic theory of personality, and Assagioli hoped that there never would be one. We expect the system to remain open to growth and change, because we believe that it is not possible to perceive and organize the manifold facts of psychological existence. We hope that any attempt will become increasingly inclusive, explanatory, and aesthetically more elegant. We hope that any formulation will lead to a better understanding not only of how people function but also of how they can be more effectively helped to grow and thus be of greater social utility and personal satisfaction.
The self is one of the central concepts of psychosynthesis. Before I describe the self, however, I would like to describe Assagioli’s model of the structure of the psyche, so that the self can be placed in its proper context.
The collective unconscious, marked 7 in Figure 1, has permeable boundaries with the personal unconscious, marked 1, 2, and 3. The personal unconscious is divided into (1) the lower, (2) the middle, and (3) the higher realms. None of the realms is strictly demarcated from the others, nor from the collective unconscious.
The field of consciousness marked 4. represents the limited material that is in the field of consciousness at any given time. This is centered around the personal self, 5., the center of consciousness and will. The personal self is the focal point of consciousness. It is not the content of consciousness, nor the various roles and functions of the personality. It has this content. It owns it, but is not identical with it. In psychosynthesis, consciousness is defined as being separate from the content, as existing independently of sensory stimulation.
Assagioli’s oval diagram
Finally, the transpersonal Self is represented by the star, marked 6th at the top of the diagram. This higher, transpersonal Self is paradoxically both individual and universal, half within the individual and half without. Because it does not generally function at the level of the personality, I need not deal with it here except to note that the personal self, the center of consciousness and will at the level of the personality, 5th in the diagram, is conceived of as a diminished mirror image of the transpersonal Self.
The Freudian ego concept is broader and much more inclusive than the self. It includes the defense mechanisms, the control of the motor system, the management of several sensory modalities. In Freudian thought, the ego is the mediator between the demands of the id, the superego, and the external world. Consciousness is also an ego function.
In psychosynthesis we separate the functions of consciousness and control from the ego and attribute to them the personal self. This is simply an extension of the psychoanalytic view of the ego as capable of splitting itself so that it can assume two or more different attitudes at the same time. For example, the ego can use its defense mechanisms while simultaneously performing an activity and observing the activity. We find it useful to separate the ego’s defense mechanisms from the directing and observing functions and to attribute to the latter two what we call the personal self.
The censoring functions of the ego are generally grouped under the term “superego.” We regard this as a collection of rules and regulations imposed on the growing child more or less arbitrarily by authority figures. As the individual expands his knowledge and expands his consciousness, we expect that he will naturally consider these arbitrarily imposed rules of the superego and gradually replace them with the fruits of his own judgments. It is in this way that the superego is dismantled and replaced by an adult conscience. Conscience is not based on the arbitrary decrees of parents or other authorities but on the enlightened consciousness of the individual. It includes, however, those parts of the superego which can be reconciled with one’s mature judgment.
A concomitant phenomenon of this maturation process is a tendency for the ego’s defense mechanisms to weaken. Another phenomenon is that as consciousness expands and energy is released from the neurotic complexes, the directing role of the self is enlarged.
In French, as you may know, there is only one word for both consciousness and conscience. I have long suspected that this semantic fact expresses an important psychological fact – namely, that a mature conscience has its root, or is perhaps even identical, with a broad and expanded consciousness.
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