What is Process Work?
In a Nutshell
Process Work developed by Dr. Arnold Mindell, has roots in Jungian Psychology and Taoism. Its methods reflect a dedication to accurately following the way of nature, while bringing awareness into the patterns structuring our lives; including those parts normally unseen, unappreciated, disturbing or marginalized. Bringing awareness into this interaction, a surprising and crazy wisdom emerges and a creative way forward in even most difficult situations.
In Books
"...I would also expect a processworker to let things transform as they want to and not try to organize them herself. To do this she will have to discover the pattern behind the process of a given individual situation and base her work upon the nature of this pattern and its flow."
Arnold Mindell: "RIVER'S WAY / The Process Science of the Dreambody"
"The term 'process' in processwork refers to the shamanistic act of journeying directly with the river. "... "The focus in processwork and shamanism is not developing the ego further but rather upon developing awareness of change."
Arnold Mindell: "THE SHAMAN'S BODY / A New Shamanism for Transforming Health, Relationships, and the Community"
"Processwork expands individual therapy because it has an ethical belief in connecting individual work to political, environmental and group work"
Amy Mindell: "METASKILLS / The Spiritual Art of Therapy"
"Processwork is descriptive, rather then prescriptive; by being accurate enough in her (processworker's) observations of the client's psychological, behaviorally manifest processes, she can connect the client with the incipient changes which are trying to take place and which, since they're usually blocked, tend to cause the client trouble."
Joseph Goodbread: "THE DREAMBODY TOOLKIT / A Practical Introduction to the Philosophy, Goals and Practice of Process-Oriented Psychology"
"The central element behind all process work applications is the concept of nature, that the flow of even painful or difficult events such as illness, psychosis, or hate can become useful if we follow them exactly, compassionately, and with awareness."
Arnold Mindell: "THE LEADER AS MARTIAL ARTIST / Techniques and Strategies for Resolving Conflict and Creating Community"
"As worldwork develops, it is taking psychology beyond personal work into the areas of social consciousness and revolution. Further, it takes politics beyond mundane problems to creating community, the most sacred and perennial interest of human beings. Worldwork combines ecology's interest in the environment, psychology's focus on the individual and social theory's comprehension of historical change."
Arnold Mindell: "SITTING IN THE FIRE / Large Group Transformation Using Conflict and Diversity"
"Process-oriented psychology, because it has focused explicitly on many of the issues contributing to dreaming up, is particularly rich in methods for following dreaming-up processes and helping them complete themselves. The interested reader will find throughout the literature of process work a whole assortment of tools and techniques for working with dreamed-up reactions."
Joseph Goodbread: "RADICAL INTERCOURSE / How Dreams Unite Us in Love, Conflict and Other Inevitable Relationship"
"Only the total process is really healing. Following a client in process oriented psychology means not only following the part which the client identifies with in the moment, but following the total process, that is, with both primary and secondary signals (the part which the client does not identify with in the moment)"
Arnold Mindell: "CITY SHADOWS / PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERVENTIONS IN PSYCHIATRY"
"This method assumes that the person is not simply lost to coma, but is going through potentially meaningful inner experiences, and that, after all possible medical emergencies and causes are cared for, we can communicate with the person through special methods."
Amy Mindell: "COMA - A HEALING JOURNEY / A Guide for Family, Friends, and Helpers."
"What shall we do with our aggression if we forbid it in our personal life? If we repress it goes into the body. Since our world sanctifies national conflict, much of our aggression finally overflows into our interest, fascination and investment in war. Without our being aware of it, our anger gets channeled into national conflict, which is not close to home. War becomes a way for us to have our anger at a distance, impersonally. Unprocessed information and experience poison the body and the environment."
Arnold Mindell: "THE YEAR ONE / GLOBAL PROCESS WORK"
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In One Page
Process oriented psychology is a cross-disciplinary approach to individual and collective change. Process Work, as it is more commonly called, offers new ways of working with areas of life that are experienced as problematic or painful. With its roots in Jungian psychology, Taoism and physics, Process Work discovers potential patterns for change within the experiences that disturb us. Dreams, physical symptoms, addictions, family and relationship problems, group conflicts and social tensions : all these experiences, even the most chaotic-seeming processes, when approached with curiosity and respect, reveal an inner order and coherence that can bring new information vital for our personal or collective growth.
Process Work was developed by Dr Arnold Mindell, a physicist and Jungian analyst then based in Zurich. In 1969 he realized that body experiences and symptoms mirror dreams and are meaningful expressions of the unconscious. He used the term `dreambody' to identify the numinous underlying process that expresses itself through both dreams and the body. Together with his colleagues and students, Arny Mindell has continued his pioneering research, discovering that the 'dream', the `living unconscious in its momentary expression', can always be found in every aspect of our lives.
Process workers work with the understanding that they are participants and co-creators as well as observers or facilitators of any process. They know that the whole process, the familiar parts and the unknown, the manifest and the non-manifest, can be found in the inner as well as in the outer situation. They use Process Work's philosophical and theoretical framework and rich assortment of methods for unfolding meaning, not as techniques, but as a practical means through which to connect with life, wholeness, themselves and others with greater awareness and creativity.
Precise observation of people's signals, together with a deep sensing of the atmosphere or `field', are used to create the most appropriate and useful method of working in a given situation. The unique structure of each process is accurately discovered and supported while carefully following the goals and needs of those involved. Accordingly, the work has many appearances. Allowing processes to unfold in their own way may at one moment call for movement and so look like dance. At other times, the work may look like verbal psychotherapy, family therapy, psychodrama, group work, a business meeting, a political discussion, art, chaos or even a chat over a cup of tea. Process Work avoids interpretation and specific programmes. Its method is to bring awareness to what is happening and this method is its only goal.
Process Work is now applied in many areas and welcomes your interest whether personal or professional.
Process Work is used as a method of psychotherapy, both in private practice and within systems, for personal growth and for working with life crises; as a means of meditation on one's own process; for working with symptoms and illness; with people in altered and extreme states of consciousness related to psychiatric diagnoses, as well as extreme states such as comatose or near death states; with relationship and family interactions. As the field of Process Work grows, it moves beyond the parameters of traditional psychotherapy, extending its work into such areas as conflict resolution with groups, institutions and communities, addressing social issues and ethnic and national conflict; organisational development in business; educational work with children in schools; creativity and the arts, (theatre, music, visual/tactile arts, writing); the environment and spirituality. Its orientation towards research, to practical and direct application and to becoming widely accessible to people world-wide place Process Work beyond the usual definitions of psychology.
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