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Counselling
& psychotherapy |
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Moment
of Recognition
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Jaimie Cahlil (Dip. Couns.) – Integrative-Transpersonal Counselling and
Psychotherapy.
An accredited member of
BACP
(British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy), I am bound by
BACP’s Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and
Psychotherapy, and subject to the Professional Conduct Procedure
therein.
I am also an Associate Member of
AHPP
(Association of Humanistic Psychology Practitioners)
The
UK
AHPP
is an independent member organisation of the United Kingdom Council of
Psychotherapy (UKCP) and of the European Association for Psychotherapy. |
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As a counsellor and psychotherapist, I have been through
extensive therapy myself, as part of my training and also a
pre-requisite for practising. I regard my ongoing supervision, and all
further training, as a continuing commitment to my clients and an
essential support for my practice.
Responding to their clients' needs, the therapist will work to
the required depth and length with their clients, brief therapy
answering a person’s needs for immediate alleviation of, or strategies
for managing, a present difficulty. This is issue-orientated and is
commonly regarded as ‘counselling’; deeper lengthier therapy is
process-orientated; referred to as ‘psychotherapy’, this enables the
person to explore their whole self and entire experience of
being…therapist and client working together with emotional and body-held
feeling, potentially leading to release and healing within the deepest
subtle energetic levels.
The counselling-psychotherapy continuum provides a transformative
relational process designed to support, guide, empower (with opportunity
for self-development), and gradually bring about healing. |
'Talking' Therapy
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As the therapist’s role is to assist you in making your own
journey together with your own choices and decisions, it does not normally
involve the giving of advice, or acting on your behalf.
The deeper process of ‘talking therapy’, which actually involves far more
than simply ‘talking’, or ‘talking about’, aims to assist you in exploring
who and how you are in your deeper authentic self, and to help you develop,
deepen or regain a sense of meaning in your life.
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You will be guided with sensitivity into those personal areas of
which you may not be particularly aware
– those aspects of your self at present unrecognised, as if in ‘shadow’.
This will require trust in your therapist, and may take time to deepen.
When you begin to explore unknown aspects of you, you may find your
‘shadow’ also contains qualities that would usually be considered
‘positive’ or beneficial.
Your readiness to do this work will be carefully monitored by your
therapist, the depth and pace guided by your own responses. As a result
of this work, you may feel empowered to do something yourself about what
isn’t right for you, rather than feeling frustrated, helpless, or lost.
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Guardian at My Shoulder
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Exploration of the ways in which we communicate with each other, on all
levels – many quite subtle, enables us to clarify what we want and to be
more direct with what we want to say. A useful and profound understanding
may emerge... Greater choice brings with it increased self-responsibility;
and development of self-awareness brings about the possibility of personal
transformation.
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Jaimie Cahlil's Approach
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As
we are, of course, human beings, each person who comes to me for therapy is
primarily simply another being, here in this world. Our human experience of
being, this we share. Our initial meeting occurs on this common soulful
ground… and this remains our basis throughout the course of therapy.
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Human BE-ing
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I regard my clients with the same acceptance with which I regard my self. I
feel warmly towards others, and I’m glad to be able to offer my self – the
therapist’s self being our essential ‘tool’. My own approach encourages the
development of self-truth and awareness through consciousness of being in
the present moment. (Those who meditate will recognise this as ‘mindfulness’
practice.) Inner riches and freedom come through courage, self-honesty,
self-acceptance, self-understanding and self-forgiveness… Eventually,
through readiness and ability to face and explore personal and universal
truths, we may embark on the exciting adventure towards self-integration:
wholeness of body-mind-soul as one. This process naturally brings with it
authenticity, spontaneity, intuitive creativity, self-nurturing,
self-actualisation and compassionate love.
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I bring to my practice the sum total of my
personal experience and life’s journey,
as well as my formal Integrative and Transpersonal trainings...
Mandala of Self-Forgiveness
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Training and Influences
My professional training is both Integrative and Transpersonal.
My inner journey led to the weaving of my personal-professional
Integrative-Transpersonal ‘cloth’. My personal tendency is
down-to-earth-spiritual. My training include various approaches/practices:
Integrative – Gestalt/Person-Centred/Transactional Analysis/Existential,
Psychodynamic, CBT (Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy), Core Process... and
Transpersonal (with Integrative/Jungian base) – including: working with
dreams, creative imagination/expression, voice-work, and subtle energies.
Further influences include: intuitive art (after a traditional fine art
training), holistic massage (ITEC), meditation, and body-centred
psychotherapy. First and always, my continuous experiential training in life
is invaluable – informing and energising the way in which I work.
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So,
what is ‘Integrative’?
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Integrative counselling and psychotherapy hold the therapeutic
relationship between therapist and client at its core, embodying a synthesis
of concepts and practices from various traditions and philosophies -
‘breathed in’, assimilated, and then ‘breathed out’…
Furthermore, as I see it, integrative therapy works to bring together all
aspects of self into wholeness of being: physical awareness, emotional
experience, mind and spirit; and similarly, to encourage the self to explore
and assimilate our understanding of the greater patterns of life - and of
existence itself. |
Mandala of Past, Present and Future
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What is 'Transpersonal'? |
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Soul-to-Soul: seeking the
Beloved
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‘Transpersonal’ literally means 'beyond the personal' - to a collective
awareness of our self and others, beyond more surface consciousness and
personal identity. Experience of the ‘transpersonal’ is profound, as we recognise
the oneness of life and our inter-connections with reality in all forms and
levels. Life becomes more meaningful, the individual subsequently gaining
the ability to form better interpersonal relationships and deepen the wish
to be of service to others, the planet and life itself.
And so, put another way, the ‘transpersonal’ therapist recognises the client
is far more than their individual ego, personality and
physical/emotional/intellectual self. This approach, while seeking to ease
suffering, helps bring insight into the soulful nature of personal and
inter-personal reality, by exploring the felt process of ordinary everyday
life - or within spiritual, transcendent, profoundly transformative or
near-death experiences, which are beyond the ordinary everyday; also through
the symbols and archetypes found within our dreams - waking and sleeping. |
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As the effective therapist evaluates what is most needed at any
stage of therapy, it may be felt more appropriate initially that the client
work on other more specific, more grounding, issues first -
such as containment of a present crisis, or a present debilitating lack of
self-esteem. The Transpersonal approach needs not be overtly apparent.
As regards deep psychological unease, the transpersonal approach encourages
alternative perspectives, together with exploration of what may have
prompted such a crisis or chronic state... perhaps with distorted
perception, a sense of stuck-ness, unbalancing elation or apathetic decline.
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When stress is experienced, this may show up in numerous ways – often as
a general sense of exhaustion: physically - as bodily symptoms, injury
and illness; emotionally – as depression or hysteria, anger or grief;
mentally - as psychological unease, distortion, or imbalance; and
spiritually - as existential crisis, or loss of purpose and meaning. |
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When something becomes ‘too much’, the stress we experience finds
an outlet somewhere. We may resort to disengagement or distancing in some
way - from self, others or reality. Disconnection may provide a sense of
self-protection. It could be we have a fear we dare not feel. Underneath, we
sense something too painful to acknowledge… and we may seek psychological
escape or relief from psychological hurt.
When our need is extreme, we may need to ‘stop the world’ and
‘get off’, into ‘mental breakdown’ - a space where at last we have
permission to be stuck, to take a step back, to ‘do nothing’, to be
nurtured… while we explore and evaluate and re-define who and how we are, or
what we want to do and how we wish to live. We may have felt trapped in a
meaningless existence, while unconsciously longing to live our truth.
Sometimes it takes a huge effort to break through the confines of the
invisible ‘prison’ we have gradually built around our self. This ‘prison’
may seem to have everything in it we could wish for – materially. Our
hunger is insatiable - but for what? If we do not have wholeness, if our
essential non-physical self is denied or repressed, and who we think we are
is limited to the changeable clothing or ‘mask’ of self called
‘personality’, we may seem to lose a sense of our reality - and feel lost
and alone in a void. |
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Sometimes it takes great presence of mind to stay with an uncomfortable
emotional feeling – and simply stay with that feeling, until it moves
through and/or transforms, and brings you to a different place within.
As we begin to discover our deeper self, we experience an awe and wonder
for life, a sense of compassion, a recognition of something sacred,
something special, a warming smile of trusting acceptance in the eyes of
a so-called ‘stranger’, sunlight on dancing leaves, a wordless sense of
being with all
which
is.
Life is continually changing. We are, too: inextricably engaged in
universal revolving patterns of emerging, evolving, ebbing, flowing,
merging, re-forming... waves within ocean tides, endlessly breathing...
pausing... breathing...
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