Leland Clipperton

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Changing the World... One Mind at a Time

We all get stuck behind a thought (that we create!) and then proceed to gather evidence to justify the thought or belief. We create experiences which we then interpret as supporting our interpretations.

A whirlwind of insanity that is consistently repeated... and then again! So we can say... see, I told you so!, I told you I was right (eous). We need to do this in order to support our sense of reality to maintain our reality.

Psychotherapy, in my mind anyway, is not, nor should it be, about fixing a problem, or colluding with another person's belief or thought structure. It is a complex process of helping you clarify your understanding of your experience, exploring that understanding, reflecting that understanding, expanding that understanding and then altering the perception to help provide a sense of inclusion and connection; to experience your understanding through another's eyes without judgment or assumptions.

When I'm asked what modality do I use in psychotherapy, I typically answer, "client-centred"... I want to fully understand what it's like to be inside your perception. (If there's any person who's training and philosophy I follow more than other's, it's Irvin Yalom. http://www.yalom.com/ ). I want to help you understand that it is not what the world does to us... it is what we do to the world! It is to recognise the choices we make and to understand why we make those particular choices. What causes us to interpret the experiences we have the way we do?

In order to accomplish changing the world, I can only do that one mind at a time. And it's not that I'm trying to "change" your mind! It's allowing you to consider other possibilities, Possibilities that may create an expanded perspective. I need to be constantly reminding myself to be vigilant around my own process... to continue to be questioning with humility and without judgment or assumptions (yah, like that's easy to do!). (We cannot do this on our own for reasons which I hope are self-apparent.)

To continue to be intensely curious... to continue to expand my perspective by getting outside of the justified vision I have created to allow myself to consider other possibilities and not get stuck in a rigid sense of reality.
I speak to groups of people and individuals, but I know the reality is that I can only work with my mind and then help you work with yours. We can and are changing the world... one mind at a time.


Until later
Leland

http://www.counsellingandmediation.com/
http://www.lelandclipperton.blogspot.com/
705 443 8290
905 510 9117

1 comment:

  1. Great post...I always saw psychotherapy as 'fixing what's internal'. I guess that's pretty much self-defeating, as you can never really 'fix' what has already happened and maybe it doesn't need fixing.
    I concur with your thoughts of acknowledging, facing, excepting responsibility for, understanding and using our experiences, good or bad, positively. To learn and grow and challenge our beliefs, being OK with adjustments.
    Much easier said than done,
    See you next week...

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