14 Things Excellent Therapists Do for You, Part One

We all need and benefit from therapists when we're dealing with challenges that are greater than we can deal with on our own. There is no shame in seeing a therapist. 

Too often we delay seeing a therapist and thereby prolong our suffering and delay our healing. Our delay not only harms us, it harms those who care about us. I know this from both my professional and personal experiences. 

Whether we need a physical therapist, occupational therapist, psychotherapist, or some other kind of therapist, we need our therapists to be excellent therapists. 

The following list is not exhaustive. However, it does list fourteen things I believe excellent therapists do.

Excellent therapists-

1. Give you a safe, confidential place in which to talk about what is important to you.

2. Attend to, serve, and take care of you while you're doing your healing work.

3. Listen to you and make sure that you know they are listening.

4. Empathize: see from your perspective and feel your feelings with you.

5. Validate your feelings and comfort you.

6. Reflect back to you what you express in order to help you better understand yourself and your experiences.

7. Help you make informed, constructive decisions about how to make your way forward.

Part Two of 14 Things Excellent Therapists Do for You will complete the list.

What do you think of the list so far? Would you add or remove anything from the first seven items on my list?

Spiritual Healing, Part One

Defining Spirit

As I mentioned in my previous post, for the next few months, I’ll be writing about spiritual healing. However, it’s very likely that what I write about spiritual healing is not what comes to your mind with the words “spiritual healing.” So that you can better understand what I write I’ll define my terms as I go. Let’s begin with “spirit.”

I do not use the word spirit to refer to anything metaphysical, religious, or psychological. I base my description of spirit on the Homeric word thumos and define it as “that which makes alive.” It is the difference between being alive or not. It is principle of life in all living things. Spirit is the same in all living things, not different in or unique in us humans.

Spirit, Mind, Soul

Spirit is not to be conflated or confused with soul or mind. Soul and mind are associated with having an ego, personality, and mentality. Ancient Greeks believed the human psyche (soul, mind) survived death and went to Hades, the underworld realm of the dead. Whether or not all living things have a soul or mind is beyond the scope of this blog. What is important here is the distinction between spirit and mind or soul. 

Spirit is more primitive than soul and mind. It is simply that which makes alive, the difference between being alive or dead. For example, if an oak tree is alive rather than dead, it has spirit. Whether or not is has a soul or mind is a different matter. The same is true for all living things visible to us, from the very simple to the most complex. If there are goddesses and gods and other beings invisible to us, spirit is what makes them alive too.

Spirit: Quasi-physical, Natural

Spirit is quasi-physical, neither metaphysical nor psychological. It is associated with the wind, our breath, lungs, and heart.

We humans can feel it in the center of our chest, between our nipples, and behind our breast bone. Sometimes we feel it expand upward into our throat and downward into our solar plexus,  genitals, and rectum. Sometimes our spirit is low and we feel tired or weak. At other times our spirit is high and we feel energized and strong.

We can sense it in others. Some have sweet spirits; some have mean spirits. Some we recognize as having great spirits: Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Catherine the Great. When some enter a room we feel their spirit fill the room. We even recognize that some children have their parent’s spirit: “She has her dad’s spirit.” “He has his mom’s spirit.”

That which makes us alive, spirit, is in and of this world rather than other-worldly. It is natural, not supernatural.

What I Believe: The Thumotics Manifesto, Part 7

Just as the therapeutic care of our body and mind is based on science, I believe in basing the therapeutic care of spirit on science rather than religious and metaphysical beliefs. I am not saying that we should completely ignore or reject religious and metaphysical beliefs. I am saying that when we investigate them. we do well to do so from a critical perspective in which we test their validity with established scientific methods.

I call on those with expertise and interest in counseling, therapeutic care, and healing to join with me in establishing and developing the new therapeutic care of spirit, thumotherapy. Join with me in becoming the first thumotherapists, exploring the vast frontier of the spirit and its injuries, illnesses, and therapies.

What I Believe: The Thumotics Manifesto, Part 6

I Believe in Caring for Spirit

Since we know and understand so little about spirit, we have yet to develop ways of taking good care of our own and other's spirits. While we do already speak of wounded and broken spirits, we have yet to recognize what could be a broad spectrum of injuries and illnesses of spirit.

We have therapies for physical injuries and illnesses based on experience and scientific research. We also have therapies for mental illnesses based on experience and scientific research. I believe it is time to develop therapies for injuries and illnesses of the spirit. I name the therapeutic care of spirit thumotherapy.