How wisdom inspires our practice
What is wisdom?
Wisdom is hard to define. Often, it is defined by what’s it’s not — it’s not just knowledge, it’s not just awareness, it’s not just skill. Wisdom is also not achievement, success, power, or influence. It’s often intuitively clear when we see wisdom in action, but that doesn’t make it easier to capture.
We regard wisdom as the combination of many factors – knowledge, awareness, sound judgment, and skill – all put into practice in a way that is helpful, ethical, and practical. In many ways, it’s defined by its flexibility. In short knowing when to hold them and when to fold them, when to be strong and when to bend, when to let loose and when to apply discipline.
Wisdom is the art of living well.
History and Tradition
Psychotherapy is one of the few places people can go to intentionally become wiser. However, for much of human history, religious, spiritual, and philosophical approaches were used to instruct people in living life well. Part of the scientific approach is question things that came before, to leave no cows sacred, and to verify everything. While this is valuable, it may neglect some of the accumulated wisdom of humanity that predates modernity or be influenced by the biases and limitations of the culture applying it. Science can be wrong and venture down dead-ends. Simply look at the disastrous advice given to parents in the 1950s about not being affectionate with one’s children or the racist and misogynistic legacy of phrenology.
As a result, our practice strives to both honor and integrate traditional sources of wisdom, whether that philosophy, religion, spirituality, or tradition. We try to hold the value of scientific discovery about the human experience lightly and allow that long traditions have accumulated wisdom and knowledge. Furthermore, we believe it’s critical to make space for your individual wisdom to be a critical part of the work you’re doing in therapy.
Practices and Journeys
Practically speaking, this means incorporating practices traditionally thought of as Spiritual into the work of psychotherapy (if that’s what you want.)
Meditation is one example. In recent years, there has been a sea change in the popularity and evidence for meditation and mindfulness practices. For those interested in the discipline and practice of meditation it offers something unique that is tremendously complementary to the work of psychotherapy.
Similarly, we believe that other practices can hold enormous promise for becoming wise and overcoming suffering. Altered states of consciousness, whether through guided visualization, drumming, or psychedelics may be particularly and powerfully helpful in approaching your challenges in new ways.
Finally, philosophy and sources of wisdom that traditionally took the role of psychology in other cultures are tremendous storehouses of wisdom.
Individuation
The critical aspect of this, however, is that it works for you and speaks to you. For much of the time Spirituality has been prescriptive — something one should or aught to do in order to be well. We take the opposite approach, one of discovery and respect for your unique needs and aspirations. We value direct experience integrated with perennial wisdom.
What you’ll find working with us is an openness and encouragement of your explorations in these areas, suggestions and exercises if you want them, and a respectful, careful consideration of how these practices and explorations integrate with your unique Psyche.