I notice that “Therapies” have steadily moved (or so it seems?) toward “techniques”, and “Alphabet Therapies.” Also, the language of the field (if Facebook Groups are any kind of indication) grows more politicized, and in many ways more polarized. I sometimes think I feel the Zeitgeist moving AWAY from what I would consider “Empowerment“, and more toward creating an ideological battleground with the perceived Bad Guys, but I hope I am wrong there. (Who the “Bad Guys” are depends on your theoretical orientation and politics, it seems…)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   It’s an odd time for the field.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                My primary Therapeutic Currency is still authenticity in relationship, which I have always valued over any specific school, or model, or theoretical orientation. Or maybe that IS my theoretical orientation.

And I have long valued Practice-Based Evidence over the purported “evidence” that is the backbone of Evidence-Based Practice. I have penned a Thesis, a Dissertation, and a co-written a handful of articles, and have a feel for how the “evidence” comes to be vetted as evidence, and I am not duly impressed.

None of this means I am right about anything.  I simply have a perspective based on 70 years on the planet, and roughly 40 in the field, and the New Shiny Thing does not dazzle me (maybe it should, but…), and the refereed article from a study of “575 undergraduates at a major midwestern university” wows me less.

Connection. Authenticity. Relationships. Empowerment. Self-Expression. Heart-Based action. Whatever is 180 from Dogma. No fear or distrust of the metaphysical realms. What even seems to me a potentially naive notion that we are “All One”, and/or “All In This Together.” Also a belief that we can very significantly shape the experience we have in this lifetime. That’s my jam.

Among my peers in graduate school back in the 1980’s, this would have been mainstream. My take is that it no longer is.

And that’s OK. It was never on my bucket list to be mainstream.

about the moderator