Interpersonal Psychosynthesis

S. Prevezanou

Relate to ourselves and others

In relationships -
- attention for meeting our need and others needs
  - Sometimes compromise
  - Sometimes integrity
- Invites
  - Can we be in relationship with other while still being in relationship with ourselves
- Work towards ‘both and’ rather than ‘either or’
Defence mechanisms
- projection
- Idealisation
How we communicate love and will
Identifying and describing perspective of other as object and self
Perceptions enhance and limit our interpersonal relationships
Psychosynthesis emphasis on personal identity - who am I
At the beginning
- Accepted - compliant, obedient
- Not accepted - anger, resentment
  - Expressing threatened the flow of love from the caregivers
  - Judgements limit our affordance of joy ect
  - Fortify need for hard working
Create barriers, separate aspects
Sense of identity / survival becomes crystallized
- How do we reclaim , welcome - include aspects of our psyche that have been pushed
- in a way that maintains our relationship
- How those aspects impact
- Is this the whole story, is this the whole truth?
Our imagination of what is impacts our adoption and manipulation
Projection
- Place unacceptable inner impulses, feeling, thoughts, behaviours onto another person
- This person is unkind
- Why?
  - Manage inner qualities we are no comfortable owning
  - Maintain familiar identity
- “If you can spot it, you got it”
- Common example - I am not that

Exercise - Repeating questions

Try to answer with your body
Consider situations / relations with another, what annoyed me with the other
- Ex - Feeling dominated preserves image of being gentle
- Judgement - is that me or them?
Notes
- Me
  - Focus on negative thoughts of others
  - Hard to feel rather than think
  - Need for being valued
  - Responsibilities
  - Difficulty with connection
  - Meaning
  - Difficulty in giving love
- Joan
  - Building a wall - Agency
  - expression of self
  - Stabilising
What does it feel like to be naming?
When you project lazy
- Am I being lazy?
- Do I need a rest?
Is the aim to blame?
- Turn away, missed opportunity to explore
Looking a happy people
- Feeling sad
- Maybe not being able to share joy, lose the support
- Question are these believes the whole truth, up-to-date
- Lose interest in expressions of higher conscious
Unconscious will be repressed or projects
Introjection - unconscious process, applies to caregivers, incorporate aspects of qualities of other
- Caregivers, loving person, introject their quality,
  - connection with them,
  - Also separate
  - Unconsciously we relate to the projection not the person,
- How do we relate from Self to Self?
Capacity is in me too!
Self image remains in tack
Increases our capacity of empathy
Splitting - good/bad, I am/am not
- Instinct to separate
- Because to recognising it suggests it is in your frame of understanding
Deeply interconnected
- At same time there is an expression of self that is unique to us
I can be that as well even if I choose not to be
“It is our light that most frightens us”
- Responsibility of living / actualising
- Hold with kindness because there is a reason why we do this
Sometimes there is envy
http://www.synthesiscenter.org/articles/0130.pdf
I’m not very good
- Can’t see the fallacy in other
Counter=
See yourself as perfect
- Cant see the higher value in other
Example - breakdown in communication with partner
- Might appear as me feeling inferior in communicating and only seeing the ability in my partner
- Might appear as me feeling superior in communicating and only seeing the lack of ability in partner
Balance
- Too focused innards / outwards
- How the two interrelate
- Level / capacity
- Come from place of curiosity
- Identify pattern
Reflecting so far
- Salience emerging
- Resistance
- Self-organising, self-regulation
- Including the body and feelings
- Respond with consideration to biases
Primal wounding
- Disconnection of self
- Maybe not feel loved
  - Disconnection of self Feels real - not seen or mirrored
  - Perception - otherwise wouldn’t be alive
  - Bifocal vision - when we look
    - Working at the personality level
    - Don’t lose contact with unconscious emerging self
When we hear the stories,
- Choices are traceable
- Develops empathy - Widen assumptions

Exercise - conversation with someone with connection issue

Interpersonal difficulty
Friendship
- Frustration with seeing the capacity but not receiving it
- Could be anyone, but I do see the capacity in that person
- Could be related to survival, need to be seen, loved
- Being honest would increase the resistance in other
See what you learn about your patterns of relating, what you bring to the table
Skills and Attitudes for ‘I-Thou’ Relating, “The primary word I-Thou establishes the world of relation” Martin Buber, I and Thou, (1958:18)
I statements
- Taking responsibility, own
Active listening
- Taking our situation out of the way
- Acknowledging contradiction, opposing force, lack of connection,
- How can I hold this and honour the others experience
Responding / reacting
- Conditioning
- Dis-identify
- Allowing, open, curious
Making needs explicit
- No mystery, work of understanding
Expectation, blame, attachments
- Agendas
- Goals
Allowing differences
- Massive
- How to be with each other
- Holding both, unity and uniqueness
Discerning
- Clarity of your experience
- Potential for misunderstanding
- Choosing our battles, not maximising honesty
- Appropriate to do nothing
Learning opportunity
- Every interaction
- Different background, unique in the level of our personality

Exercise - pull together and practical application

Anything that speaks to the relationship
Thing you wished you shared, clearing the air
Sit in silence for 1 min
- Notice how you are feeling
I felt I witnessed as the client extended out from the frame of knowing
- With the recognition in other
- There was a recognition, as empirical evidence, of a capacity of self

Love and will

Lean toward one or the other if we see them as opposing forces
Aspects of love
- Longing
  - movement of the heart
  - invitation to connect
  - Being heard
  - Put point across
  - Connect with heart - why do I want to do this
- Love of truth
  - Connection with reality for us
  - Sometimes what we see is something we don’t like
  - Can we honour the other’s truth?
- Allowing
  - Invitation to be without interfering
  - Develop the capacity for the other’s allowing
    - Something the other said had in impact - their experience could be very different
- Holding
  - Feel supported by something bigger
    - Especially if it’s important
  - Both are held
  - More we can lean into that, the ground of being in the difficulty we are facing
Aspects of will
- Motivation & intention
  - Counter to longing - energized by will
    - Will might be surface level
    - Preserve relationship, tap into what is going wrong
  - Is the action congruent with our love
  - Sometimes the wise action is non-action (opposed to proving right and wrong) - don’t get caught in an enactment
- Good will
  - Look at ourselves, take responsibility of our actions
  - Openness to be with the other
  - Taking risks
  - Capacity to see ourselves and a personality and the other as a personality - bifocal, instead of rejecting because of anger
  - Love of truth helps us recognise
- Clarity
  - Art of communication, more the better
  - Expect the other to know
  - “When you said that it angered me / shut me down / withdraw, assumption on not being liked”
- Right (non-)action
  - How committed are we to be in support to manifest
  - Aspire to be in service of self (not ego)
    - Not gratification
  - Support emergence of transpersonal

Exercise - Jaws of perception

Explore levels of perception
- Capacity to open heart to self and other
Joe an Swani
Perceiving
- Problem
  - Superiority
  - Capacity of self help
  - impatience
- Love
  - Friendship
  - Standing side by side
- Interest
  - Natural curiosity
Being perceived
- Problem
  - Love
  - Want to understand
- Love
  - Resistance
- Interest
  - Enjoyment
  - Bit of resistance
Image
- Piano - tentative expression of self

Not extremes, opposing What happens when we synthesis Love is the will of extending oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth How do we see someone totality without bias

Our own projection/perception get in the way, when we pass it, what we find out about ourselves

Healthy communication skills

Exercise
15 mins - discuss skills that support healthy communication
Find 3 most important ones
Acceptance - indicate being seen
Open Mindedness - allowance
Body language
Adaptability
Self awareness
Bifocal vision - self in the other
Trust
Clarity
Honesty
Good will
Being
Presence
Curiosity
Bravery / courage

Presence, self-awareness, acceptance

Transpersonal is not limited to the higher unconscious Focus on qualities, less on skills Put into practise, process not product, practical

Personal Feedback

Which ideas have you found the most helpful, meaningful or challenging? Which exercises?: I was particularly fascinated with the relationship of will and love. Although I didn’t feel like I embodied the meaning in the sessions, I felt like I was given many ways of looking at this area for further investigation.
What has been the high point or major learning of this course for you?: I really enjoyed role playing the clients subject. I felt privileged to be invited into someone else’s interment relationship and see how it played out with a first person perspective. I believe that because it wasn’t my narrative, combined with the participation, I gain an understanding of insight in the client, how it unfolded through her, and how that displayed empirical evidence of her capacity to understand her Self through the relationship. It reminded me of the connection and similarities one might have in connecting to something sacred and untouchable, and therefore the importance of such a cultural practice in order to enhance one ability to connect with their Self.
What has been the quality of the conceptual content? Its organisation? Continuity? Presentation? Clarity?: I really enjoyed the time spent on each of the topics covered and believe that any more would have clouded the depth.
Has there been anything missing from the course or anything you would have liked more of given the time limits? Was there anything which did not work for you or which could have worked more effectively if changed?: I found the concept of separating some behaviours under the category of survival and others outside of survival quite counter intuitive. When I questioned this fundamental concern, I was confronted with disagreement, however I don’t feel anyone tried to understand my position.
What comments do you have about the course trainer(s) and assistants? How was your relationship with the trainer(s)?: Great sensitivity to the flow of the training with attention to what was being received and what was missing. Sometimes I found the descriptions hard to understand as the sentences seemed to stretch out and pack a lot in them. However, other than my point above I felt encouraged to ask for clarity and did so. I also found the assistant to be engaged and cooperative.