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Sexual politics is very important in psychotherapy, as elsewhere, and a gender issue which has not been remarked on very much in the literature is therapist narcissism. This seems to be much more prevalent in men, and the present paper gives a good deal of evidence for this, while not claiming that the fault is peculiar to men. The essence of such narcissism seems to be a ‘stepping outside the circle’ set up between therapist and client, in such a way that the therapist becomes a separate ego. Thus it is actually anti-relationship, and therefore doubly interesting. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of supervision is important for everyone working in the field of transpersonal psychotherapy or counselling, but there is very little information available about it. This paper attempts to compare and contrast transpersonal supervision with two other kinds—the instrumental and the authentic. Then within the transpersonal itself, it attempts to distinguish between supervision and therapy at the Subtle level and at the Causal level, because both are important and different. It closes with a discussion of how all this applies particularly to cross-cultural work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In psychology, we can look at human beings either in their thing-like aspects or in their person-like aspects. One of the best places in which human beings can be studied as persons is in the arena of psychotherapy. Unfortunately, the prevalence of schoolism has meant that the findings of different schools of psychotherapy have not been integrated or indeed brought together in any way. But if we can take a wider view, we can see that there is actually a common path which therapy takes, which is common to all the schools. This paper is an attempt to outline this path. In doing so, I have found the fullest statement of it to be found in alchemical writings, but I have also found that as far as it goes, objective empirical research finds the same set of phases, and this suggests that alchemy may also be right about what goes beyond the orthodox research. It is rare to find something which unites the interests of the researcher and the practitioner, but here we have something which promises to do just that. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has become fashionable both in psychoanalytic and in humanistic circles to talk about dialogue, the interpersonal field, language and the socially constructed self, and to say that the old idea of the self as central, as real, as essence, is outdated and even patriarchal. But there is something strange about this. In discovering the field (which perhaps we could liken to the wave function in physics) and in denying the individual (which perhaps we could liken to the particle) many people seem to be denying or ignoring the principle of complementarity. The whole point about the authentic self is that it can relate authentically. I see no contradiction between saying that and saying that authentic selves in relation form a field, which has to be respected in its own right. Ken Wilber uses the idea (taken from Arthur Koestler) of a holon. A holon is a unit which is also a part of other units. Holons as a whole form a field, within which are numbers of sub-fields. In this way we can see how a holon can be regarded at one and the same time as a separable unit and as part of a larger field. There is nothing difficult about this. We don't have to give up one in order to have the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]