Susan Holliday is a psychosynthesis psychotherapist and published author, based in the UK. She is a founding member of EPA and leads the EPA WRITERS Group. Her contributions to the community reflect our shared values of learning together and encouraging each other to shine by making our own unique contribution.
Susan’s particular passion is the practice of writing as a reflective path that deepens soul connection. Drawn from the well of personal experience, words are messengers, or as James Hillman once said, ‘words like angels, are powers which have invisible power over us’. Writing from the soul, we can reclaim language that is vital and life-giving.
Weaving together stories from her therapy practice with insights from artists, poets and musicians, Susan’s book Hidden Wonders of the Human Heart explores the art of seeing and the role of wonder as a source of inner revelation. In it she suggests that those of us who see deeply do not merely record life. We bring life into being. Seeing is a creative act.
“Where we have understood the value of psychotherapy as a space in which we are seen, we may have overlooked its most fundamental contribution, as a space in which we learn how to see. Shielded from the glare of everyday vision, we enter a ‘seeing place’. Two by two we spend time away from the flood. In this intimate arc of encounter we explore ways of seeing more tenderly, more particularly and more completely. This deeper vision takes us beyond diagnosis and cure. What we’re after is illumination (to shed light on inner worlds), revelation (to reveal the fullness of who we are) and inspiration (to breathe life into dulled and desiccated selves). At its best I think that therapy is akin to painting, to playing an instrument, to speaking a poem or performing a play. Like these it has the potential to lift us, both seer and seen, towards a quality of vision which is equivalent to art, in that it opens us up to the richness, vitality and truth of our existence.”
(Extract from Hidden Wonders of the Human Heart)
You can read more of Susan’s writing on her website: www.susanholliday.co.uk
EPA WRITERS is open to all members writing in any language and in any form, whether this writing is a light unto itself or for publication. We share our work and develop new aspects of creative practice through regular online meetings and through a dedicated space on the Epa Community Platform.