The Journey of Becoming, Healing Soul: Introduction

A therapy client, who had never studied psychology, wisely commented, “Emotional development goes on throughout our lives.” This is the subject of my paper The Journey of Becoming, emotional and psychological growth throughout life, what I call ‘psychospiritual growth’.

This is the first of a series of blog posts, based on The Journey of Becoming, offering a way of understanding how we evolve through life. The Journey of Becoming, inspired by the principles of psychosynthesis, aims to help guide both therapists and seekers along the journey of psychospiritual growth.

THREE PHASES OF BECOMING

Pre-Personal Phase – Building a Survival Self

Throughout our childhood, we assimilate the ‘way of being’ of our family, our parents or caregivers, the society in which we are growing up, its values, beliefs, and attitudes, enabling us to survive in an adult world.

Then again, a family’s ‘way of being’ is not always child friendly, and any Ill-treatment or neglect we suffer we explain by blaming ourselves and adopting false beliefs about ourselves, “I am not good enough”, “I am unlovable”, I once heard  “I’m rubbish.”

So, in our childhood we assimilate a Survival Self along with false beliefs that undermine our self-esteem and impact on how we live our adult lives.

Personal Phase – Attaining ‘I’

At some point in our psychospiritual growth, we gain a capacity for self-reflection. We begin to question what we were brought up to believe, to decide for ourselves what we believe. We begin to adopt attitudes and aspirations that suit us. We become a person in our own right; in psychosynthesis terms we attain an ‘I’, a Personal Self. With the capacity for self-reflection, a person can mull things over and take decisions.

With a capacity for self-reflection, we question the false beliefs about ourselves, “It’s not true, this not being good enough. I’m as good as the next man or next woman.” Working with a therapist or coach can help us to leap this hurdle of false belief and begin to have esteem for ourselves.

At the same time, as a Personal Self we are prone to see everything from a personal perspective, as if all revolves around us. Self-reflection sometimes means a self-reflective mirror, the ‘I’ becoming ‘the great I am’.

Transpersonal Phase – Recognising Ourselves As Part of the Whole

At some point in our psychospiritual growth, we gain a capacity to see through the self-reflective mirror, to recognise ourselves as part of the whole, one with the whole of humanity, indeed the whole of the natural world.

WE EVOLVE THROUGHOUT LIFE

Every infant is born into the Pre-Personal Phase, with the potential to evolve into the Personal and Transpersonal Phases. I have known many people who have evolved into the Personal Phase and maybe the Transpersonal Phase without ever hearing about psychospiritual growth.

The three phases are not discrete phases. Each person has the potential, or the actuality, for all three phases, and the three phases coexist. Everyone needs a Survival Self if they are to survive in the world. Everyone needs a Personal Self if they are to be capable of mulling things over and taking decisions.

At the end of Year 2 of my psychosynthesis training, an extraordinary trainer gave me my end of year report in a single sentence, “You’ll be all right up to three.” What he meant, it took me decades to realise, was that I had a psychological age of three and was therefore equipped to work with adult clients of a similar age. So, it is necessary for a therapist to be aware where they themselves have reached in their psychological journey.

The Journey of Becoming, Healing Soul: Building a Survival Self

In the next blog of the series, I shall address what I mean by ‘healing soul’, introduce what I perceive as four of the most significant words in the psychosynthesis lexicon, and expand on building a survival self.