Tag Archives: Oakland Transpersonal Therapy

“The Powerlessness of Positive Thinking”

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   There has been a lot of promo for positive thinking, & how to be happy all the time. Whoever said life was going to be happy? Where did that come from?

   Life has happy moments, sure, even bliss; life has periods of contentment, & areas of ease. But we wouldn’t even be able to recognize them without the contrast of sturggle, pain & suffering. Our lives are a dance to create balance. If you were actually happy all the time, my guess is you’d be pretty bored. Without depth, there is no elation. Without pain, there is no appreciation of feeling good. Consciousness loves contrast, as Richard Moss said. We need both. Without both we are not whole. Life needs both sunlight & darkness to exist. Embrace the pain. Embrace the joy. Expect both, for they are both regular parts of life. Just don’t wallow in either one. Dance with them. Find the Tempo & Rhythm. Dance with your life!

   If you feel out of touch with the Dance, call me at 510-387-0341 to see how Transpersonal Therapy might help.

   And if you’d like to get any idea of the social ramifications of staying positive all the time, check out this cool video. 

Pre-licensed & wanting to develop your private practice?

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Through the Center for Personal & Relational Development, I provide individual & group supervision at my Oakland office.

External & supplemental supervision is also available for MFT, MSW & PCC Trainees & Interns who are in a placement.

Call me to see if we’re a good match! 510-387-0341

Free Countertransference Talk in SF. CIIS 23 Sept.

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The Shadow Knows: Countertransference for Beginning Therapists with Renee Beck, MFT

When you have an emotional, energetic, or judgmental response to a client, how do you tell if it’s a natural relational response, your own unresolved issues coming up, or information about the client? (It’s often all three!) What can you do with your own material that arises in sessions? How do you decipher what your unconscious is telling you about your client? And, most importantly, how can you use all this to be of best service to your client’s process? Through examples, discussion, and short exercises, begin to explore these important questions.

A Supervisor Talk at California Institute of Integral Studies  Monday 23 September 6:15pm

The Benefits of Therapeutic Tarot

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The Tarot is a collection of images of archetypes — concepts common to our shared human experience — that show up in different cultures in different forms. For example, all cultures have images of a Creator/Destroyer, the Journey, the Hero, & Death/Rebirth. These archetypes are readily found in religion, myth, & stories. (Can you think of a good film or book that doesn’t have those in some form?) Images are the language of the unconscious, just as words are the language of the conscious mind.

We live in a very conscious-mind culture, & imagery (& music, or poetry, which is a way of using words to evoke the imaginal) is a way to get below/beyond just the logical, rational normal way of doing things. It’s a way of accessing the relational aspect of consciousness, where we can connect things &create understanding in ways that our “thinking brain” doesn’t. A Therapeutic Tarot reading is about a specific question, & the way the cards are laid out specifies a different aspect of the question in each card position; the cards are drawn, & the archetypes are synchronistically shown in relationship to each other.

What happens then depends on the purpose of the person doing the reading. Some people want to foretell the future (which I don’t do, since everything that happens between “now” & “then” can & does change the future); some people want to tell people what they want to hear. I like to have a dialogue about what the person sees in the cards, talk about the archetypal meaning, discuss how that relates to his or her inner & outer life (especially inner), & how she or he might use & apply this insight to make better choices or to create changes in how to do things that might improve his or her life.

When integrated into psychotherapy, Therapeutic Tarot can add richness of dimension into your own healing or growth.

For a free 15-minute interview about Oakland Transpersonal Therapy & Dreamwork, or to schedule a Therapeutic Tarot Consultation, contact  reneebeckmft.com.