A guest post by Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

Psychotherapy is pervasive in contemporary culture. Even if you’re not a therapist yourself, if you’re taking the time to read this post, chances are good that either you or someone close to you has been involved in therapy at some point in their lives. And, while you may feel you have a good understanding of what happens in the therapy room, there may be more than meets the eye. Do you ever wonder, for example, what has to occur in the therapeutic process so that the basic experience is what it needs to be for both the client and the therapist? How does a therapist tap into the unconscious in order to help the client be more of “who they are”? How does synchronicity—and the interactive field that emerges between two individuals—serve up messages from the unconscious for the benefit of the work? More, where does the therapist her/himself turn for help in honing their own intuition and skills that ultimately contribute to their own individuation process in working with clients?

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A guest post by Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ― Kahlil Gibran

We are all intimately familiar with suffering. And, while we might wish it away when it is painfully present, it is a normal part of human life, Dr. Lionel Corbett, M.D., Jungian analyst and professor at Pacifica Graduate Institute reminded me when I recently sat down for a depth discussion with him on the topic.

Etymologically, the word “suffering” comes from two Latin roots: sub—meaning “under”—and ferre, meaning “to carry or bear,” as in “to bear a burden.” But suffering is not necessarily pathological, Lionel insists. The root of the word “suffer” is also the root of the English word “fertile,” so it is also related to the idea of bearing fruit. Psychologically, then, suffering can produce something; it’s not random or meaningless, nor merely something to get rid of. In reality, it can act as either a fertilizer or a poison. It can be harmful or it can be helpful, but we need a framework by which we can understand it.

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A guest post by Dr. Jennifer Leigh Selig. Dr. Selig was recently featured in the New York Times article Financial Advice for Women, From Women. Dr. Selig provided the research and methodology to produce the new archetypal indicator according to how we manage our money.

What does a geeky academic do on her three month sabbatical? More geeky academic things, it seems! At least, this is what happened to me on my sabbatical this summer, which landed me square on the front page of the New York Times Business section on Saturday, November 7th.

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Psychotherapy.net has added three new videos by Virginia Satir to our online streaming collection: Blended Family with a Troubled Boy, A Family at the Point of Growth, and A Step Along the Way: A Family with a Drug Problem. The Pacifica Library's Exclusive Collection now contains 136 titles (220 hours), including several by prominent psychologists such as James Hillman, Irvin Yalom, Carl Rogers, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Albert Bandura, Peter Levine, Virginia Satir, Ernest Rossi, and more. The Psychotherapy.net database allows you to view videos online, with each video broken down by chapter for quick navigation. Synchronized transcripts and subtitles are available for many of the videos, with the spoken words highlighted on a transcript as a video plays. Many videos also come with instructor's manuals. We welcome you to explore the collections and contact the Pacifica Graduate Research Library with any questions. 

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