Terrance Wolf
"With our minds...
we make the world"... opening lines from a Buddhist text. What kind of world are we making for ourselves?
I'm licensed as a psychotherapist in Washington and California, I like working with relationships; marital, friends, work or school related. This is a domain of challenge and growth for most of us. Mindfulness and self-inquiry can help with the important relationships in our lives.
And... I'm beginning to move toward psychedelic assisted therapy.
Terrance Wolf
650 743-6251 Sequim, WA
Dharma Therapy...
involves silent meditation, active inquiry and guided contemplation. These are the core practices for mindfulness-based psychotherapy. As a licensed therapist I like to offer services on a flexible fee basis. The Buddhist components comes from 35 years of practice. It's been a very interesting path.
This work is suitable for individuals, couples or work teams. All confidential sessions are offered in person or via phone or Zoom.
Psychotherapy is a spiritual practice that has much overlap with Buddhism. I want to offer therapy to people who have a meditation practice and to those who are beginning meditation. Sessions will be seasoned with Buddhist teachings where appropriate.
Offering psychotherapy to the meditation community in a safe and compassionate space.
What are we really doing here?
Much of the work that I would like to do with you involves contacting difficult and painful emotional content without defense and for a purpose other than psychological relief.
I have an active meditation practice that has been aided by many intensive silent retreats. I teach "mindfulness" meditation in the style I was taught, from Burmese and Thai traditions. Sitting meditation is enormously important and a rocket-booster for creative expression.
Where is the life?
As a painter, I must feel life, the bodily tactile sense of being alive, in order to bring out a painting. For me, it’s process and product, with a strong emphasis on process. Before I begin painting I may not feel much of anything. So, I just spread some color. From that simple action there often follows a sense of where to go next, or maybe not and I continue to just move the paint. Keep going with an open and shifting awareness; inner…outer…posture…breathe…mood/attitude. Through the body, into the eyes, back into the body. In this way, we develop a practiced freedom of expression and sensitivity.
What's new...psychedelic assisted psychotherapy
Maybe you've noticed in recent years in medical literature and within the media in general there has been much talk about psychedelic drugs/medicines. I am following developments in this arena and have begun training for the use of psychedelic to assist psychotherapy.
There has been frustration with the poor efficacy of normal psychotherapy, although it remains one of the most important avenues for personal growth that we have in western culture. I have felt this frustration in my work with clients...years go by and the same problems persist, as though they just walked in the door yesterday. Many therapist, myself included, have shifted the emphasis to include mindfulness, body-based practices such as yoga, and ritualistic practices. These sorts of mind/heart work can connect us with the transpersonal dimensions of life, and in so doing, our ongoing habits of mind may appear hollow and useless. Psychedelics are also an important gate into the transpersonal, beyond "my problems" and into vastness and beyond. We can return from these "trips" with a new sense of humility, wonder and awe, a direct experience of the love and interconnectedness of all life...beyond "my life." That can change everything. We can then begin to move toward the light and out of the darkness of our symptoms.
Jack Kornfield's book title, "After the ecstasy, the laundry", says it beautifully. But, if you have never felt the ecstasy it can all feel like laundry, it can all feel like drudgery. We deeply long, in our heart of hearts, for the direct experience of God or the divine. For some of us psychedelics has ushered us into the presence of God, and we have never been the same since. That moment of grace changes everything. Onward...