Happiness is seeing, understanding and living everything together, without separation or need to demonize our vices, pains and sufferings. We use All to experience the All.
The way I practice psychology, values and integrates multiple explanations and methodologies for human behavior. Being able to take different perspectives of a challenge, means more options in both determining its cause and developing ways of addressing it. When we meet, you can expect a combination of viewpoints and practices that involve engaging and experiencing:
your body (through qi-gong, diet, nutrition and exercise)
your mind (through psychotherapy, emotion regulation, education and study)
your spirit (through prayer, meditation, contemplation, developing and walking a genuine spiritual path)
your self (ego exploration and identity development)
your culture (exploring values, mores, norms)
and nature (your connection to the earth, your environment at home and town, using nature as teacher)
Expect not just to talk about these things, but for me to practice them with you. The therapy of the future will be provided by practitioners who are able to assess, diagnose and practice healing modalities with those they serve.
I'm also highly interested in and informed by Black and African culture and history, Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism (and religion and spirituality in general) Hiphop culture and music, indigenous technologies, global politics, art, preparedness, martial arts, video games, travelling, ethnobotony, movies, reading and incorporate important life lessons in my attempts to help others.
Integral Theory is based on the work of well known developmental psychologists, spiritual teachers and thinkers such as Sri Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, Piaget and has been best actualized by Ken Wilber who's greatest ability and contribution is to synthesize a wide array of disparate and different schools of thought into one "theory of everything". The Integral approach differs from other approaches to growth and healing which I feel make it more appropriate for serving the complex needs of individuals, families and communities. A few reasons are listed below:
complementary
The Integral approach uses the insights of the various fields of human knowledge in a complementary way. The tendency of various theorists and research traditions is "overspecialization", or staying confined to a particular perspective while ignoring what others are doing. Very often those who try to create new approaches try very hard to distinguish what they are doing from pre existing approaches without trying to incorporate or account for the value of what has come before. (Throwing the baby out with the bath water). The Integral approach is a way to bring insights and understandings from different points of view into a useful relationship with each other.
multiple perspectives
The Integral approach takes into account five main sources of information.
- the way the person gains knowledge (the persons primary perspective, tools or discipline)
- the persons level of identity development
- the persons level of development in other key domains (kinesthetic, moral, interpersonal, values, needs, emotional, psychosexual etc.)
- the persons state at any particular time (gross, subtle, causal and non dual)
- the persons personality style or type including cultural and gender style
Non Pathology
While other approaches focus on pathology and objectifying the person, the Integral approach takes a nuanced approach towards identifying and utilizing an individuals assets. It does this by taking into account the behavioral, psychological, spiritual, cultural and social aspects of human development. The Integral approach does not see individuals and families as merely bodies in need of medical attention, but as a set of interrelated systems dependent on each other for growth.