Gwyn Williams

Core Process Psychotherapy considers, in general, seven themes of the psycho-therapeutic process. These give a structure for inquiry and the development of therapeutic and life skills:

Presence

Presence is a natural state of sentience and awareness at the core of our being. In Buddhism it is the “knowing faculty” at the heart of citta, which is inherently luminous and free.  Freedom is innate and manifests as a luminous awareness that is never lost and is the ground of our enlightenment. In psychotherapy, it is expressed by the quality of presence and awareness of the therapist, and by the enhancement of the clients own awareness.

Contact and Access

Contact is presence-in-relationship. The ability to contact different layers and modes of experience in both personal process and interpersonal relationship is stressed. Contact is the ability to consciously direct awareness to both different aspects of our Self-process and to the relational milieu and interactions we find ourselves engaged in. Once contact is established, access is the ability to both access and be aware of different modes of inner experience via direct exploration. These modes include the energetic, mental, emotional and physical aspects of personal process. We can work through images, feelings or body processes. This may be expanded through an exploration of less familiar modes.

Process

Process is the stream of immediate experience that we associate with the sense of Selfhood or ‘me’. In Core process work, we are encouraged to bring a continuity of awareness to this arising experience. Self is seen to be a conditioned process, continually in flux. The intention is to bring awareness to the emergence of Self-forms and processes, and to maintain the possibility of letting-be and letting-go, opening to new potential.

Resonance

Resonance is the ability to deeply sense and empathize with the state of another.  Resonance is truly responsive to another’s process, while reaction arises as a projection based on our own past history.

Reflecting

Skilful reflecting includes perceiving the layers of our process in relationship, in which such processes can be more easily perceived. In the contest of the early holding field, it is the presence and reflection of mother’s being-state that generates safety and allows the little one to simply be and to openly explore its new world. When we feel safe enough, in a therapeutic holding environment, we can explore our arising process more freely.  

Transformation

Transformation is that potential in us all to, given the right circumstances, deeply heal what has become segmented, confused and split within us. It is about the transformative nature of awareness that naturally heals our states of distress. When we open to the truth of any given experience or state, there is a natural arising of wisdom which is inherently transformative and always present, even in states of suffering and ignorance.

Integration

Integration is about grounding that transformative process in everyday life. It is about seeing how our everyday actions and reactions may arise from past experiences and trauma and have nothing to do with present reality. It is about the inherent healing process available to us all within those states, as we access more of our Core State in everyday life.