FAQs - Benchmark Counselling

Transpersonal Psychology might loosely be called the psychology of spirituality and those areas of the human mind which search for higher meanings in life. This modality aims to move beyond the limited boundaries of the ego to access an enhanced capacity for wisdom, creativity, unconditional love and compassion. It honours the existence of transpersonal experiences, and is concerned with their meaning for the individual and how these experiences effect behaviour.

Transpersonal Counselling combines a variety of approaches in psychology, including behaviorism, cognitive psychology and humanistic psychology, along with other disciplines, including Eastern and Western philosophy, mindfulness and others.

Below are 4 other facts about transpersonal psychology.

1. Relationships in transpersonal psychology are key. 

Transpersonal Psychology is an approach to understanding the way our minds operate through our relationships with others, resting in the belief that there is something bigger and deeper in the space between us.

The relationship between client and therapist is just as important as the client’s other relationships. The space between therapist and client is as sacred and transformative as that space between the client and their issues, their families and friends, etc.

2. The therapist isn’t viewed as the expert. 

The therapist is the facilitator that assists the client in uncovering their own truth and their own process. The only room for expertise is the therapists’ ability to reflect the client’s own truth back to them while using the therapists own relationship to create conditions of safety that allow the client to explore their own inner wisdom.

3. Transpersonal psychology doesn’t judge others’ experiences. 

Transpersonal psychology is based on the belief that the client and the therapist both have their own experiences and neither is right, wrong, correct or incorrect, healthy or unhealthy.

The client is encouraged to share their full experience in therapy so we can explore, grow and learn together.

4. Various well-known psychologists pioneered transpersonal psychology. 

According to The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, William James, Carl Jung and Abraham Maslow are just a few of the psychologists that played a role in pioneering transpersonal psychology.

Bowen family systems theory is a theory of human behavior that views the family as an emotional unit and uses systems thinking to describe the complex interactions within it. It is the nature of a family that its members are intensely connected emotionally. Often people feel distant or disconnected from their families, but this is more feeling than fact. Families so profoundly affect their members’ thoughts, feelings, and actions that it often seems as if people are living under the same “emotional skin.” People solicit each other’s attention, approval, and support and react to each other’s needs, expectations, and upsets. The connectedness and reactivity make the functioning of family members interdependent. A change in one person’s functioning is predictably followed by reciprocal changes in the functioning of others. Families differ somewhat in the degree of interdependence, but it is always present to some degree.

The emotional interdependence evolved to promote the cohesiveness and cooperation families require to protect, shelter, and feed their members. Heightened tension, however, can intensify these processes that promote unity and teamwork, and this can lead to problems. As anxiety goes up, the emotional connectedness of family members becomes more stressful than comforting. Eventually, one or more members feels overwhelmed, isolated, or out of control. These are the people who accommodate the most to reduce tension in others. It is a reciprocal interaction.

The emotional system affects most human activity and is the principal driving force in the development of clinical problems. Knowledge of how the emotional system operates in one’s family, work, and social systems reveals new and more effective options for solving problems in each of these areas.

Privileges Positive Experiences Over Pathology.

This deep, powerful approach integrates research findings from attachment theory, developmental studies, contemporary affective neuroscience, interpersonal neurobiology, and somatic therapies. AEDP practitioners explicitly draw on the therapeutic relationship to create conditions of safety that nurture clients’ innate potential for resilience, growth, and healing. From the get-go, we help our clients access this wired-in, human capacity. Together, from this secure healthy base, we explore and tend to the places that need healing. In this way we undo aloneness and restore optimal development.

AEDP therapists recognize that change often involves letting go of strategies that people initially developed to protect themselves. Giving up familiar patterns and habits (even those which are no longer helpful or adaptive) can be scary. AEDP therapists skillfully help clients regulate anxiety in the face of change. We support clients to tune into the wisdom of their core, adaptive feelings. When experienced fully, these healthy emotions provide important information about basic needs and guide people to act in ways that better fulfill these needs. This empowers our clients to live more fully and freely, with greater satisfaction.

This inviting, experiential approach is particularly well suited to clients who want to enhance their sense of connection with themselves and others, and to people who want to experience greater self esteem and self-trust.

My services are covered through ClaimSecure, Equitable Life of Canada, Green Shield Canada, Manulife and Pacific Blue Cross. In addition, many employers offer coverage through benefits packages that may partially, or fully, cover the cost of your sessions. Please check your individual coverage plan to see to what extent you are covered.

Benchmark Counselling does not provide disability letters, companion pet letters, or letters regarding your ability to work, or any letters that would inform providers of your mental health history. You must discuss these needs with your medical or primary care provider.

If a letter is required attesting the client’s needs or to verify client engagement, the therapist will provide it for a fee of $35 per one-page letter and $25 for each additional page.

Letters are only provided to clients who have been seen for 6 sessions or longer.

Oppression is part of our society and comes in various forms, such as white-bodied supremacy/racism, colonization, classism, sexism, cissexism, heterosexism, ableism or Body-based oppression. These social dynamics may also influence the therapeutic relationship.

We are committed to breaking the cycle of oppression and taking responsibility for our various privileges healthily. We are conditioned by society, and unlearning the dynamics of oppression is a life-long learning process.

”No one is free when others are oppressed.”