Underlying Concepts - Systems Theory or Complex Adaptive Systems Theory
Less a single approach than a conceptual framework in and of itself, Systems Theory, originated by Ludwig von Bertalanffy and William Ross Ashby, spans and touches on nearly all aspects of science and philosophy from physics, to psychology; mathematics to the political and economic sciences.
Family therapists wasted little time in claiming ST for their own and developed a multitude of therapeutic approaches through it. ST lends itself well to this kind of flexibility emphasizing, like Chaos Theory, the interdependence of systems, feedback between and within systems and the idea of "emergent behaviors" new, unplanned for and undersigned behaviors or characteristics in a system that are the result of unseen interchanges or influences.
Why do fish school and birds flock? What is it that underlies fluid and sometimes nearly poetic movement in systems as far ranging as the formation of a spiral galaxy to development of apparently effortless artistic precociousness in children to the sudden revelation that inspires lasting change in the individual adult? We may not ever know in many cases except to say that simplistic ideas of cause and effect can, and often are, turned on their ear in light of systems theory
Underlying Concepts - The psychological, the existential and the spiritual/religious
Religious experience and spirituality have been approached in two ways as they relates to psychology and counseling; 1) as a quantifiable entity, originated for the industrial era in William James' Varieties of Religious Experience and Stephen Fowler's Stages of Spiritual Development (more accurately Stages of Faith but based on Lawrence Kohlberg's earlier work on the Stages of Moral Development) or 2) as a less concrete and quantifiable aspect of everyday life, exemplified by Carl Jung's experience in childhood and as an adult of the paranormal, visions and his postulating of a "collective unconscious" not directly accessible to the conscious mind (See Memories, Dreams and Reflections) and Joseph Campbell's threads of mythic themes that might connect all of us on a level again not directly accessed in everyday life.
Another aspect of this approach to spirituality can be found in Tara Brach's concept of radical acceptance (see below), exemplifying a non-deistic, Buddhist way of coming at life through the spiritual.
A study of spirituality and religion necessarily brings us back to the "ultimate" or existential issues: Birth, rebirth, death, non-being, faith, suffering, separation and meaning.
There really are not inconsequential issues here. These are matters that speak to our moral sense inasmuch as the existential must also refer to those aspects of life that we all have in common and see clearly, or at least vaguely sense, in one another. It is this unquantifiable, often slippery and maddening aspect of our lives that makes us uniquely human. It is that small yet inexorable intuition that these are the things that make us larger than just ourselves.
Underlying Concepts - Radical Acceptance
There are two ideas that I utilize behind this single term: 1) Radical Acceptance as put forth in a cognitive therapy called Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) developed by Marsha Linehan at the University of Washington and 2) Radical Acceptance as described by Tara Brach in the book of the same name that discusses the concept of compassion as it is directed inward (A rarity in our culture as compassion is something that we think of as being directed exclusively outward.).
Marsha Linehan developed DBT with radical acceptance as a key component in an effort to treat suicidal and otherwise self-destructive women and adolescent girls who had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. Her successes in this endeavor are well-researched and well documented.
Radical acceptance in this context is very much what it appears to be: the unequivocal acceptance of circumstances and conditions in an individual's reality acknowledging that resistance to this reality acts as a block to recovery. It is highly orient toward the central tenets of DBT: stress tolerance and stress reduction. While this approach is essentially directive, like MI, in its advice giving and structure it emphasizes Roger's concept of unconditional positive regard for the client.
A Buddhist and a clinical psychologist, Tara Brach describes some of her views in an interview with Lisa Schneider at BeliefNet.com:
"I think the reason Buddhism and Western psychology are so compatible is that Western psychology helps to identify the stories and the patterns in our personal lives, but what Buddhist awareness training does is it actually allows the person to develop skills to stay in what's going on. It's learning to stay. In our culture especially, our reflex when it's uncomfortable is to leave and we get busy. The Chinese word for busy is "heart-killing." Isn't that amazing?...
"We can at any moment feel what's going on; just say "yes" to that. It's a practice of truthfulness, we're acknowledging what's real and saying, this is here and meaning that with some kindness and when we do that, when we accept what's in the moment, it actually taps us into the intelligence, the wisdom, the heart that allows us to act more wisely in the future...
"One of the great psychologists, Carl Rogers, put it this way, "It wasn't until I accepted myself just as I was in this moment, that I was free to change."
So it's a pre-condition to true transformation, is to accept ourselves in the moment.
