Words from the Soul: Time, East/West Spirituality, and Psychotherapeutic Narrative / Edition 1

by Stuart Sovatsky

Overview

Accepting relentless impermanence as the ground of human experience, Words from the Soul derives a spiritual psychology from the mystery and poignancy of time-passage itself. Drawing from Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Foucault, Dostoyevsky, Buddhism, kundalini yoga, and twenty-five years of clinical/mediation experience, the author's epigrammatic insights into our struggles with mortality, gratitude, apology, and forgiveness make this book relevant to psychotherapy and conflict resolution in a wide range of professional settings.

In his exploration of the furthest-reaches of human development, Stuart Sovatsky reveals the deepest potentials of the ensouled body, transforming our views of language, sexuality, ecstatic spiritualities, and of the human life cycle.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780791439500
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	10/01/1998
Series:	SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	241
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Stuart Sovatsky is Assistant Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Clinical Supervisor at John F. Kennedy University, and Director of Kundalini Clinic. He is the author of Passions of Innocence.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Toward a Spiritual Psychotherapy

Chapter 1 Questioning Words—Reviving Time

Chapter 2 Revenge against Impermanence: Temporal-Spiritual Psychopathology

Chapter 3 Maturation of the Ensouled Body: Kundalini Yoga and the Far Reaches of Human Development

Chapter 4 Spiritual Emergence: Toward a Spirituality-Inclusive Psychopathology

Notes

Glossary of Yogic Terms

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

"This is an extremely riveting, original book that makes a compelling case for a refreshingly radical understanding and practice of transpersonally oriented psychology. In challenging the tacit assumptions of 'basic' psychotherapeutics, transpersonally oriented or otherwise, this text does what most other transpersonal theorizing falls short of doing. That is, it reveals the ways therapeutic taken-for-granted 'basics' can work to actually undermine any therapeutic endeavor, as well as presenting an alternative outline of what a more genuine set of 'soteriological basics' could look like, both in theory and in practice. In this way, this book opens up an exciting way of thinking about psychotherapy that has not been clearly opened up before.

"This is a pioneering work that will be a fertile source of inspiration and innovation in 'holistic' forms of psychology and psychotherapeutics into the twenty-first century." — Kenneth Bradford, Clinical Director, Maitri Psychotherapy Institute

"It is a marvelous act of freedom-making, dissolving the constricting fetters of the traditional psychoanalytic view of life's possibilities and dangers, and strikingly original and creative in its sweep and in its conception of the ultimate goals of human development." — Richard D. Mann, University of Michigan

From the Publisher

The author draws on 15 years' experience as Director of the Kundalini Clinic ("the first transpersonally oriented counseling service in the United States"), and another 11 years working in school, geriatric, psychiatric crisis, juvenile probation, developmentally disabled, mediation, and correctional settings. He has also taught and supervised trainees at the graduate level, and has 25 years of personal kundalini yoga experience. Here he intertwines Eastern theories of consciousness with a critique of prevailing psychotherapies. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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