Each
individual, by telling his or her story to someone who knows how to
listen and give new meanings back, has the chance to learn more completely
about himself or herself. Dreams as well as other non-verbal adjuncts
to therapy provide ways to gain access, through symbols, to the language
of the unconscious, and are useful in providing guidance and meaning
to individuals engaged in the process of achieving wholeness.
Individuals entering into therapy are encouraged to talk about the thoughts
and feelings that surface, about the therapy itself, or about the therapist.
This
expression of feelings is important because aspects of one's earliest
attachments, as well as hostilities toward parents and siblings, are
often transferred onto the therapist and onto the process of therapy.
This phenomenon, called 'transference', presents a ready source of rich
material that leads to understanding, for it offers the opportunity
to re-experience and re-work important feelings arising from the past,
with the maturity of the present.
This
expression of feelings is important because aspects of one's earliest
attachments, as well as hostilities toward parents and siblings, are
often transferred onto the therapist and onto the process of therapy.
This phenomenon, called 'transference', presents a ready source of rich
material that leads to understanding, for it offers the opportunity
to re-experience and re-work important feelings arising from the past,
with the maturity of the present.