A little further towards a non-dual understanding of the self and therapy Nisargadatta, amongst a host of others, affirm that it is knowing ourselves, seeing and understanding the reality of ourselves, that changes us. This ties in with Gestalt Therapy’s “paradoxical nature of change” which says that we change by becoming what we are rather… Read More
Relfections – August 2025
Reflections after an Angelo Dilullo retreat and reading Sam Harris’s excellent book ”Waking Up” In therapy we try to integrate heart, head and body into a greater whole that is more able to “remember ourselves” and be a witness to ourselves. This supports us to separate ourselves from our functioning, see and face what is… Read More
Psycho-Spiritual Deveopment page updated
I have updated and expanded this page and put it on my main menu as a heading. There is also a link to a pdf of it. I hope you find it informative and useful Jim – Sept 2023
Eternal Optimism
Eternal Optimism – essay for Self & Society’s 50th Birthday Symposium Fifty years ago I was nineteen and in a mess. The previous two to three years I had been reading Ouspensky, Alan Watts, Krishnamurti, I’d travelled the hippy trail overland to India and been in an audience with the Dali Lama, I’d been meditating,… Read More
Where God Is
Where God is What is the ground on which we stand? Our physicality, our body, most obviously … We exist … in this moment Then there is the miracle of our consciousness and sense making Then there are our feelings Alive to all our relationships … in all the layers of ourselves Including our past… Read More
Ukraine: What needs to happen next?
Today is the 19th April 2022 and I have just finished a piece on Ukraine and how I see the situation and what needs to happen next. Every day the picture changes and evolves, so in a few days who knows what it will all look like. But I do try and tie it all… Read More
Some Clarity – What is the Self?
Some Clarity – Part 3 I started this “Some Clarity” series last Autumn, and again I hope that this third episode proves helpful and of interest. I have been exploring my understanding of human nature and our deveopmental trajectory, and how our existence encompasses both the personal and transpersonal (/spiritual) dimensions of our lives. In… Read More
Some Clarity – Autum 20021 – Part 2
In this piece I want, as promised in Part 1, to explore the transpersonal dimension of our nature. To look into the nature of our “spiritual” experience, our “ground of being”, and how we embody the Transpersonal on our journey through “stages” and “states”. The planned section reviewing the traps and pitfalls along the way,… Read More
Some Clarity
Clarity – Autumn 2021 – Part 1 I would like to share some recent clarity that has emerged for me. Please forgive my attempts to “define reality”. I know that on one level this is daft and just a story. On another level it feels necessary and creative to share my understanding, making the best… Read More
A New Republic of the Heart
Terry Patten’s book “A New Republic of the Heart” is a wonderful exploration of how we can respond to our current global crisis with wisdom and passion and sanity, I highly recommend it. It is the second book over that last ten years that has made me stop and marvel at the accomplishment. (The other… Read More
A new base for progressive politics
My latest article is a reflection on the recent US election and from there the need for the left generally to broaden its appeal so as to avoid a repetition of the recent upsurge in right wing authoritarian governments. I argue that the left needs a new base, which one, understands the psychology of trauma… Read More
Psychology of Conspiracy Theorists
Conspiracy theories seem to be taking over the world. This is not a good thing. As with all unconscious projective processes, if they continue to be identified with and indulged, the negative consequences increase, until hopefully, at some point, reality impinges. They flow from the same fragile place that allows people to get sucked into… Read More
Conspiracy Theories
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Marianne Williamson’s “A Politics of Love”
I now have now put on the “My Articles page” my review of Marianne Williamson’s book “A politics of Love” – the book was published in November 2018, and this review was writen a year later, it is still such an lovely book and so relevant to our troubled times.
Our spiritual Potential
The “Ten Ox Hearding” pictures and how they can be seen in the light of our modern psycho-spiritual journey towards realising our potential. These “Ten Ox Hearding” pictures show our potential journey in ten stages (12th c. China – Wikipedia) 1. “In search of the Ox” 2. “Discovery of footprints” 3. “Seeing the Ox tail” … Read More
Integrating Politics, Philosophy, Economics, Psychology and Spirituality
Introduction I have to confess that I find politics fascinating, even if very painful at times like these, facing as we do another five years of Conservative rule. I remain though optimistic that eventually our politics will move onto a different, more conscious and compassionate plane. I do think that our societies consciousness is slowly… Read More
What is the psychology of Neoliberalism and how do we get past it?
George Monbiot in his Guardian article (11/09/19) about the power of ideology, and how it is always based on some philosophical ground, says, “We make a mistake when we assume that money is the main motivation. Our unreformed, corrupt and corrupting political funding system ensures it is an important factor. But what counts above all… Read More
Politics, Psychology and Spirituality: The need for an Institute for the Understanding of Human Nature
Politics, Psychology and Spirituality: The need for an Institute for the Understanding of Human Nature. To read this as a pdf click here It has become increasingly clear to me that the negative effects of Capitalism subjugate and oppress most people. I agree with George Monbiot’s recent analysis (Guardian 25/04/19) that it is largely a… Read More
To struggle or not to struggle?
This question goes to the heart of the paradox and difficulties we have in knowing how to live our lives. Struggle is surely necessary for us to resist the negative forces within us that trauma generated and left us with. To give into those negative impulses leads us down a slippery slope of self-disintegration. To… Read More
Hopeless Hope
I think that hope has two aspects. This is not about its opposite of hopelessness which conjures up despair and defeatedness, something nobody wants to get stuck in. The point of this is to explore how hope has positive and negative aspects, and to argue that the negative aspect of hope is not challenged enough… Read More