And the paradox of divergence among their followers In psychotherapy, there exists an intriguing phenomenon. It refers to the observation that the founders of the great therapeutic schools — Freud, Jung, Rogers, Perls, Frankl, and others — despite having created theories that clearly distinguish them from one another, share at their core remarkably similar views […]
Paths of Psychotherapy
- 29-Day Program
- Bert Hellinger
- Carl Gustav Jung
- Cognitive Psychotherapy
- Desire
- Differentiation
- Duality
- Ego and the Soul
- Family Constellations
- Fear
- Feelings
- Forgiveness
- Healing Stories
- How Change Happens
- Humanistic Psychology
- Improving Communication
- Lessons of Love
- Liz Greene
- Logoanalysis
- Mental health
- Psychosynthesis
- Purpose of Life
- Reflections
- Relationships
- Selected Articles
- Spiritual Transformation
- Success in Life
- Systemic Psychotherapy
- The Mind
- Thought of the Day
- Viktor Frankl
by Kameliya Hadzhiyska I have already written an article about ‘the third kind of suffering.’ Now it is time to write about ‘the third kind of desire,’ because these two — suffering and desire — are deeply interconnected. More precisely, the draft of this article has been ripening for a long time, as it belongs […]
07.01.2025
Gardening in good and bad times
There is a significant difference between neurotic suffering caused by an inauthentic way of life and suffering caused by processes of spiritual awakening.
19.11.2024
Fritz Perls: You are you and I am I
In Gestalt therapy there is a well-known text, often referred to as a “prayer,” written by its founder, Fritz Perls. It reads: “I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. […]
For quite some time I have been postponing the presentation of Liz Greene’s work on the types of psychic defenses from her book Limitations and Boundaries: The Horoscope and Personality Defenses. Around election day, however, I decided to publish at least the anal type of defenses, because the way people vote in political elections is […]
07.03.2013
Meta-Rules and Human Communication
I continue the theme of meta-communication as the only means of breaking out of the vicious circle of “games without end,” as systemic psychotherapy refers to the series of repetitive conflict interactions that never lead to resolution. One way to step out of this vicious circle and to look from a higher (meta-) level is […]
According to systemic psychotherapy, very often a problem is nothing more than a repeating series of unsuccessful attempts to solve it. Most commonly, these are recurring relational patterns with other people that escalate into conflict each time and lead to a dead end. Systemic therapists call these patterns “endless games,” and they are among the […]
Which Comes First – the Chicken or the Egg? If you can answer this question, you will understand who is responsible for the way you feel and react when communication with another person becomes difficult. And if you do not know the correct answer, here is my proposal: you are responsible. If you understand this—not […]
28.01.2013
On the Two Levels of Communication
One of the most important things to understand about communication is that when we converse with another person, we are not only exchanging information – we are also exchanging emotional attitudes. In systemic psychotherapy, these two layers are called the “content aspect” and the “relationship aspect.” Of the two, what truly matters for successful communication […]
17.12.2012
And You Will See How Everything Changes
It seems that Exupéry understood not only Gestalt therapy, but also systemic psychotherapy, because he “tested” adults with his famous Drawing Number One and Drawing Number Two. He could be seen as a secret predecessor of this approach in psychotherapy, because long before systemic psychotherapists he discovered that there exists a reality different from the […]
The systemic approach in psychotherapy views the behavior of the identified patient as an expression of failed attempts to adapt to a dysfunctional family system. It challenges the conventional criterion of “adapting to reality” as an indicator of mental health or illness. “We are talking about a seemingly self-evident assumption that there exists an actual, […]
“The ability to live with relative realities, with questions that have no answer, with the knowledge that you know nothing and with the paradoxical unconsciousnesses of existence—this is precisely the essence of human maturity and the resulting tolerance toward others.” — Paul Watzlawick I very much like this thought by Paul Watzlawick from his book […]
