The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi ~

(The Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks)

On Self:

I'm going to take a risk and say that Self is that which one most 'instinctively' (not necessarily by nature, but in terms of tendency) protects. If you do not have an instinct to protect your body, soul or being, you are selfless. Perhaps you would protect someone else. A husband, a cat. Then that other is your Self and you are living psychologically from them. In honour of them. They are not separate from you, and their decisions and actions are the most important in your life.

But what about children? Isn't some of this extra-auto protection necessary when it comes to guarding the little ones? Yes. I'm trying to find the person who said that "To have children is to accept that your heart will walk around permanently outside your body." This selflessness is necessary and carries an evolutionary advantage.

There are, however, limits to this attachment. Children grow up. They have their own lives and, from a young age, their own will. Parents must be able to accept and live within the paradox that their children are both theirs and not theirs at all. Not to do so is to become either cold and detached or smothering and enmeshed.

And the airlines always tell you to put on your oxygen mask first.

Photographic Therapy
Session 1 (Survey 2):


What aspects of yourself (in both the physical and personal sense) usually show up in photographs?






What parts of yourself do you like the most?
1) In terms of your personal (mental, emotional) characteristics:



2) In terms of your physical characteristics:



3) In terms of your physical movements (for example, the way you walk, talk, dance, play an instrument, etc.):



What parts of yourself do you dislike the most?
1) In terms of your personal (mental, emotional) characteristics:



2) In terms of your physical characteristics:



3) In terms of your physical movements (for example, the way you walk, talk, dance, play an instrument, etc.):



What parts of yourself are you most afraid of?
1) In terms of your personal (mental, emotional) characteristics:


2) In terms of your physical characteristics:



3) In terms of your physical movements (for example, the way you walk, talk, dance, play an instrument, etc.):

Photographic Therapy
Svea Vikander
Pre-Session Survey (1)

Note: If possible, please bring the two photographs you describe here to our first session.

1) What are your experiences of being photographed?




2) Do you enjoy having your picture taken? Why or why not?




3) What is your favourite photograph of yourself?
a. Please describe it.


b. What do you like about this photograph?


c. What do you dislike about this photograph?


4) What is your least favourite photograph of yourself?
a. Please describe it.


b. What do you dislike about this photograph?


c. What do you like about this photograph?


5) How do you feel about your body?


6) When do you feel most beautiful?


7) Is there anything else you feel I should know?

Many therapists today have lost faith in the dream that there exists one single school of therapy that

is better than all the rest. These therapists are no longer searching for the one best best way to do therapy. Instead, they are using their personal education, training and experience to tailor their therapy to the client and the moment in the evolving therapy process.

These are the therapists who are postmodern, deconstructing the very idea of a one-size-fits all school of therapy. They are postmodern whether they know it or not, just as one might be a dreamer, or a connoisseur without knowing it. These therapists -- no I will speak of "we postmodern therapists" -- are making micro-judgments continuously in the course of our work. And it is here in the micro-judgments that we most feel our creative power to help. These micro-judgments could never be scripted for everyone. Yes, of course, we stay within the ethical dictates of our profession. In fact, we often feel we must step outside a particular school in order to honor the ethical guidelines of our profession. The best therapeutic moves are invented outside the box and every postmodern therapist invents in this way throughout the therapy.

Lois Shawver, PhD. http://users.california.com/~rathbone/np5.htm

“In order to become whole we must try, in a long process, to discover our own personal truth, a truth that may cause pain before giving us a new sphere of freedom. If we choose instead to content ourselves with intellectual “wisdom,” we will remain in the sphere of illusion and self-deception.
The damage done to us during our childhood cannot be undone, since we cannot change anything in our past. We can, however, change ourselves. We ca repair ourselves and gain our lost integrity by choosing to look more closely at the knowledge that is stored inside our bodies and bringing this knowledge closer to our awareness…We become free by transforming ourselves from unaware victims of our past into responsible individuals in the present, who are aware of our past and are thus able to live with it.” (1-2)

“How can therapy be of help here? It cannot give us back our lost childhood, nor can it change the past facts. No one can heal by maintaining or fostering illusion. The paradise of preambivalent harmony, for which so many patients hope, is unattainable. But the experience of one’s own truth, and the postambivalent knowledge of it, make it possible to return to one’s own world of feelings at an adult level – without paradise, but with the ability to mourn. And this ability does, indeed, give us back our vitality.” (14)