About psychosynthesis
Synthesis is a process that shows up everywhere — it's essentially about parts coming together to form something larger. Words join to make sentences, notes combine into music, cells unite to form a living organism. We find synthesis in nature and within ourselves, including on a psychological level.
Psychosynthesis is an integrative therapeutic approach rooted in humanistic psychology. It was founded in the 1920s by Roberto Assagioli, an Italian physician, psychiatrist, and scientist who had trained under Sigmund Freud. Assagioli noticed that when we can't bring our different inner parts together, we may feel fragmented — even estranged from ourselves and out of balance. We might also experience a sense of emptiness or lack of meaning. Psychosynthesis therefore aims to cultivate awareness, greater unity, wholeness, and harmony — as well as a sense of purpose. It does this by offering tools for self-realization, helping us take more conscious ownership of ourselves and our lives.
Psychosynthesis continues to evolve and draws on many influences — psychodynamic theory, CBT, mindfulness, Gestalt therapy, transactional analysis, Jungian psychology, as well as philosophy and Eastern wisdom traditions. It has also been described as a psychology with soul, partly because it is practical and experience-based, but also because it is holistic and emphasizes the connection between body and mind, intellect and spirit (where "spirit" points to something beyond the personal — the transpersonal).
Over time, Assagioli moved increasingly away from Freud's psychoanalytic movement — which he, along with Jung and others, had been involved in early on. He found the approach too narrow and too focused on the sickness rather than health. One of the core premises of psychosynthesis is that we have an innate capacity to live the life we want and that is genuinely good for us.
Psychosynthesis therapy integrates the depth of psychodynamic psychology and works with behavioral change using methods similar to CBT — all while keeping the human potential at the heart of the work. Think of it as a house with three floors. We all have a basement where unconscious material gets stored (the psychodynamic perspective). We have a middle floor where our everyday behaviors and behavioral shifts take place (the cognitive and behavioral perspective). And we have an upper floor — or a rooftop terrace — where we can look up at the stars, feel a sense of wonder, or experience something that reaches beyond the everyday (the spiritual or transpersonal perspective). Psychosynthesis brings all three of these perspectives together into one coherent whole.
Click below to read more about psychosynthesis, or listen to an interview about psychosynthesis therapy with well-known therapist Will Parfitt.
