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The more I learn about psychology  — whether theories of development and cognition, brain function, types of therapy and range of diagnoses, or the myriad psychotropic medications and their effect on the brain — the less I think we, as psychologists, really know.

The word Psychology is made of two ancient Greek words: psyche, meaning soul and logos, meaning word. Today, however, as egos of both men and women drive psychological research, developing and implementing complex theories, the field of psychology has moved away from its basic truth and meaning: to study the mind, behavior, and the soul.

In psychiatry and psychology, we would do better for our clients not to be the “know-it-all” of truth. Inherently, psychology is a creative process, meaning both patient and psychologist must learn and work together toward simple truth.

How Does the APA Define Psychology?

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), “Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. The discipline embraces all aspects of the human experience — from the functions of the brain to the actions of nations, from child development to care for the aged. In every conceivable setting from scientific research centers to mental health care services, ‘the understanding of behavior’ is the enterprise of psychologists.”

So, if psychologists are studying the soul, which manifests in human behavior, we must be attuned to the spiritual strivings in human beings in order to understand behavior and improve society.

I see psychology as a creative process where people learn to become aware of, acknowledge, and solve their problems in their own way. The therapist encourages and supports the patient through the interaction of behaviors, emotions, mind, and body expression. By using heuristic words, we don’t make suggestions, set directives, give covert demands, commands, or interpretations in the conventional sense. Instead, we guide. Heuristics, as defined by Webster’s dictionary, means “to invent or discover: helping to discover or learn.”

Simple truths emanate from human beings. We need to be loved unconditionally, accepted, and respected. With this comes the freedom to self-express and find happiness.

This natural creative process is stifled or thwarted by dysfunctional or ignorant family messages, expectations, or limitations, by rigid religious dogma, or judgmental restrictive societal expectations. “I am not good enough” and “I am not loveable” are the two most prevalent beliefs that distort human beings’ ability to live a creative and self-expressive life. As a psychologist, I conclude that the less we do and the more we listen — really listen, heuristically — the more often the creative process will occur.

I use Ernest Rossi’s technique called The Four-Stage Creative Cycle, which encourages my clients to notice what they are experiencing, explore their emotions and memories, explore possibilities of healing and problem solving, and how to reframe their symptoms and problems into creative inner resources to be developed further. I am there to support. They are reclaiming their lost power by finding their answers within for themselves while being supported and reminded of their inherent ability to create new pathways toward health and well-being.

You can learn more about my practice on Innovative Counseling Services website.

*Copyright Jean Pollack

Peak-experiences occur while running, driving, dancing, meditating, and sometimes when least expected. Peak-experiences release creative energy and promote self-growth. You know truth when you experience one. There is no question when you realize a universal truth. It simply arrives.

Abraham Maslow, a well-known American psychologist, thought that peak-experience can help us to achieve personal growth, integration, and fulfillment. According to University of Rochester’s Dr. Sandy Stahlman, “Maslow believed that we should study and cultivate peak-experience, so that we can teach those in our culture to those who ‘have never had them or who repress or suppress them,’ providing them a route to achieve personal growth, integration, and fulfillment.”

I experienced the most amazing awareness of truth or peak-experience ten years ago, and it changed my perception and influenced both my psychology practice and how I am writing my second book.

As I was driving home from seeing clients at my office, from the left side of the top of my head, I felt and heard the words, “Stop analyzing and theorizing, just be.” Then, a beautiful flood of poetry caused me to cry and sob. I didn’t want to stop the flow so I continued to drive, and for 45 minutes I experienced such profound beauty, similar to poetry with crescendos of sobbing and pure awe. The message continued, “Stop analyzing, theorizing, and be.”

At the end of this experience, I felt light and full of love and connection. It was truth.

As I walked into the chinese restaurant where I usually stop for dinner on Thursday nights, I felt a connection to everyone in there. I wanted to love them and share with them my experience, but I didn’t. However, those 45 minutes of bliss and beauty left me wanting more truth.

Victor Frankl, a psychologist and medical doctor who studied peak-experiences and also experienced one, shares in his book A Man’s Search for Meaning, “A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.”

Afterward, Frankl added “self-transcendence” to Maslow’s hierarchy. Transcendeance means “going beyond,” while “self-transcendence” means going beyond a prior form or state of oneself.

Before that night in my car, I had never experienced what others describe as a “stream of consciousness” or a peak-experience. It revealed to me a universal truth. There was no doubt, and it was beautiful.

Healing and Therapeutic Effects

According to Wikipedia, “peak experience tends to be uplifting and ego-transcending; it releases creative energies; it affirms the meaning and value of existence; it gives a sense of purpose to the individual; it gives a feeling of integration; it leaves a permanent mark on the individual, evidently changing them for the better.”

Peak experiences usually come on suddenly and are often inspired by deep meditation, exposure to great art or music, or nature’s beauty. They can occur when your mind is open and during activities such as dance, running, and writing.

As Maslow shares in his own book, Religion, Values, and Peak-Experiences, “Then, I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss.”

Peak-experiences can also be extremely therapeutic in that they tend to increase the individual’s free will, self-determination, and creativity. Maslow claimed that all individuals are capable of peak-experiences. Virtually everyone, he suggested has a number of peak-experiences in the course of their life, but often such experiences are taken for granted.

In so-called “non-peakers,” peak-experiences are somehow resisted and suppressed. Maslow argued that peak experiences should be studied and cultivated, so that they can be introduced to those who have never had them or who resist them, providing them a route to achieve personal growth, integration, and fulfillment.

My experience seemed to be related to the words, “Stop analyzing and theorizing, just be,” which may seem difficult for a psychologist to understand, but it was a deep truth that changed my perception of “doing” versus “being.” As a result, my practice has become more based on mindfulness over the past five years.

One year following my peak experience, I had a similar experience that lasted about ten minutes. It has been five years since my first experience, but I eagerly await another. These natural peak experiences are possible for everyone and they help people achieve personal growth, integration, and fulfillment.

Why don’t we experience more of them naturally or do we take them for granted when they occur? Would life be different if we encouraged peak experiences? Would we make better choices? Choose better mates? Create less drama, less pain, less suffering. Would we live, run, or dance with more purpose with universal truth as our guide?

Recently, I was sitting by a pool with a friend. We were discussing health and aging. He made the comment, “Aging is a disease,” which struck me as fatalistic.

“No, it’s reality,” he said. “At about 26 years of age, our cells stop growing and producing and start to decline.”

I was recently inspired and re-inspired while reading current research on mind body psychology and taught a college course called mind body psychology for the second time.

The new research about aging and health is exciting and encouraging. There are ways to facilitate more creativity, health, and build a better brain. Genetics of the brain and body are being unlocked revealing that we cannot just live longer, but live a high quality of life as we age.

“But aging is a disease and we are all going to die,” my friend repeated.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Has our culture been so brain washed by the pharmaceutical companies’ commercials on TV that we now believe that everything is a disease, including aging?

Think about how many new diseases are created every week? Why are they created?  So that medication can be prescribed for them. It’s a big profit industry and we are buying into it. It’s brainwashing. If you are tired, overweight, too hungry, not hungry enough, sleeping or not sleeping at night, stressed, overwhelmed, addicted to food, drugs, sex, shopping, or cigarettes, depressed whatever! There is a pill for it.

Are we becoming numb or unmotivated to make healthy decisions for ourselves? Have we given our health and wellness over to pharmaceutical companies and doctors who dole out the RX samples like free candy? Then we get “hooked” on or have side effects from the medication and guess what? There is another pill for that! We are not as disease possessed as the pharmaceutical ads would like us to believe.

Aging is part of the continuum of life. The continuum is from optimal wellness to death. It is not a disease and there is no pill to cure it. Aging is part of life — just as toddlerhood, adolescence, and adulthood are part of the continuum. Here is a metaphor I use to explain the continuum and how many factors affect growth, health, vitality and quality of life.

If you plant two fruit trees, one in the shade, in a shallow hole, no room for the roots to grow, and it receives no nutrients, not much sun and there are other bushes around it that crowd it; it’s growth and health are stunted and it produces little if any fruit. The other tree is planted in fertile soil with plenty of room for the roots. It receives sunlight during the daytime and is watered as needed. It has plenty of space to grow and it grows strong and full and produces a lot of fruit.

Our bodies, like the trees, have genetic material encoded, but there are many other factors that affect growth, development, and health. Recent studies in mind body psychology indicate that enriching life experiences that evoke newness, and stimulation of new brain patterns occur during creative moments of art, music, dance, drama, humor, literature, spirituality, awe, joy, and cultural rituals and that these can positively affect healing and the aging process.

Studies show that a mother’s touch creates stimulation of the immune system, growth hormones, and neural growth in her baby’s brain. Yes, we may be living longer but quality of life begins every day with making a choice to promote health, creativity, and neurogenesis or new brain neural pathways and a strong immune system. How?

I teach a webinar course for people who want to make a choice to live a more creative, healthy, happy and stimulating life no matter what age you are.

Creativity as A Guide

When you pace yourself with creativity, activity, and rest throughout the day, you will not be resisting the body’s natural rhythm and you will feel less stressed. I teach  Mind Body Psychology and use it with my clients in therapy and during our Life Coaching Sessions.

According to the Psychobiology of Gene Expression by Ernest Rossi, ”there is an individualized natural pacing of rhythm or creativity and rest throughout the day. If you learn to ‘catch the wave’  of the natural rhythms that occur, you will discover many hidden connections between your daily rhythm (circadian) and your ultradian (occurring many times throughout the day) rhythm and your level of stress and health.”

How will this help you? It will help you to increase your energy levels, mood, decrease your stress level, reduce addictions, and will positively effect  your sexuality and relationships. You will learn to work with your natural rhythm, instead of working against your natural rhythm.

For example, from midnight to 2 a.m. is the time when deep sleep and the stimulation of growth hormones occur.

Learn more in my mind body webinar course. Send me an email if you are interested in joining in on the course.