What I appreciate most about how you’ve written this is that you’re not prescribing. You are showing one life, fully and that’s more useful than any instruction, because I can take what fits and leave what doesn’t.
What you write about the witnesses stays with me. I’ve thought about reaching out to people who knew me before not to relitigate anything, but to hear what they saw when I couldn’t yet take it in.
I was lucky to have the blog because without it, it would have been really hard to start the process. But I don’t have the kind of granular record you describe. Nobody told me that was worth doing. I grew up in the generation where social media was just arriving, and the model we got was photos and captions, not the inner record. If someone had told me what private writing could become, I would have done more of it, and sooner.
Ewelina, I'm so glad you started the blog and that you're sharing your experiences and research process here on Substack.
What you noticed about the piece showing rather than prescribing is exactly what I was trying to do. The theory gives me a way to understand and read my life, but that reading does not transfer as a method anyone else can pick up wholesale. You take what fits and leave what doesn't. That you can read it that way means the piece is doing what I hoped.
On the witnesses: I would encourage you to consider it when the time feels right. The conversations I had in 2014 were friendly even though some of them were difficult and involved tears. 😅
What you said about the inner record is one of the things your comment helped me see. I started writing in journals in 1989, before smartphones, or social media, and before the model of self-documentation became photos and captions for an audience. The privacy of it was integral to what the practice became. Nobody told me it was worth doing either. It’s more that for years, I felt compelled to do it. It is never too late to begin.
I love how you talk about the difficulty of self-confrontation as something that just happens, not as a problem to be solved. This lens has done more to help stabilize me in times of acute stress than anything else. That this difficulty is part of the process, and I can also engage it as I have the capacity to do so, which, if I disengage for a time, is also not a failure.
Thank you so much for sharing this. Yes, the disengagement is part of the practice, too. Recognizing that has been one of the most freeing parts of this work for me.
Thank-you for taking the time to put your much needed understanding of this work out into the world... I read, and I smile that smile of recognition, and I feel relief... it's so good to have a non-pathological framework to work with.
This is wonderfully engrossing and somewhat intimidating 😅 that you open with "has looked like for me" as the byline is important to me as a non-academic who has lived the (rather free) range of an autopsychotherapeutic life without having language for it. Like we talk about fairly often, there's a lot of valid ways to get to this and not everyone will have the same relationship to writing as you do, you're never saying "you have to do it like me or it's invalid" but by sharing your process and the full arc (warts and all) we all benefit from seeing an example of the process that so clearly has been intrinsic to your development.
Reading this I'm flooded with thoughts that I need to sort through more before sharing, but my immediate relationship to this essay is how my substrate is movement and service and my imaginal practice of "mental rehearsal" that when I've explained to many gets categorized as anxiety and neurosis, overthinking. But it goes back to my childhood recurring dreams of Medusa sending me on quests, of having to go through things without having clear instructions and so choosing my own adventure- these were never nightmares. And Medusa was beautiful.
And so that recollection is sending me down a fun path of the animist and spiritual aspects of my own rather laissez-faire (in comparison) meditation applications over the years. But it's that continual returning to my own source material that shapes the practice, even if I don't have as much written I certainly have receipts too (wouldn't it be nice if dreams came with them?! Gimme a big ol CVS length readout thanks 😅)
I’m so grateful for this juicy comment to respond to, bee. Thank you for sharing these thoughts on this piece that didn’t come easily. In fact, one thing on my mind was that people might find my story intimidating. But instead, I hope readers will recognize it as an invitation to explore and engage in personal growth, however it looks for them. Indeed, we talk all the time about the way there are many valid ways to do the work.
I have to admit that I love the way we’re both people who return to our source material the way we do. I agree that it would be amazing to have readouts for dreams that we can save. I appreciate the way I carefully wrote about my dreams when I was young and captured the nuances. It’s something I’ve tried to return to in recent years.
“Flooded with thoughts” led me down my own mental path about this, and I wish I could see yours. I’ve think part of why I feel compelled to share my story is that it encourages other people to do it in their own ways, including here in my comments.
I went for a walk with Jay before responding, and I told him that the movement aspect of your practice is the thing I have struggled to implement in mine. We have service in common, as that’s been part of mine since I was first writing. I could only scratch the surface here. As you know, I’ve been writing a book about this practice, so there is more to come on the subject.
Thank you for being someone I can share with regularly because our conversations have helped me learn how to articulate this stuff for a wider audience. 🙏
Very much enjoyed the two articles in this series. I also am one who lived a "...range of an autopsychotherapeutic life without having language for it..." as one person wrote here. When I reflect on this I often wonder how much of my progress is due to this activity and how much is attributable to growth and maturation regardless of what I am doing. I believe the two processes are well integrated over time and maybe ultimately the question is moot, but I am curious about your thoughts. Perhaps another way to think about it is how much of the autopsychotherapy has been foundational to my growth over the decades and how much has been incremental. I hope this makes sense. Thanks again for your writing on this topic.
Dan, thank you for this question. I think the short version is that the inner work is necessary, and the integration with broader maturation is real. Both are true.
What distinguishes developmental movement from maturation alone, in TPD, is the conscious engagement with the dynamisms: subject-object in oneself, the third factor, inner psychic transformation. These don’t operate without being engaged. What you’re describing—an autopsychotherapeutic life without language for it—suggests the dynamisms were already operating in you. The conscious engagement was happening without you having the words for it.
On foundational vs. incremental: again, I would say both. The dynamisms develop and then operate more quickly and quietly. What looked foundational at one phase becomes incremental at the next. The same underlying work occurring, at different speeds.
Thank you for sharing your story, Chris, so much of which I deeply connect with. In addition to journaling and meditaiton, I have recently recognized how important physical movement is to helping me process the work. Specifically, I have structured my days to ensure that I have time each morning to move in some way, whether through vigorous exercise or a walk or bike ride outside. Being active and spending time in nature has has been absolutely critical to self regulating, burning excess energy that might otherwise stir up my intellect or emotion in distressing ways
Thank you for this, Heidi! Yes, you’re right that movement is so important, and it’s only in the past couple of years that I’ve learned to carve out time every day for a walk or bike ride. Part of the struggle for me has been doing what you’ve described, which is structuring your days to ensure time for this. I’m so glad you shared these thoughts.
Chris, this is such a generous offering to your readers. I love that you are so clear that you are not offering 'the' way but *your* way. Some threads I recognise such as Etty Hillesum's experience and the mystics of the past - for you St Francis and for me Julian of Norwich. I loved that you wrote of keeping your anger as energising force rather than destructive force. (forgive me if my words are inaccurate on this). I hear how hard you have worked to integrate and transform. And I so appreciate your compassion in offering your exhaustive and liberating experience to the world.
Davina, thank you for reading this carefully. Julian of Norwich is a wonderful companion for this work. The "all shall be well" lineage holds similar weight to what I have found in St. Francis. I appreciate you bringing her into the conversation. 🙏
What I appreciate most about how you’ve written this is that you’re not prescribing. You are showing one life, fully and that’s more useful than any instruction, because I can take what fits and leave what doesn’t.
What you write about the witnesses stays with me. I’ve thought about reaching out to people who knew me before not to relitigate anything, but to hear what they saw when I couldn’t yet take it in.
I was lucky to have the blog because without it, it would have been really hard to start the process. But I don’t have the kind of granular record you describe. Nobody told me that was worth doing. I grew up in the generation where social media was just arriving, and the model we got was photos and captions, not the inner record. If someone had told me what private writing could become, I would have done more of it, and sooner.
Ewelina, I'm so glad you started the blog and that you're sharing your experiences and research process here on Substack.
What you noticed about the piece showing rather than prescribing is exactly what I was trying to do. The theory gives me a way to understand and read my life, but that reading does not transfer as a method anyone else can pick up wholesale. You take what fits and leave what doesn't. That you can read it that way means the piece is doing what I hoped.
On the witnesses: I would encourage you to consider it when the time feels right. The conversations I had in 2014 were friendly even though some of them were difficult and involved tears. 😅
What you said about the inner record is one of the things your comment helped me see. I started writing in journals in 1989, before smartphones, or social media, and before the model of self-documentation became photos and captions for an audience. The privacy of it was integral to what the practice became. Nobody told me it was worth doing either. It’s more that for years, I felt compelled to do it. It is never too late to begin.
I love how you talk about the difficulty of self-confrontation as something that just happens, not as a problem to be solved. This lens has done more to help stabilize me in times of acute stress than anything else. That this difficulty is part of the process, and I can also engage it as I have the capacity to do so, which, if I disengage for a time, is also not a failure.
Thank you so much for sharing this. Yes, the disengagement is part of the practice, too. Recognizing that has been one of the most freeing parts of this work for me.
Thank-you for taking the time to put your much needed understanding of this work out into the world... I read, and I smile that smile of recognition, and I feel relief... it's so good to have a non-pathological framework to work with.
Thank you for this, Jamie! I’m so glad you felt that recognition and find the framework helpful. 🙏
This is wonderfully engrossing and somewhat intimidating 😅 that you open with "has looked like for me" as the byline is important to me as a non-academic who has lived the (rather free) range of an autopsychotherapeutic life without having language for it. Like we talk about fairly often, there's a lot of valid ways to get to this and not everyone will have the same relationship to writing as you do, you're never saying "you have to do it like me or it's invalid" but by sharing your process and the full arc (warts and all) we all benefit from seeing an example of the process that so clearly has been intrinsic to your development.
Reading this I'm flooded with thoughts that I need to sort through more before sharing, but my immediate relationship to this essay is how my substrate is movement and service and my imaginal practice of "mental rehearsal" that when I've explained to many gets categorized as anxiety and neurosis, overthinking. But it goes back to my childhood recurring dreams of Medusa sending me on quests, of having to go through things without having clear instructions and so choosing my own adventure- these were never nightmares. And Medusa was beautiful.
And so that recollection is sending me down a fun path of the animist and spiritual aspects of my own rather laissez-faire (in comparison) meditation applications over the years. But it's that continual returning to my own source material that shapes the practice, even if I don't have as much written I certainly have receipts too (wouldn't it be nice if dreams came with them?! Gimme a big ol CVS length readout thanks 😅)
I’m so grateful for this juicy comment to respond to, bee. Thank you for sharing these thoughts on this piece that didn’t come easily. In fact, one thing on my mind was that people might find my story intimidating. But instead, I hope readers will recognize it as an invitation to explore and engage in personal growth, however it looks for them. Indeed, we talk all the time about the way there are many valid ways to do the work.
I have to admit that I love the way we’re both people who return to our source material the way we do. I agree that it would be amazing to have readouts for dreams that we can save. I appreciate the way I carefully wrote about my dreams when I was young and captured the nuances. It’s something I’ve tried to return to in recent years.
“Flooded with thoughts” led me down my own mental path about this, and I wish I could see yours. I’ve think part of why I feel compelled to share my story is that it encourages other people to do it in their own ways, including here in my comments.
I went for a walk with Jay before responding, and I told him that the movement aspect of your practice is the thing I have struggled to implement in mine. We have service in common, as that’s been part of mine since I was first writing. I could only scratch the surface here. As you know, I’ve been writing a book about this practice, so there is more to come on the subject.
Thank you for being someone I can share with regularly because our conversations have helped me learn how to articulate this stuff for a wider audience. 🙏
Very much enjoyed the two articles in this series. I also am one who lived a "...range of an autopsychotherapeutic life without having language for it..." as one person wrote here. When I reflect on this I often wonder how much of my progress is due to this activity and how much is attributable to growth and maturation regardless of what I am doing. I believe the two processes are well integrated over time and maybe ultimately the question is moot, but I am curious about your thoughts. Perhaps another way to think about it is how much of the autopsychotherapy has been foundational to my growth over the decades and how much has been incremental. I hope this makes sense. Thanks again for your writing on this topic.
Dan, thank you for this question. I think the short version is that the inner work is necessary, and the integration with broader maturation is real. Both are true.
What distinguishes developmental movement from maturation alone, in TPD, is the conscious engagement with the dynamisms: subject-object in oneself, the third factor, inner psychic transformation. These don’t operate without being engaged. What you’re describing—an autopsychotherapeutic life without language for it—suggests the dynamisms were already operating in you. The conscious engagement was happening without you having the words for it.
On foundational vs. incremental: again, I would say both. The dynamisms develop and then operate more quickly and quietly. What looked foundational at one phase becomes incremental at the next. The same underlying work occurring, at different speeds.
Thank you for sharing your story, Chris, so much of which I deeply connect with. In addition to journaling and meditaiton, I have recently recognized how important physical movement is to helping me process the work. Specifically, I have structured my days to ensure that I have time each morning to move in some way, whether through vigorous exercise or a walk or bike ride outside. Being active and spending time in nature has has been absolutely critical to self regulating, burning excess energy that might otherwise stir up my intellect or emotion in distressing ways
Thank you for this, Heidi! Yes, you’re right that movement is so important, and it’s only in the past couple of years that I’ve learned to carve out time every day for a walk or bike ride. Part of the struggle for me has been doing what you’ve described, which is structuring your days to ensure time for this. I’m so glad you shared these thoughts.
Chris, this is such a generous offering to your readers. I love that you are so clear that you are not offering 'the' way but *your* way. Some threads I recognise such as Etty Hillesum's experience and the mystics of the past - for you St Francis and for me Julian of Norwich. I loved that you wrote of keeping your anger as energising force rather than destructive force. (forgive me if my words are inaccurate on this). I hear how hard you have worked to integrate and transform. And I so appreciate your compassion in offering your exhaustive and liberating experience to the world.
Davina, thank you for reading this carefully. Julian of Norwich is a wonderful companion for this work. The "all shall be well" lineage holds similar weight to what I have found in St. Francis. I appreciate you bringing her into the conversation. 🙏