From Psychoanalysis to Process Work: The Ambiguity of Suffering

From Psychoanalysis to Process Work contributes to the understanding of important historical developments and theoretical insights of the 20th and 21st centuries that became building blocks of today's Process Work, a theory and practice developed by Arnold Mindell in the early 1980s. These developments and insights are brought to bear in the ways helping professionals, the people whom most of us consult for assistance when we need help and support, conceptualize suffering. This book outlines some of the social, historical and theoretical forces - principally in the fields of psychology and philosophy - that were synthesized by Mindell in his theory and practice of Process Work.

The research presented here is more than an academic exercise. Process Work demands a radically different view of the world and of people from what is customary today. Most importantly, Process Work conceptualizes human beings as intrinsically whole and complete. Processworkers help in bringing awareness to the journey on which clients find themselves. Rather than try to fix, repair, or restore something diseased or disordered. the Processworker accepts the complication that is present, as also having something intrinsically meaningful. As such, Process Work exemplifies a stance of openness, curiosity, acceptance and deep honoring of all of humanity and of the world we inhabit.

My attempt to detail Process Work's solid grounding in breakthrough discoveries of the 20th and 21st centuries is to support this theory and practice in becoming more accessible, acceptable, and, hopefully, widespread. It brings awareness to Process Work as the most fitting attitude and approach needed in order to address the many personal, social and planetary concerns we face today.