Jan Dworkin | Process Worker and Artist


	Process Work with individuals, couples and families Areas of Process Work therapy Symptoms Relationships, couples and families Sexuality Addictions and eating disorders Extreme states Coma and withdrawn states Abuse and trauma Inner work/Essence work Creativity Symptoms Process Work with symptoms and illness is based on the idea of a mind-body connection. All symptoms, regardless of their origin, are seen as a meaningful expression of one's dreaming process. When explored and unfolded with awareness, acute and chronic body symptoms can become teachers and give us new directions for our lives. Mindell has discovered a fundamental connection between chronic or long term illnesses and our earliest childhood dreams and memories. This connection reinforces C.G. Jung's idea of the "life myth," a central archetypal story that provides the blueprint for our lives. Benefits: Process Work with physical symptoms increases our self-awareness and works in collaborations with traditional and alternative medical interventions. In addition, it can be a form of preventative medicine. “The body is non-local, touched by relationships and groups, by immediate and stellar events… We cannot solve the problems in the body only by looking within the body. To solve some of our body problems, we need to work with the whole world…” Arnold Mindell Link to books and articles Relationships, couples and families Relationships and families are much more than a collection of individuals, much more than the sum of their parts. Process Work offers a complete set of skills and methods for working with the individuals within a system as well as with the dreaming system itself. We emphasize concrete things such as past history, communication skills and work with rank and power as well as the more subtle aspects like atmospheres, moods and the mythical and magical dimensions of connection. We always take the social factors and diversity issues into account, including race, age, religion, gender, class, etc. Benefits: By studying and unfolding the dreaming background of our relationships and family life, intractable long term patterns can become unstuck and our connections with other people can be more meaningful, more fulfilling and more fun. “Lovers don’t finally meet, they are in each other all along.” Rumi Links to books and articles Sexuality Sexuality is an expression of our dreaming process. When all goes well with sex, there is no need to focus on it. We can simply enjoy the pleasure, connectedness and altered states that sex and sexuality can bring. But when things go wrong with sex, when we experience so-called sexual dysfunction, when our sexual desires do not match our partner's, or when sex is connected with abuse or trauma we either become hopeless or we seek professional help. Process Work offers a set of tools to help us explore and unfold the details of sexual experience. Benefits: We learn to respect our body's sexual wisdom and to view "dysfunction" as an ally, trying to direct or re-direct us to a deeper and more authentic connection with ourselves and with our partners. “… Sex takes many forms. In a way it is unfortunate that we use this one three letter word to refer to the incredible range of erotic behavior of which people are capable… It’s not quite fair to talk about sex in any general way at all.” Sally Tisdale Links to books and articles Addictions and eating disorders Process Work with addictions and addictive tendencies is based on the idea that we are all addicted to becoming our whole selves. We crave substances and behaviors that help us expand our ordinary identities and every day consciousness. Because the altered states we seek are often unacceptable not only to ourselves but to society at large, addictions work is also political work. Benefits: Process Work, on its own or in conjunction with other methods such as 12-step, can help reduce the need for harmful substances by teaching us to gain access to our altered states. This can help us sustain a "clean and sober" lifestyle, if that is our goal. “Little by little you must… erase everything around you until nothing can be taken for granted, until nothing is any more for sure or real. You’re problem now is that you are too real. Your endeavors are too real, your moods are too real…. You must begin to erase yourself.” Yaqui shaman Don Juan Links to books and articles Extreme states Amy Mindell coined the term "extreme states" to refer to those states of consciousness that people might experience who are usually labeled psychotic, unstable or mentally ill. The states are extreme, relative to a cultural norm. A state which is considered extreme in one culture (such as ecstatic prayer or extended silence) may be considered ordinary in another culture. Those who experience states that are unacceptable to the culture are often undervalued, disregarded and pathologized. Process Work values these states, unfolds them and discovers their meaning for both the individual and the culture at large. Benefits: Process Work seeks to find ways to make these states more useful to the individual and more palatable to society. Thus, suffering is reduced and the so-called mentally ill person may live more comfortably within the mainstream, if he or she chooses. In addition, the mainstream is supported to become more fluid in accepting unusual states. “The deepest and most meaningful changes in individuals, relationships and groups, happen through the emergence of altered states…These include hallucinations, paranoia, megalomania and wildness, ecstasy and spiritual experience as well as sloppiness, depression, addictions or just wanting to 'drop out.'” Arnold Mindell Links to books and articles Coma and withdrawn states Drs. Amy and Arnold Mindell have discovered that coma patients may be having meaningful experiences in their deeply altered and so-called non-responsive states. In order to help facilitate these altered states of consciousness, they have developed methods for a) helping comatose patients unfold and deepen their experiences and b) setting up a binary system of communication in order that the coma patient may communicate his or her wishes regarding continued care and life and death decisions. Benefits: The ability to communicate with a coma patient can be hugely helpful and relieving to the caregivers and loved ones of the person in a comatose state. Patients have reported that the contact has a) helped them to deepen their experiences, b) allowed them to communicate and c) helped them to regain access to a more ordinary state of consciousness. Patients who came out of comas have reported that their inner journeys were greatly enhanced by these methods. Assisting patients in valuing, following and completing their inner journeys has sometimes helped patients make the transition to a waking state of consciousness. “People are full of potential growth in all states of consciousness—even up to and perhaps beyond the moment of death… If the heart is still beating, we should make the attempt to communicate and not rule out the possibility of reaching these little known corners of life.” Amy MIndell Links to books and articles Abuse and trauma Our most abusive and traumatic experiences, however painful and horrible, are like mythic stories, holding keys to the deepest parts of ourselves and to the central meaning and purpose of our lives. Whether our traumatic experiences are connected with physical, emotional, societal or sexual abuse or whether they are connected with war and violence, we can glean spiritual and psychological power by re-entering these stories with awareness. Process Work methods follow each individual's process with utter care and respect. Benefits: The individual may discover deeper meaning in the most awful of life's experiences and move from a position of victim, to a place of empowerment through awareness. “Awareness is a more comprehensive guiding principle than power.” Arnold MIndell Links to books and articles Inner work/Essence work Process Work has a specific method and set of skills for teaching us to work on ourselves alone, without the assistance of a therapist or any paid professional. We can work on our night-time dreams, our body symptoms, relationship difficulties, addictions and much more. In addition to working on psychological issues, we can train ourselves to drop out of consensus reality and use our dreaming minds to connect with the underlying oneness and unity in the background of all things. Benefits: Since our helpers are not always available when we need them, it is both useful and empowering to be able to solve problems and expand our awareness on our own. These methods are especially useful for relationship conflicts where our opponent is unwilling to "come to the table." Inner work relativizes the "elitism" of therapy and provides a framework for self-help. “You do not need to be a mystic to find God. Everything that happens to you is happening to God. God sleeps and wakes. God argues with herself. God has financial problems. God is the bank that will not loan you the money.” Arnold Mindell Links to books and articles Creativity The dreaming process is a rich source of creativity for everyone, whether or not you identify as an artist or "creative type." Process Work helps us access and deepen our creative process by 1) supporting our ongoing contact with the dreaming process; 2) teaching us to access our dreaming as a rich source of creativity; 3) helping us view disturbances and mistakes as potential allies and teachers and 4) offering specific methods to unfold the unintentional aspects of our art, music and theatre-making. The method demystifies creativity. Creativity is for everyone! Benefits: We may awaken and unlock our creative potentials and thus live in a more satisfying and unpredictable manner, regardless of whether or not we identify as creative. We can transform the blocks and demons which prevent us from accessing our full creative potential. Artists can go beyond their known world by learning to use various forms of awareness and perception when making art, including non-ordinary and altered states of consciousness. Many of us try to be intelligent and to guess what something is about before it has a chance to hatch! The creative mind… focuses on letting go… entering the murky and magical realm, and being open to an unknown mystery that is about to unfold. Amy Mindell Links to books and articles