What is PROCESSWORK ?.
Dr. Arnold Mindell, together with Dr. Amy Mindell and colleagues, originally developed Processwork in the 1970s. It has continued to evolve into an awareness practice used in working with individuals, relationships, teams, and groups.
The Mindell’s website is: aamindell.net.
With their words:
Process oriented psychology is a multicultural, multi-level, awareness practice for individuals and organizations in all states of consciousness.
It is the art, science, and the psychology of following the nature of individuals, communities, and eco-systems.
What is this nature exactly?
It appears in the descriptions or self descriptions of nature and people, as well as the subtler often missed signals and deep experiences of everyone and everything involved. Following this nature is often a great help for everyone involved. Following nature often gives meaning and necessary change.
Processwork, also called process oriented psychology, is a multicultural, multi-leveled awareness practice including people and their natural environment. It is an evolving, trans-disciplinary approach supporting individuals, relationships and organizations to discover themselves.
Processwork theories and methods, skills and metaskills are available for anyone to experience and can be tested.
Applications: Processwork can be used to help people in all states of consciousness: that is in so called "normal" awareness states, or in altered states such as "psychotic" or extreme states, comatose and near-death states. It can be applied to psychological problems, body symptoms, groups, organizations, governments, and has been used for very young and very old people.
BOOKS & RESEARCH:
Arny’s first book Dreambody: The Body’s Role in Revealing the Self (1982) described his findings about how body symptoms can be found in dreams. His 1985 book River’s Way: The process science of the dreambody laid out the principles and concepts of process oriented psychology.
Arny’s 2010 book The ProcessMind: A User’s Guide to the The Mind of God describes a subtle force-field body intelligence experience that moves us in a way that mirrors the movements of our dreams.
Arny's 2013 book, Dance of the Ancient One, shares a new space-based movement meditation to facilitate personal and international issues. This interdisciplinary method connecting psychology, physics, and spirituality can be used to work with difficult personal situations and organizational issues.
Amy Mindell created and defined the concept of "Metaskills" in her 1995 book, Metaskills: The Spiritual Art Of Therapy. For a creative introduction to the Processwork approach to therapeutic work, see Amy’s book, Alternative To Therapy: A Creative Lecture Series on Process Work (2002).
For process oriented approaches to innerwork, mindfulness and meditation see especially Arny’s book Working on Yourself Alone. Kindle version released 2014. And Amy’s book, The Dreaming Source of Creativity: 30 simple ways to have fun and work on yourself .
New Phase Oriented Process Concepts
Since Sept 2014, we, Amy and Arny have been researching and experimenting with a new, and widely applicable phase-oriented process concept. We show how noticing the phases of individual, relationship, and large groups helps facilitators understand and organize their work better. The new work Conflict: Phases, Forums, and Solutions: For our Dreams and Body, Organizations, Governments, and Planet published in 2017 contributes a "meta-view", or overview to help predict, understand and work with what people go through.
Even within the most lifeless-looking object or experience lies a wealth of potential. The “real” world that seemed so static a moment ago transmutes into a fluid field of possibilities. [With a beginner's mind we can discover] the unfolding and creative force…inherent in materials, our bodies, sounds, the environment, words, images and – perhaps most importantly – in our experiences in daily life.
Amy Mindell, The Dreaming Source of Creativity, (2005) p.5.
Only when all aspects of an experience are unfolded with awareness does the wisdom embedded in the experience reveal itself most fully. Process work is based on the idea that processes contain their own inherent wisdom. Even the most intractable relationship problems or body experiences contain a great deal of meaning and wisdom, hidden within what otherwise might seem like intolerable events. In order to unfold the details of any particular experience, it is important to notice our everyday approach to experiences as well as the dreamlike or unknown background aspects of those events of which we are not quite aware.
Amy Mindell (2008). Bringing deep democracy to life. Psychotherapy and Politics International, 6(3)