Nov 18-20, 2005
What humans want more than anything is to become whole, yet our culture, and our very nature, splits us down the middle. Psychology illuminates personality structures, defenses, narcissism, and ego structures, while spiritual paths show us the nature of all Being and the road to a transcendent reality. At times, the psychodynamic exploration feels anti-spiritual, limited to our messy personal history. The spiritual approach often overlooks the psyche, lauding transcendence, sometimes demeaning the psychological, and leading to the problem of the “spiritual by-pass.” So we get confused. We strive for a healthy ego, and we strive to lose all ego. This division between spiritual and psychological, although historical, is artificial and unnecessary, for the constructs and issues on both paths can be understood to interface in a unified way to the informed seeker.
In this workshop we explore the world of the self from both the psychological and spiritual points of view, abandoning artificial demarcations that have traditionally kept these two paths separate. We will embrace the notion that the journey to understand the spirit and psyche, the Cosmic and local, is a single journey.
It is only from the unified point of view that we can fully understand questions such as these: Is my anger good or bad? How does my personality interface with my essence? Should I work on having a stronger ego or getting rid of my ego? What is the ultimate goal of my search, and how do I get there?
Patricia’s unique approach to teaching allows fresh and deep insight into who we think we are, how we got that way, what it means, and what constitutes real growth. Through the creative and gentle mixture of lecture, exercises, and group discussion, she invites us to experience how psychological structures and spiritual concepts interface. At this deeply personal and intimate level, we may experience the “aha” moment of insight and understanding, the place where healing and growth occur.
Patricia Simko trained to be a chef in Paris, joined the Peace Corps in West Africa, and become an attorney, an Assistant State Attorney General, and a civil court judge. A deeper call drew her to earn a Ph.D. in psychology from NYU, including the intense journey of being analyzed and becoming a formally trained psychoanalyst and training analyst/supervisor at the Training & Research Institute for Self Psychology. She is a psychotherapist and very popular lecturer at the New School University, NYU, and other universities. For over 17 years she has been teaching courses and leading workshops on dreams, narcissism, creativity, and much more, and she’s also had an intense immersion for 11 years in the Diamond Approach teachings of A.H. Almaas (Ridhwan School). She volunteers a month each year to assist in cataract eye-camps with Tibetans. She has a red belt in TaeKwonDo, and her art work can be seen at www.DrPatriciaSimko.com.