The Moon, the Hare, and the Pearl: An Intuitive Guide to the Therapist-Client Relationship is an unconventional, archetypal guide to the practice of psychotherapy. This book invites the reader to bring the power of her or his intuition, curiosity, and imagination to this profound practice. If you are just beginning this journey as a student, intern, or newly licensed clinician, this book offers practical advice for walking a deeply feminine and intuitive path. If you are an experienced clinician, you will find a home here in the light of reflection, confirmation, and humor. And for non-clinicians who want a deeper understanding of their inner being, this book will open longed-for doors.
This book diverges from traditional texts on “how to do” therapy. Instead, it suggests ways in which the therapist can access her intuitive capacities in service to both herself and her client. My personal practice of Zen Buddhism and my study of Jungian psychology form the basis for my work. I have deep faith in our capacity as human beings to move toward wholeness and individuation. We are always in flux, and how we navigate difficult and challenging passages moves us ever more deeply into connection to soul. In my therapeutic work, I rely on creativity through art, sand tray work, and dreams to being forth healing images from psyche. I also use EMDR as a healing modality for trauma in conjunction with imaginal process.
The book is based on my 33 years of clinical practice in both private practice and agency work. Supervision of interns throughout my professional life was the instigation for this book and for sharing fundamental truths and methods.
Once I was in a cab in New York. The cabby made a sudden right turn and went right through a gas station parking lot at lightning speed, and into a lane of traffic moving swiftly in the opposite direction. My heart dropped! “This is one of those tricks of the trade you learn after you’ve been driving as long as I have,” he said, laughing. After catching my breath, I also laughed.
I took his statement as affirmation for my book, as I had just finished the early chapters entitled “Tricks of the Trade.” The only way you know some things is through practice, practice, and more practice. You gotta live through it! However, there is light and guidance along the way. In that vein, this book is also part memoir and lays down the stepping-stones of observation, imagination, and metaphoric and symbolic process for increasing awareness.
How do you, as a therapist, relate to your client? How do you move into more depth-oriented therapy? How do you engage the client in a more internalized process and move toward resolution and growth that feeds the soul as well as the mind? These evocative questions form the basis of this book. The book also explores how the therapist walks with the client, and how her own development is intimately connected to that of her clients.
