Active Pause

Lawrence Berger and Serge Prengel discuss how we make sense of the world and our place in it, i.e. what is usually called philosophy or spirituality.

We approach this from somewhat different perspectives:– One emphasizes a connection with a sense of something greater than ourselves in which we can find meaning and purpose (“there’s nothing more important than why we’re here”). – The other emphasizes the moment-by-moment process of finding meaning and purpose as we live (“I get in touch with my sense of meaning and purpose as I face life moment by moment”).

Lawrence Berger, PhD, is a long-time practitioner of mindfulness and has taught philosophy at several universities. He is working on a book entitled The Politics Of Attention & The Promise Of Mindfulness.

Serge Prengel is a therapist and explorer of creative approaches to mindfulness. He is the editor of Active Pause and is developing a course on Polyvagal-informed mindfulness.

We explore a concept that is very important to Bruce Gibbs, finding the right distance from our experience. We talk about how the right distance varies with the context, for instance how it is different in meditation and in Focusing. And we talk about what finding that distance entails.

Bruce Gibbs, Ph.D., has explored consciousness, both academically and experientially, for many decades. He has practiced Yoga, Vipassana, and Zen meditation. He is a long-time meditator and Focusing teacher. He is dedicated to experimenting with the crossing of the two, and he has developed a form of Felt Sense meditation.

Published April 2022.

The Relational Implicit podcast is now located on the Active Pause website. Our focus is on redefining mindfulness based on trauma-informed therapy and the Polyvagal theory.

This change reflects the experiential and intersubjective nature of what we do as therapists.

We are not providing impersonal “treatment” to people we are observing as detached observers. We are engaged in a deep process whose effectiveness is related to our ability to engage.

The moment-by-moment dance between empathy, connection, and self-awareness is a dance of mindful engagement.

Regardless of whether or not we practice mindfulness in traditional ways (e.g. meditation), mindfulness is a big part of what we do.

The practice of trauma-informed therapy and the Polyvagal Theory have been changing the way we think of mindfulness, in our work, and in our life.

It takes a pause to shift from a mindless, reactive mode to a more mindful mode. It takes safety for the pause to be an active process as opposed to a mere interruption (or, even, a frustration). We know this in the way we work with our clients, and in the way we track ourselves while we are in session.

I am inviting you to join in this exploration of how we can further deepen our emerging understanding and practice of mindfulness.

Published April 2022

The following conversation with Ken Benau serves as an introduction to shame and pride-informed psychotherapy with adult survivors of relational trauma, the theme of his book, Shame, Pride, and Relational Trauma: Concepts and Psychotherapy.

Ken Benau, Ph.D. earned his doctorate in clinical psychology with a subspecialty in adult psychotherapy at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA, in 1988.  He has been a California licensed clinical psychologist since 1990.  Dr. Benau maintains a private practice in Kensington, CA, located in the SF Bay Area.  He provides individual, couple, and family therapy, professional consultation, and training.  Dr. Benau has expertise in working with children and adults with various learning and developmental differences, including those living with ADHD and high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder.  He has a special interest and expertise in shame and pride-informed psychotherapy with survivors of relational trauma, and has written several peer-reviewed articles with that theme.  Dr. Benau’s forthcoming book, Shame, Pride, and Relational Trauma: Concepts and Psychotherapy, will be published by Routledge in March 2022.

Published March 2022.

In this conversation, our intention is to share with you what we like about the notion of “inquiry,” and to do so by giving you a flavor of what we mean by it.

Dr. Marjorie Schuman is a clinical psychologist who teaches, writes about, and practices mindful psychodynamic psychotherapy. Serge Prengel is the editor of Active Pause.

Published February 2022.

We start this conversation from the perspective that human beings are self-interpreting animals, and go on to explore what gives us a sense of meaning.

Lawrence Berger has been practicing mindfulness for many years while developing a philosophy of attention in his academic pursuits. He was formerly a business school professor at the universities of Iowa and Pennsylvania, after which he decided to engage in philosophy full time, teaching philosophy at Marist College and Montclair State University. He has published a number of articles on the philosophy of attention and is working on a book entitled The Politics of Attention and the Promise of Mindfulness, in which Eugene Gendlin’s A Process Model plays a central role.

Published February 2022.

We talk about bringing a quality of fierce love to our life, as a person and as an agent of change.

The Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Ph.D. is Senior Minister for Public Theology and Transformation at Middle Church in New York City. She uses her gifts as author, activist, preacher, public theologian toward creating an antiracist, just, fully welcoming society in which everyone has enough. After graduating with an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1992, Jacqui fell in love with urban ministry, leading two churches in Trenton, New Jersey. Fascinated with how faith heals the soul—so we can heal the world—she returned to graduate school, for a Ph.D. in Psychology and Religion from Drew University (2004). Jacqui is the author of several books, including the newly released Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World. See her website.

Published January 2022.

Jeffery Smith describes a 5-step pathway to go beyond the fragmentation of the different schools of psychotherapy and define how psychotherapy works. He discusses: (1) What psychotherapy treats (at 0′ 13″) (2) Entrenched Maladaptive Patterns (at 5′ 28″) (3) The learned fear paradigm (at 16′ 06″) (4) Requirements for change (at 29′ 12″) (5) How this dovetails with other approaches (at 34′ 26″)

See also: Podcast notes (PDF) Continuation of this topic: –  how this perspective applies in clinical practice – Video of live Q & A on this topic

Jeffery Smith MD knew, as a Stanford freshman, that he wanted to be a therapist. Coming from an academic family, that was his entree into what, in the early sixties was called “the real world.” Twelve years later, no less enthusiastic, and married to a French wife, he finished residency in New York and began to practice. An abiding interest in how words exchanged and relational events are able to foster change soon became the theme of his professional life. Mid-career, his interest in therapeutic action dovetailed with a mission to move the field of psychotherapy out of the era of competing schools to one where therapists follow fundamental processes and choose techniques according to client needs. Towards that mission, he started www.howtherapyworks.com, wrote a textbook, Psychotherapy: A Practical Guide, books for laypeople, and established Howtherapyworks Training, a “nondenominational” online program for intermediate to advanced therapists.

Published January 2021.

We talk about metaphors that Salvador Moreno-López uses to understand and orient interaction in psychotherapy and daily life, such as the music of the speech and a jazz duo.

Dr. Salvador Moreno-López, Ph.D., Universidad Iberoamericana, in México City. Certified Focusing Instructor and Certifying Coordinador for Mexico of the International Focusing Institute. Has been a professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, and at the ITESO in Guadalajara, in postgraduate studies in Psychotherapy and Human Development. Has led workshops at Universidad de Fortaleza, Brasil. His most recent book: Descubriendo mi Sabiduría Corporal, Focusing. Articles include: Tendencia actualizante, sabiduría organísmica y comprensión del mundo; Focusing with the Stresses of Everyday Life; and Vivir saludablemente y Enfoque Corporal. Director of Focusing México, psychotherapist, group leader and lecturer. His focus is understanding the interaction between physical and emotional health, with an emphasis on the experiential dimension, and in identifying implications in terms of promoting health.

Published December 2021.

In this 9-minute video, Serge Prengel describes an embodied perspective on how we experience a sense of being (part of) something larger.

Published November 2021.