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February 2009 
Big Mind Big Heart for Counsellors and Therapists training
Posted on Oct 28th, 2007
by 
New Direction Consulting
New Direction Consulting
Today I introduced a group of counsellors and therapists at BACP North London to Big Mind Big Heart as a practice that can develop their 'muscle' to sense the 'numinous' as a means to promote healing and transformation. see summary of workshop below.
Psychological and Numinous Dimensions of Transformation with an Introduction to Voice Dialogue to Promote a Shift in Awareness. Martin Egan PhD MBACP (Accred.)
Participants were introduced to why Rudolf Otto invented the term 'Numinous' in his 1923 book 'The Idea of the Holy' as a means to separate 'the holy' from any moral or rational loading that had become associated with it. Describing how the notion of the numinous could be understood, Otto wrote: "There is only one way to help another to an understanding of it. He must be guided and led on by consideration and discussion of the matter through the ways of his own mind, until he reach the point at which the ‘numinous' in him perforce begins to stir, to start into life and into consciousness. We can co-operate in this process by bringing before his notice all that can be found in other regions of the mind, already known and familiar, to resemble, or again to afford some special contrast to, the particular experience we wish to elucidate. Then we must add: ‘This X of ours is not precisely this experience, but akin to this one and the opposite of that
other. ..... In other words our X cannot, strictly speaking, be taught, it can only be evoked, awakened in the mind; as everything that comes ‘of the spirit' must be awakened." (Otto, 1923, p7)
In the workshop I invited participants to consider their own understanding of the numinous and that of their clients. I proposed that Otto's description above captured something of what may occur during counselling or therapy. I argued that to awaken our sense and awareness of the numinous in our own experience, and that of our clients, we needed to 'exercise and tone the muscle' that identifies and recognises these moments and the potential for them. We need to know what practises or activities can tone this 'muscle' in each of us. To this end I suggested, Otto Scharmer's model of listening to the "I in Source" through Open Mind, Open Heart and Open Will as a way of listening into the 'future and potential wanting to emerge' as shown in Scharmer's Theory U (Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges, 2007).
I went on to demonstrate how a combination of the voice dialogue technique of Hal and Sidra Stone (Embracing Ourselves - the voice dialogue manual, 1989) and Zen Master Dennis Gempo Merzel's 'Big Mind Big Heart' processes (Big Mind Big Heart - finding your way, 2007) could be used to awaken our perception of the numinous and its potential to promote a shift in awareness. I argued that all counselling and therapy trainings are in need of real training in this area if counsellors and therapists are to fully honour the numinous as it arises in their consulting rooms and in their own and their clients lives. Further, I testified to the evidence in my own clinical work that clients became adept at practising 'Big Mind Big Heart' as a self healing process in their lives.
Martin Egan 28th October 2007
www.newdirectionconsulting.co.uk
martin@insightcoach.eu
Psychological and Numinous Dimensions of Transformation with an Introduction to Voice Dialogue to Promote a Shift in Awareness. Martin Egan PhD MBACP (Accred.)
Participants were introduced to why Rudolf Otto invented the term 'Numinous' in his 1923 book 'The Idea of the Holy' as a means to separate 'the holy' from any moral or rational loading that had become associated with it. Describing how the notion of the numinous could be understood, Otto wrote: "There is only one way to help another to an understanding of it. He must be guided and led on by consideration and discussion of the matter through the ways of his own mind, until he reach the point at which the ‘numinous' in him perforce begins to stir, to start into life and into consciousness. We can co-operate in this process by bringing before his notice all that can be found in other regions of the mind, already known and familiar, to resemble, or again to afford some special contrast to, the particular experience we wish to elucidate. Then we must add: ‘This X of ours is not precisely this experience, but akin to this one and the opposite of that
other. ..... In other words our X cannot, strictly speaking, be taught, it can only be evoked, awakened in the mind; as everything that comes ‘of the spirit' must be awakened." (Otto, 1923, p7)
In the workshop I invited participants to consider their own understanding of the numinous and that of their clients. I proposed that Otto's description above captured something of what may occur during counselling or therapy. I argued that to awaken our sense and awareness of the numinous in our own experience, and that of our clients, we needed to 'exercise and tone the muscle' that identifies and recognises these moments and the potential for them. We need to know what practises or activities can tone this 'muscle' in each of us. To this end I suggested, Otto Scharmer's model of listening to the "I in Source" through Open Mind, Open Heart and Open Will as a way of listening into the 'future and potential wanting to emerge' as shown in Scharmer's Theory U (Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges, 2007).
I went on to demonstrate how a combination of the voice dialogue technique of Hal and Sidra Stone (Embracing Ourselves - the voice dialogue manual, 1989) and Zen Master Dennis Gempo Merzel's 'Big Mind Big Heart' processes (Big Mind Big Heart - finding your way, 2007) could be used to awaken our perception of the numinous and its potential to promote a shift in awareness. I argued that all counselling and therapy trainings are in need of real training in this area if counsellors and therapists are to fully honour the numinous as it arises in their consulting rooms and in their own and their clients lives. Further, I testified to the evidence in my own clinical work that clients became adept at practising 'Big Mind Big Heart' as a self healing process in their lives.
Martin Egan 28th October 2007
www.newdirectionconsulting.co.uk
martin@insightcoach.eu
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