Last weekend, I completed the first module, ‘Life Context’ of the Intensive Journal Program from Dialogue House.This extensive therapeutic journal writing method was created by Dr.Ira Progoff, a New York psychotherapist, pioneer of holistic depth psychology who worked with Carl Jung in Switzerland in the 1950s.
According to his website, “As a practicing depth psychologist and Director of the Institute for Research in Depth Psychology at Drew University from 1959 to 1971, Dr. Progoff conducted research on the dynamic process by which individuals develop more fulfilling lives.
As a psychotherapist, he found that the clients who wrote in some form of a journal were able to work through issues more rapidly. Through this research, he then developed and refined the Intensive Journal Method in the mid-1960's and 1970's to provide a way to mirror the processes by which people become dynamic and develop themselves."
It was an exhaustive plow-the-depths experience with lots of dialogue writing:with my father who art in heaven (it felt like time to start that conversation),with the song I’m writing for my upcoming album, with someone who inspires me and with my body (my afflicted right side and I started talking about how we can let go of our current dis-ease, pain and suffering).
I learned how to center myself and breathe into my journal writing. I experienced how writing about how I felt after the journal writing, and then writing down how I felt after rereading my entry deepened (!) the journaling process. I now have the option too of reading my entry aloud and recording how I feel hearing my writing.
You can learn more about Dr. Progoff’s book ‘At a Journal Workshop’ in the therapeutic journal writing bookstore.
I look forward to taking the next two modules (one at a time, please).
For now I have the three ring workbook that will keep me busy for quite awhile uncovering more of the me that I gotta be:
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