Beyond Therapy

Igniting Life Focus Community Movements

Erving Polster

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351295741
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Clinical Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In Beyond Therapy, Erving Polster examines the role of "life focus" in three of society's most familiar activities: ordinary conversation, the arts, and religion. He shows the life focus movement to be an indivisible complement to just simply living. In proposing a paradigm shift from psychotherapy's priority for changing people's troubled lives into the complementary purpose of illuminating their lives, the author invites the participation of many people who do not seek remedial treatment for emotional or psychological problems.

Polster incorporates a broader scenario for enhancing attention through community groups, showing that the convergence of people's minds on commonly important life themes creates enlightenment. This interlocked focus amplifies the ensuing conversational content and creates a meditation-like absorption. This kind of pointed focus, argues Polster, has the power to colour the lives of the participants.

This work offers rationale and design for life focus community groups, and also creates a heightened identity for the life focus movement, providing other foundational ideas that help to unify diverse approaches. Mental health professionals will benefit from its wealth of specific exercises and instructions for program design. Polster provides leaders and group members with a well-rounded perspective on the basics of personal enlightenment and communal belonging.

Index

A

1. absolutism. see Moral absolutism
2. academic psychology, 131
3. accessibly hidden, 24–25, 76
4. Aesop’s Fables, 159
5. African Methodist Episcopal Church, 66
6. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), 61–62
7. Alexander, Ronald, 55–56
8. American Psychological Association, 132
9. American Revolution, 148
10. America Speaks, 60–61
11. amplifying reality, 91–93
12. anger, ethos and, 117–118
13. Answer to Job (Jung), 134
14. anthropomorphism, 158–162. see also Human needs
15. concept, 143
16. empty chair dialogue, 161–162
17. I-Thou relationship, 160–161
18. 36 Arguments for the Existence of God (Rebecca Goldstein), 92
19. art and science, 129
20. artful authenticity, 95–96
21. artistic experience, 85–86
22. artistic quality, domain of, 19
23. artists, fluidity and, 177–178
24. arts, life focus in, 17–20
25. arts and psychotherapy, 85–96
26. artful authenticity, 95–96
27. difference between, 88–89
28. paralleling the role of art, 89–94
29. aspiration, 110
30. Atran, Scott, 194, 198, 201–202
31. attention
32. communal, expansion of, 7
33. and mental events, 157
34. personal, 13
35. psychotherapeutic, 13
36. authorship, 109–110
37. awareness, 50–51

B

1. Back, Kurt, 40–41
2. Bandura, Albert, 44
3. behavioral symptomatology, 20–21
4. belonging
5. communal worship and, 128
6. conformity and, 183
7. contact boundary,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Section A. The Importance of Life Focus
• Section B. How Life Focus Groups Work
• Section C. Social Implications of Life Focus
• Bibliography
• Index