Techniques and Approaches for Therapists
An integrated system for ongoing psychological growth
using Dr. Ira Progoff’s principles of holistic depth psychology
Dr. Ira Progoff’s Intensive Journal® method has helped over 175,000 people of different backgrounds to develop more meaningful lives.
The method’s carefully designed writing exercises are based upon Dr. Progoff’s theories and approaches for psychological growth.
Dr. Progoff states the purpose of the method:The Intensive Journal method is not journal keeping, not introspective diary keeping, and it isn’t writing therapy…it is the full scale active method of personal life integration for continuous and cumulative work.
Enhance the Therapy Process and Deal with Managed Care
Both therapists and clients can benefit from attending Intensive Journal workshops.
Therapists: Potential Increased Effectiveness
- Learn fresh processes for human growth to develop and integrate life experiences
- Broaden perspectives and intuitive abilities
Clients: Greater Participation Possible
- Uncover and develop issues and experiences
- Integrate selected exercises into sessions
Therapy Sessions: Help Lower Cost and Duration
- Sessions can be more productive
- Clients can work through issues faster
Post-Therapy: A Life-Long Tool for Self-Growth
Key Principles of the Progoff™ Approach
As a psychotherapist and university-based research professor, Dr. Progoff formulated his theories of psychological growth that he termed “holistic depth psychology” by which persons are able to: 1
Develop Resources within Individuals for Growth
- Progoff focused on understanding the processes by which growth takes place and devised procedures to facilitate that growth.
Reconnect with Inner Strengths and Capacities
- Holistic depth psychology supports the integrative unfolding principle taking place within a person.
- Focus is on what each life is trying to become, its unique seed potential or inherent nature.
- Therapy and healing are by-products of the growth process.
Employ the “Whole Life” Approach
- Working through issues within the context of an entire life provides important benefits of perspective and safety.
- Greater awareness about a wide range of experiences creates a foundation for more sound decision-making.
- Viewed in a wider context, issues become more manageable.
Utilize an Evocative / Non-Analytical Methodology
- The inner integrative process comes forth from an individual’s inner self rather than from an externally imposed method.
Focus on Inner Development
- The most direct and penetrating insights come from the depths of the psyche and not from intellectualization at the surface.
- The crucial question is neither what, nor how, but where the work takes place. “Where” means at what depth in the psyche the personality is focused.
Integrate Symbolic Material, the Source of Potential
- Human personality unfolds by way of images. Participating in the movement of deeper-thanconscious material can provide a rich resource from which ideas and actions unfold.
Offer a Means for Direct Inner Experience
- Individuals require ways of experience to discover meaning for themselves.
A major part of the meaning of life is contained in the very process of discovering it….The meaning of life cannot be told; it has to happen to a person…”2
1 The books of Ira Progoff, Ph.D. that discuss the principles of holistic depth psychology are: Death Depth Psychology and Modern Man, The Symbolic and the Real, and The Dynamics of Hope.
2 The Symbolic and the Real, by Ira Progoff, PhD., McGraw-Hill Paperback Edition, pp. 13-14.
