In Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s story, The Secret Garden, there is a passage where the young girl, Mary, describes springtime to Colin, a bedbound boy who has not ventured outside in some time. ‘It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth,’ she tells him.1 This is an image I hold in mind as the seasons turn. It also seems a rich way of visualising an inner journey, in which we seek to ‘uphold the tension of the opposites’, as Jung put it.2
This issue’s cover article, ‘The sound of dreams’ by Caroline Georgiou (p6), is about innerdance, which is a sound-healing modality. Caroline’s account of this experiential practice certainly has echoes of sun on the rain and rain on the sun. She describes how those taking part simultaneously experience somatic arousal and deep rest. And I think that this makes sense because, as José Luis Leal hints at on p11, most therapeutic transformation can only emerge from contrasting states being simultaneously present. And with some synchronicity, Alistair Ross also writes about embracing our inner weather (p19).
The theme runs through Helen Carter’s words on p24. She is the first to take part in our new feature Ten reasons, which introduces practitioners from different faith contexts, and invites them to talk about how their worldview impacts their work. Helen shares that her belief system, Buddhism, acts as a container and supports her sense of therapeutic presence. Here too, there is a strong sense that suffering can be more fully felt in the context of ‘being with’. I hope that you like this new feature and if you would like to share your own ‘ten reasons’, then please do get in touch.
Playing about with the symbolism in Mary’s depiction of springtime, I am reminded just how useful metaphor can be at filling spaces where words don’t quite come. Mike Moss’s article, ‘A shared journey’ (p20), is an example of this. It describes an active imagination exercise during a supervision session. By trusting in the power of an image, and letting go of the usual structure, Mike and his supervisee were able to find new meaning, and access parts of their combined process that were still ‘pushing up and working under the earth’ (to return to Mary’s seasonal chat with Colin). Arguably, spirituality itself works in a similar way in the therapeutic relationship. And, although it holds an inevitable mystery, advocates like BACP Spirituality Executive member, Sukhi Sian, call for it to be named and recognised in workplaces. Read Toolkit on p12 to find out why.
I hope that you will find springtime inspiration in these pages and, as ever, please get in touch if you would like to write about your ways of working
Amy McCormack, Editor
thresholds.editorial@bacp.co.uk
