CENTER for ESSENTIAL THERAPY and MEDITATION

an integrative therapy approach
Involving body, heart, mind and spirit
To help us restore what has been broken
and reclaim our true Self

ESSENTIAL THERAPY: APPROACH

Feeling Alive again

Essential (psycho-)therapy is a unique integrative approach that, as well as being solidly rooted in psychological theory and science, incorporates elements from body oriented psychotherapy (Alexander Lowen’s Bioenergetics, Lisbeth Marcher’s Bodynamic), psychodynamic psychotherapy, gestalt, voice dialogue, creative therapy, and more. The pillar of the approach is meditation. The Essential Therapy approach is unique in the field of therapy, as during the healing process, we do not simply aim to change patterns of behavior, nor simply reaching the root of our problems. What Essential therapy aspires to facilitate is the reconnection to our Essence, to our unique nature.

healing through the inner child

An integral part of the process, and a pathway to reaching again our truth and our humanness is through reconnecting with our inner child. The inner child is a metaphor to address the utmost vulnerable, emotional, open side of ourselves. We all have inside a wounded child, the place inside our psyche that holds our deep hurts and childhood wounds. At the same time, underneath the wounded child, is our magical child that awaits to be discovered. The magical child is the blueprint of who we truly were, before we got wounded and became defensive. It is the doorway to our Soul, to our inner paradise. It is the part of us that remains innocent, intact, free, has a zest for life, and in touch with our Essential qualities, such as joy, compassion, spontaneity, innocence, courage, strength, wisdom, aliveness, and more. Yet, often we live our life oblivious to these parts inside of ourselves, ending up experiencing inner disconnect and deprivation instead of fullness and meaningfulness.

Working with the inner child we slowly learn how to embrace ourselves and find compassion and Self love. We embrace our vulnerability that is the truth of who we are, our nature, helping us find back our Original Face.

WORKING WITH THE BODY

In our work bodywork is a fundamental part of the therapy. When we got hurt, wounded as a child, our needs were not met or we were abused, we left the body to escape the hurt that we had no way to process at that early time. These memories are still there and if we do not. When we got hurt, wounded as a child, our needs were not met or we were abused, we left the body to escape the hurt that we had no way to process at that early time. These memories are still there and if we do not include the body we remain disscociated. Not grounded. And these hurts cannot heal and continue drive our behaviours unconsciously. Our psychological suffering is not only cognitive or emotional – it is embodied.

MEDITATION

If you want to live a more fulfilled life, first you will want to know your potential, who you really are. Meditation is the route to that knowing. It is the methodology of the science of awareness. (Osho)

Meditation is the pillar of the Essential therapy process.

There are different forms of meditation to meet different needs. Some are more quiet and still, while others include movement, expression, dancing and more.

Meditation supports us in the path of reconnecting with our true Self. In meditation, we take a step back and observe all what is happening in our inner world. Instead of being overwhelmed by our experiences or avoiding to feel, we start becoming curious. We stay with whatever we are experiencing whether it is pleasant or unpleasant. This helps us to become “bigger” than our fears, our grief, our anger, our pain, meaning that we can tolerate them, and contain them. From this place, we have more choice in how we respond to situations in our life.
The ability to stay present with our experience is an important part of emotional regulation and maturity.

Meditation becomes a regular moment of meeting yourself, an appointment with your Self.

Meditation is an essential part of every therapy; therapy can point the way, but meditation is nothing less than an appointment with our Self. Meeting our Self and restoring what has been broken is the resolution. If therapy helps us meditate better, it has reached its goal.

Experience your Essence

Essence is what our Soul is made of. It is everything that is innate within us, the unique qualities that we brought into this world, such as courage, aliveness, strength and inner solidity, sweetness, ability to relax and let go, playfulness, spontaneity, creativity, love for truth and more.
When we experience our Essence we feel whole inside, enriched and expanded. When we are not in touch with our Essence, we sense something missing, we may feel lost, or incomplete.
When we were born we were full of Essence; we were not yet conditioned in any way. Our eyes were full of wonder.
As we grew up, we had to adapt to certain expectations from family, school and society as a whole. We learn roles and ways of behaving that help us to belong to our family environment, and we move away from our spontaneous and genuine Self. By and by, our Essence becomes less accessible to us. Over time, we may feel that something is missing, yet we may not be able to tell what.
Yet, buried within us lies a memory, a longing to connect again with who we really are.
In our work we support such a process of healing and transformation that allows us to first become aware of what happened that we disconnected from our Essence. Subsequently, as we slowly embrace each of the psychological hurts and wounds that caused our disconnect from Essence, we slowly go through a process of healing. More and more we are able to let go also in the body into a more natural state of flow and aliveness. Gradually this allows our experiencing of our Essence to become not a fleeting moment of awe and wonder, but a solid and sustainable ground inside of ourselves. We ultimately reach a place of true Self Love.

ABOUT ADHIRA DE GRIP

Adhira trained originally as a medical doctor and worked as a doctor for 15 years in UK and New Zealand. Meanwhile she was interested in answering all the ‘why’s’ medicine could not answer and proceeded to train with Barbara Brennan as a Brennan Healing Science therapist, as a Reconnective therapist, an EFT therapist, in Release Technique and in working with Essence, in Equine assisted therapy, and finally the 4 year education as an Essential Psychotherapist. In addition she has become a New Teacher of Essence.