Self-Development and Transcendence: Effective Consciousness as the Goal of Psychotherapy

Two-thirds of the way through my thirty-eight year career as a Clinical Psychologist I felt the need to describe and understand exactly what I had been doing as I attempted to help counselees, and why I seemed to be successful. This self-analysis forced me to develop working definitions of life, consciousness, freewill, self-development, and self-transcendence, and led me to conclude that to be successful in psychotherapy counselees must be taught the effective use of consciousness. Sharing what I have learned is my way of thanking those thousands of counselees who have shared their lives with me and enabled me to learn about myself. I also hope that reading this book will encourage my psychotherapeutic colleagues to put even more effort into their own self-analysis. For me, the effort was worthwhile. At the close of my career, I am finally comfortable that what I was doing was exactly what I should have been doing.