Brian O\'neill

The Noble Quest: Psychotherapy and the Holy Brian O\'neill

Publisher Marketing: Since the beginning of time people have developed knowledge to make sense of who we are and the world we live in. The ancient forms of psychology (as in the original meaning of the study of the 'psyche' or soul) included the visible and invisible aspects of reality - unlike the current split today between secular and spiritual, between the visible and the invisible which proliferates in Western culture. Most modern psychologies, by attending mainly to the visible world, have focused on that which will fade and die - the visible. The ancient psychologies began in the visible realm and included the invisible beyond external appearance. These approaches are seen by modern psychologists as religions or spiritual practices. Yet ancient psychologies were simply broader and more holistic, discovering the source of the visible world in the invisible world. They discovered the Holy and for many this Holy is God. This is the aim of this book. To tell the story of the loss of the Holy in psychology and regain this experience, as it is happening today. To make whole the visible and invisible realities currently divided. It offers a journey of exploration to discover a golden thread of the wider reality that makes us essentially human. This wider reality helps in understanding and healing the unavoidable sufferings of being human. Contributor Bio:  O'Neill, Brian Brian O'Neill, B. A. (Hons), MAPS is co-director of the Illawarra Gestalt Centre, past president of AAGT and on the editorial boards of the Gestalt Review and Studies in Gestalt. He has published on field theory, relationship therapy and edited the text Community. Psychotherapy and Life Focus: A Gestalt Anthology of the History, Theory and Practice of Living in Community (Ravenwood Press). He has collaborated with his wife Jenny in writing on gestalt couples therapy and the use of group in training and they have been training and supervising therapists for many years both in Australia and internationally. Brian is currently a senior fellow in mental health at the University of Wollongong and Clinical Director for Lives Lived Well, a state wide service working with substance misuse and also youth mental health across Queensland. As well as bringing gestalt therapy to the relationship field, he has worked extensively in Drug and Alcohol (was Head of the NSW State Drug Treatment Unit), and Mental Health (awarded the Australia and New Zealand Gold Medal for mental health achievement by the Governor General, Sir William Deane)