Psychodynamic Workshops

Healing the Mind and Body

Workshops and Personal Transformation

Spiritual Growth

Workshop participation is a personal initiation; an initiation ritual which gives us an impetus to move forward; movement towards personal transition through stressful life changes … relationships, aging, divorce, illnesses, empty nest, career changes, job loss, creative changes, facing our mortality, death of friends, grief. Initiation frees us to live a life of freedom, joy, creative expression and love. These are intrinsic qualities of our natural self.

Transformational workshops provide the structured challenges and critical exercises to create inner illumination and encourage spiritual growth. A workshop is a place where we can explore specific transition points in our lives in the present moment.

Body and Mind

The workshop establishes a dialogue with the unconscious. Exercises to draw on the active imagination - journal writing, painting, drawing - allow the unconscious to speak. Tending to the images of the psyche, expressing them in a definite form, facilitates this dialogue between the ego and unconscious. Dance and movement create a somatic vehicle for the deeper states of consciousness, allowing the inner feelings and psychic information to come forward.

Our Esalen workshops establish a community; a place where you can work through particular points of passage in your life with people you can trust.

Who Are You?

Transformation, the Work of Wilhelm Reich

If you are over 30 years of age, you may not be sure who you are. How could you when your spirit, your "core" is trapped within decades of emotional armoring? Establishing a dialogue with your unconscius, spiritual self is a good place to start.
When we are open we experience pleasure, liveliness and vitality. All too often, however, we are contracted and feel tension, lack of sexual desire, frozen, heavy, trapped, and ill. These symptoms are communications from the depths of our past rooted in the present in our character structure and body armor. To find out who we are we must first become conscious of our armoring, of the ways we have distorted our natural selves into the unnatural adults that grab, push, cop out, or "play possum" in the struggle to survive in the trap. This workshop is an intensive, confrontational, personally demanding process for those who wish to restructure their armored character at deep levels of biophysical being. The course will discuss Wilhelm Reich's findings of a bioenergetic basis of character formation and utilize direct interventions in the body armoring to mobilize blocked bioenergy. Carl Jung's concepts of transformation will be discussed and provide a complimentary framework in which to understand the changes wrought in deep personal work.

Within a dynamic, supportive group process individuals can experiment with their structure in bold and profound ways that insist on change. Dreams, guided imagery, and movement will deepen the exploration and provide material for a trusting exchange within the workshop community. As we shed unnecessary layers of armor and facade we begin to discover our true, naturally sexual and spiritual natures.

* CE Credit for psychologists, nurses, MFT's and LCSW's

Currently Scheduled Public Workshops:

Relationships: Intimacy Through Differentiation Orgonomy – Wilhelm Reich Esalen® Institute’s 8th Annual Public Workshop: May 11-16, 2008

This workshop will explore the balance of intimacy/differentiation in the context of healthy relationships. Successful, intimate relationships are built on the differentiated self – the ability to maintain a sense of self when deeply engaged with another. When we are differentiated, we are balancing our need to be an individual, which includes our own ideas, needs, goals, and self-identity, with our desire to be close, attached, connected and part of a relationship, family or community. Balancing individuality with togetherness involves following our own internal guidance while developing a capacity to give in and let go to the other. The balance of these two life drives creates healthy relationships. When we lack contact with our core self, we may look to the other person for self-validation or to help us create an identity. This lack of self-identity creates feelings of inadequacy, which places demands on our partner and stresses the relationship. Dr. Frisch, after her workshop at Esalen®: “After we have all simmered together: cried, laughed, screamed, painted, dreamed, walked, breathed, danced, hugged, played, baked in warm sun, and cooled by fresh ocean breeze – we meet each other somehow stripped, softened, honest, our eyes clearer, our feelings visible, the differences wane and what is left is a profound closeness. We all know we have been through something. We have changed. We will approach life differently. We feel alive. It is a rare event in a whole lifetime to have the opportunity to shed so much, to experience such connectedness with others, and to unearth parts of ourselves that might have been buried forever. “ We may expect our partners and friends to conform to our ideals of relationship, and demand that they, subtly or overtly, comply with us, thus causing deep fractures in the relationship. We want our partner to relieve our anxiety and fear, and end up alienating them as a result. When we fuse with another person, neither can breathe, feel freedom, or autonomy. Instead, the relationship becomes distorted by blocked feelings as both partners squirm in this uncomfortable, symbiotic state. When the relationship lacks a sense of commitment and respectful partnership, it unravels and the individuals within it do not feel heard, respected or honored. Again, the balance of separate yet together has not been created. As relationships falter, we attempt to maintain the status quo in order to reduce our anxiety. However, this stops the growth of the relationship as well as our individual progress. When this happens, we become constricted and trapped in a joyless relationship. We are born to be open - to experience pleasure, liveliness, and vitality yet difficulties in coping with life’s struggles can result in a closing in, a contracting against our natural expression. Through the clinical lens of Wilhelm Reich’s Orgonomic Therapy, we will examine how our character defenses manifest in relationship and inhibit our contact with our core, preventing us from developing self-identity. These character styles cause problems in relationship as couples bounce off each other’s defenses rather than have true contact with each other’s core. One such defensive stance might be a style of self-centeredness and arrogance where we attack others when they don’t give us what we feel entitled to. Another might be a repeated running away from situations that make us anxious such as deep interpersonal contact with someone towards whom we might feel attracted. Or we might “freeze” and lose sensation in sexual intimacy. Or become emotionally rigid at the prospect of significant change in ourselves or our lives. While these character attitudes may help us to feel safe and free of anxiety, they seriously interfere with our full enjoyment of life and a sense of excitement in our relationships. Our contracted selves are reflected in our bodies and experienced as stress, tension, holding our breath, lack of sexual interest and other physical symptoms. Our character and body armor keep us from being fully intimate with another. We must free our trapped selves and shed our armor in order to fully share ourselves with our partners, and truly experience them for who they are. Reich speaks of health as a constant pulsation between expansion and contraction. Surrender to the sexual experience with another involves a merging and energetic discharge followed by reconstitution of the renewed self: expansion and contraction, merging and autonomy. As we shed unnecessary layers of defensive armor and façade, our energy can flow naturally throughout the body and we can discover our naturally sexual vital, and loving natures.We come home to our birthright of open vitality. We come home to our authentic, differentiated selves who are fulfilled in the experience of togetherness. Learning Methods:   • Group Processes: Within a dynamic, supportive group process, individuals can experiment with their definition of self in the context of relationship in bold and powerful ways that insist on change and provide the foundation for a trusting exchange within the workshop community.   • Dyadic Exercises: In dyadic exercises, participants can learn to express challenging feelings, explore their issues, and expand their ability to self-express through trusting exchanges, which enhance relationship skills. They learn empathetic ways to listen and respond, fostering better communication abilities. Character defenses can be released along with their associated biophysical armoring, allowing participants to learn a new way of being.   • Didactic Lectures: There will be didactic lectures to deliver content and educate the group.   • Experiential Exercises: Experiential processes such as guided imagery, dream work biophysical exercises including attention to respiration, movement, and creative arts expression may help to uncover and transform difficult issues. Instructors: Patricia R. Frisch, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Orgonomic Institute of Northern California and Richard Blasband, M.D. Adjunct Faculty. Dr. Frisch, an orgonomic therapist, has decades of experience in private practice and group therapy. Dr. Blasband was trained as an orgonomic physician by Elsworth Baker, M.D. who was appointed by Reich to train psychiatrists. Learn more about Drs. Frisch, Blasband, and the Orgonomic Institute of Northern California by clicking here. Where: Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA. Once home to a Native American tribe known as the Essalen, Esalen is situated on 27 acres of spectacular Big Sur coastline with the Santa Lucia Mountains rising sharply behind. The Esalen Institute was founded in 1962 as an alternative educational center devoted to the exploration of what Aldous Huxley called the "human potential," the world of unrealized human capacities that lies beyond the imagination. Esalen soon became known for its blend of East/West philosophies, its experiential/didactic workshops, the steady influx of philosophers, psychologists, artists, and religious thinkers, and its breathtaking grounds blessed with natural hot springs. Visit the Esalen website: http://www.esalen.org for more details about this special location. Cost: Esalen Institute is a residential retreat center offering transformational workshops. Tuition includes delicious and healthy meals, accommodations at Esalen on the Big Sur coastline, access to many of Esalen's amenities, and participation in the workshop. Depending on the accommodations selected, prices range from $535-$1120 for 5 days. Please verify prices and register through Esalen Institute at http://www.esalen.org. Credit: 26 CE credits for psychologists, nurses, MFT's and LCSW's. Recent Past Workshops:   • Unfolding the Creative Self: The Work of Wilhelm Reich   • Transformation: the Work of Wilhelm Reich   • Transformation as we Age   • Character Restructuring with Orgonomy   • Wilhelm Reich: The Bioenergetic Basis for Emotional Transformation   • Alchemy in Character Restructuring Back to Top

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