A Special Monograph Issue: The Spirit Of AEDP: Volume 12




Editor’s Letter by Carrie Ruggieri

The Through Line is Beauty

In AEDP’s phenomenology of transformation, we know wholeness, the beauty of organic wholeness, within and without. However ugly and violent our self-at-worst may be, they are parts that conceal the whole. In unconcealing the I-and-Thou / Dao in the here-and-now, we experientially know, in a deep and personal way, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe. And most importantly, we know the Way (Dao) to get to our self-at-best, our beautiful core that is “fundamentally intact, good, innate, whole, healthy, vital, and life affirming” (Fosha, 2021).

                                                                                                               Danny Yeung, 2024

What does an AEDP therapist, a BC era Chinese spiritual leader, and a 20th century Hasidic German philosopher have in common? A penetrating humanity and an undauntable conviction that there is a core, an essence, in each of us that is, in the words of Diana Fosha, “fundamentally intact, good, innate, whole, healthy, vital, and life affirming.” And in Danny Yeung’s words that extend Diana Fosha’s meaning, it is from this core essence that “we experientially know, in a deep and personal way, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe.” For Zhuangzi it is wrapped in the wordless Dao, for Buber it is within I-Thou. For Danny Yeung it is in the transcendent and transpersonal experiences he identifies as the Spirit of AEDP. 

Such profound insights, and moreover, the yearning to understand the transcendent experiences that led to them, appear anew in different contexts, cultures, and eras, earning phenomenological validity. Though AEDP is phenomenologically informed and therefore finds satisfying resonance with thinkers who observed, contemplated and wrote about human nature and humanity, it is not purely phenomenological. AEDP leans responsibly toward empiricism and is decidedly not a spiritual practice. And yet, we encounter transcendent and transpersonal experiences routinely. How do we explain these without veering too far off course, outside of our discipline? 

Dr. Danny Yeung, Danny, as he is fondly known to us, has taken the lead among us, and is uniquely qualified to explore and elucidate these ubiquitous transcendent and transpersonal phenomena within AEDP therapy (Yeung, 2023; Yeung, 2021; Yeung, Zhang, 2020; Yeung, Fosha, Ye Perman, Xu; 2019; Yeung, Cheung, 2009). Danny discovers an elegant coherence among Zhuangzi, Buber, neuroscience and AEDP core principals – such as core state, therapeutic presence and core self. However, he is not merely synthesizing these ideas; he is clasping together the palms of past and present humanistic thought in a deep bow of reverence; with the aim to further illuminate and legitimize our most fundamental AEDP guiding principles. 

I find myself in core state as I write this. In our current climate of reflexive polarization and confused realities (referred to as meta-crisis within the article) it feels at once grounding/secure and uplifting, as in eyes uplifted, to find a simple fact of a humanistic truth, from NY, to ancient China, to 20th century Germany, from neuroscience to Judaism to Daoism to secular academia (listed intentionally out of any logical sequence)… continuous, unwavering, and indistinguishable in its essence, that, regardless of change and discontinuity, there is a core constancy threading humanity through time. 

To mirror Danny’s Socratic style: Why should we care about Zhuangzi and Buber? What do we have to learn from them that we don’t already know from our vast reservoir of clinical writings? I can answer this question because I asked it myself at the first read. I was not sure what, beyond some symmetries of thought, could be gained. After immersing myself in this gift of a monograph, that now seems like a silly question: what is there to gain, you ask?!

The monograph is his answer to the long asked question, “What is the mysterious +1 of the AEDP Magnificent 9+1 Change Processes? The +1 refers to a uniquely AEDP phenomena – the felt sensed, ineffable, transpersonal phenomena that therapist’s reportedly experience on the way to, during, and/or, in the aftermath of core state. By applying teachings outside of traditional psychotherapy from disciplines better equipped to explore such phenomena, Danny has operationalized, given us tools to develop, and to deliberately practice this +1, now known as the Spirit of AEDP, for the benefit of our clients, our-selves, and by extension, our community and the Cosmos; in the words of Martin Buber, “from stones to stars.”

Danny walks us through this journey from “stones to stars,” in the form of questions/answers with attuned pacing. It is best taken as a leisurely and contemplative excursion, with pauses for reflection; it is, after all, a summer issue.  


Author’s Introduction by Danny Yeung

My I-Thou Encounter with AEDP 

“Like its counterpart, true self experiencing, true other experiencing takes place in a state of deep affective contact.”

Diana Fosha

Inside the lecture hall in Washington School of Psychiatry on Saturday February 8, 2003, I met Dr. Diana Fosha for the first time. Awestruck by the AEDP work she demonstrated on videotape, the moment-to-moment behind the scenes explication of why she did what she did, which led to the powerful transformation of the client within minutes, was nothing I have ever experienced in all my years of psychotherapy training and practice. 

Just weeks prior, a Canadian national newspaper special article reported there were over 60 million people suffering from some form of mental illness in China. Felt sensing this news as some form of transpersonal “call,” I wondered with tremulousness at the prospect that AEDP could be a healing response for this staggering phenomenon of suffering.

During lunchtime, boldly sitting next to Dr. Fosha, I introduced myself:

Yeung: (With some fear and trembling) Hello, Dr. Fosha, my name is Danny Yeung. I am from Toronto, Canada and I came here to attend your lecture. What a powerful presentation you did! 

Fosha: (Warm and slow) Hello Danny. Thank you for coming. I am glad you enjoyed my presentation.

Yeung: Dr. Fosha, your concept of true self and true other is absolutely revolutionary. It is a beautiful and brilliant integration of Winnicott’s concept of true self and Buber’s I-and-Thou encounter. I have always loved Buber’s work, and you operationalized the I-and-Thou experience in such an original, simple and understandable way. It is just so amazing!

Fosha: Thank you for seeing it and saying it.

Yeung: (More fear and trembling) Can I … learn AEDP to the extent that … I could eventually teach it?

Fosha: (Brightly. Confidently) Yes of course!

read more>>


The Spirit Of AEDP: I-and-Thou / Dao In The Here-and-Now

Danny Yeung

The primary word I-Thou can only be spoken with the whole being…in each Thou we address the eternal Thou.

Martin Buber, I and Thou

I and Thou begins from experience rather than abstract concepts, experience which points to what is the human in man.

Martin Buber & Maurice Friedman, The Knowledge of Man

The Tao that can be told, is not the everlasting Tao.14 The name that can be named is not the everlasting name. Nameless is the virgin of all things, named is the mother of all things.

Rosemarie Anderson, The Divine Feminine Tao Te Ching

Prelude: Beyond doing to being

Metaprocessing in the first AEDP Immersion Course15, I contemplated the fundamental nature of humanity as revealed in the AEDP model’s core state phenomenology. Just as the restoration of frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel allowed the original splendor of Michelangelo’s masterpieces to shine again, AEDP seeks to restore humanity to its original beauty. I reflected on how our innate human tendencies towards rightness, truthfulness, self-compassion and compassion for others, are covered by layers of defenses due to trauma, but are unconcealed through AEDP’s transformation process. The AEDP belief that it is possible to restore, or unconceal, humans back to our original wholeness continues to inspire my core being as an AEDP therapist.

In the Forward to The Instinct to Heal: Practice Awakening the Power of Transformance (Yeung, 2023), Dr. Diana Fosha, in response to my inquiry about the spirit of AEDP, states:

The spirit of AEDP is something that is greater than the sum of all of the parts. It is a felt sense, the way AEDP lives in the therapist’s heart and mind and body and soul – something that informs their being with the patient in a way that is more fundamental than the application of specific interventions to the clinical situation… [the spirit of AEDP] informs them in a lived way by the practitioner…. [the spirit of AEDP]

Read more>>>