Transformance Journal: Volume 12, A Special Issue Monograph: The Spirit of AEDP™
This monograph is best experienced when you view or download the pdf here
The Spirit Of AEDP
I-and-Thou / Dao In The Here-and-Now
Danny Yeung
Table of Contents
Editor’s Letter: The Through Line is Beauty by Carrie Ruggieri ………………………….…………………page 2
Author’s Introduction: My I-Thou Encounter with AEDP by Danny Yeung …………………………….. page 4
Prelude: Beyond Doing to Being …………………………………………………………………………………………….page 9
Part I: Invoking Buber and Zhuangzi …………………………………………………………….….……………………page 12
A. Martin Buber: I-Thou and the spirit of aedp
B. Zhuangzi Daoism
Part II: The Ineffable +1 Operationalized ……………………………………………………..…………..……………page 18
A. What is the spirit of aedp: unpacking the triangle
B. The spirit of AEDP: why care?
C. The spirit of AEDP as I-Thou relating applied
D. The Spirit of AEDP as I-Dao relating applied
Part III. How to Cultivate the Spirit of AEDP : Further Unpacking the Triangle …….……….…….page 24
A. The art of heartfelt listening
B. The phenomenology of dialogical pre / absencing
1. Effortful absencing and effortless presencing. How: seesawing of attention
2. Five deepening levels of pre / absencing
C. The ontological reality of I-and-Thou/Dao in the here and now
1. Clinical illustration: The man who has beauty within
Part IV Heart, the Sacred Feminine (Dao) Great Mother, and Synchronicity ………………………page 42
A. The Spirit that encompasses the triangle of the aedp spirit
B. Clinical illustration: The kind of queen who feels at ease
C. Detour: Heart, the Sacred Feminine (Dao) Great Mother, and synchronicity
D. So What’s new? Emergent and really out there musings
Part V. Concluding remarks ……………………………………………………………………………………………….page 54
Special Acknowledgments …………………………………………………………………..……………………………page 56
Appendix A ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..page 57
Selected References …………………………………………….…………………………………………………………..page 59
This monograph is best experienced when you view or download the pdf here
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.
This monograph is best experienced when you view or download the pdf here
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!
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