James Scurry
MA BA UKCP ACPP
Psychotherapy
Core Process Psychotherapy is a somatic (body-based) approach to psychotherapy which harnesses both ancient eastern, and contemporary western, thought on the mind and body.
Core Process Psychotherapy begins with the premise that each of us possesses an immutable state of inherent health inside us, and that we all hold the potential to reorient towards that inherent health by embarking on our own personal inner journeys (or processes) of growth and transformation.
The word Core refers to who we really are at the centre of our Being, while the word Process refers to the ongoing unfolding inner journey that leads us to be able to live as our authentic self.
If we think about our Core as a brightly polished mirror that reflects back to us an accurate image of who we really are, then the Process part of the journey refers to the work we do to polish the mirror and to remove the tarnish which prevents us from seeing a clear and accurate reflection.
Our ways of responding to the world we live in are greatly informed by our past conditioning and by the things we’ve experienced and needed to respond to as we’ve gone through life.
These unconscious processes, reactions, and strategies may have been very important in order for us to cope with the things we had to face, however at a certain point we all outgrow them.
Psychotherapy helps us to bring these patterns, strategies and behaviours into conscious awareness, to examine and understand them, and then ultimately to let them go so that we can cultivate new and more helpful ways of simply 'being', better suited to our current lives.
During a therapy session we work slowly and safely with where the body leads us in the present moment. As a somatic approach, Core Process Psychotherapy holds the potential to bring about deep and lasting personal transformation.
Working with the body helps us to move beyond our personal stories (the things our conscious minds are already aware of) and into the deeper wisdom residing in our unconscious, which is held in the body.
Core Process Psychotherapy is not a psychotherapeutic approach connected to any one religious tradition, although its teachings are greatly informed by Buddhism. I draw on a broad cross section of wisdom spanning many spiritual traditions to help people to reconnect with, and to feel held by, something bigger than just themselves.
A psycho-spiritual perspective to therapy (that’s spiritual with a little ‘s’) means that I help to reorientate my clients back to that which is already whole within them. There are many different ways of languaging this inherent health which lies at the core of our Being, and during the therapeutic process, each individual comes to feel and understand it in their own unique way.