The Alchemy of Love

Helping professionals tend not to talk about loving their clients or students. Instead they use terms such as unconditional positive regard or empathy. This book presents a study of personal growth experiences during psychotherapy training. These journeys were described as tumultuous, yet transformative, in nature, and paralleled the psychotherapy process itself. The words of the graduates echoed those of Kahil Gibran writing about love. Poets, spiritual writers and ordinary folk speak freely of love, yet psychotherapists are much more constrained. This book explores journeys of self-development, the nature of love, and the alchemical force of love in facilitating personal growth. Set in Aotearoa/New Zealand the study brings a bicultural perspective to psychotherapy training. Stories told by local psychotherapy graduates are set alongside the voices of psychotherapy trainers from around the world. In the conclusion there are suggestions as to why psychotherapists and psychotherapy trainers shy away from directly naming the complex phenomenon we call love, and why we should start a challenging dialogue where we face head on the central place of love in our work.