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Dear Newsletter Reader,
There are 2 articles in this newsletter; one from Dr. Elizabeth Newby-Fraser on Life Coaching and one from my self on Dr. Kazuhiro Motoyama's lecture on June 14. Also, Dr. Motoyama's new book "Science and the Evolution of Religion" will be available on the middle of July. Please visit our book store if you are interested.
Best regards,
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To Coach or Counsel: New Options for the Helping Professions
Walt Rutherford and Elizabeth Newby-Fraser |
New approaches to counseling or mentoring to improve psychosocial adaptations and life satisfaction continuously emerge in the field of mental health and among the helping professions, One of the growing modalities, life coaching, has been expanding rapidly as a profession over the past couple of decades. This has been fuelled by the demand for trained coaches from the corporate sector as well as from individual clients seeking personal growth and to improve many areas of their lives and their relationships.
A reason for the success from the client's perspective is that they do not need to be diagnosed as suffering from a clinical disorder when they seek assistance with problematic life issues, which may create embarrassment or feelings of being stigmatized. As a result there are instances of licensed professionals who have changed their professional practice to that of life coach or they choose to include life coaching in their repertoire of professional skills. One of the considerations that affect these decisions is the demands, limitations and restrictions that go with licensure.
Students and graduates entering the field of psychology, or some other form of helping profession, have choices to make regarding the way in which they wish to offer their services. An influential issue to consider is that of licensing as the training, degree requirements, internship hours, and content of academic programs will depend upon this choice. In the past, this choice was heavily biased toward becoming licensed as a Psychologist, Marriage and Family Therapist, or Clinical Social worker. Today, many more are choosing to offer services without a license.
To begin with, the assumption that one can practice without a license is a primary one. There are no laws forbidding a helper to practice without a license. There are many consequences both pro and con, however no one will prohibit you from engaging in this practice as long as you do not advertise or imply that you are a licensed professional. The issue here seems to be truth in advertising.
A second issue is that of finances. Licensed professionals can receive third party payments from clients' insurance. This is a mighty concern to some and not at all to others. As a licensed professional you will benefit financially from this advantage and your client will benefit to the degree that insurance provides payment or reimbursement of the client therapy.expenses. This can lead to extended periods of therapy because with the insurance help it is more affordable.
Today, this advantage is not as great as in the past due to managed care which limits the number of sessions provided and the shrinking insurance coverage - what is covered and what the insurance company will pay per visit. Many plans only offer benefits for the most severe crisis situation or hospitalization. Some coverage is for a short term like a maximum of four sessions. Patients choose their practitioner from a list of professionals; if you are not on the "panel" you will not be able to provide the counseling.
On an increasing basis patients have become accustomed to paying for their fees "out of pocket" and not being reimbursed so that they can exert more control over who they choose to be their therapist, what their therapy will consist of, and how long it will last. Professionals who choose to practice without a license have a direct relationship with their patient financially. Therefore they do not have to deal with those issues with the third party - they believe that their freedom and the client's acceptance of responsibility for payment outweigh the smaller market of clients and a smaller rate of pay.
The number of years that training will take and the content of the program of study is another issue. A licensed professional will be involved in supervised internships for the equivalent of approximately two years before licensing. This coupled with the preparation for exams and taking exams, extends the period before a professional can become licensed and be a licensed professional to almost three years. Some feel that this is an unnecessary or unacceptable burden and choose to practice without a license.
The licensing board prescribes the program of study for one who is to become licensed and there are few deviations from these requirements. Those who wish to study a different form of healing studies such as mind-body or transpersonal courses can take these courses but then their programs become too exhaustive. For these reason professionals who wanting to do more holistic or alternate forms of healing, or therapy such as energy psychology (which is increasingly regarded as mainstream), choose to become trained as life coaches, as it offers a more flexible approach to intervention.
Life coaching can include credentialing, which can also pose an issue for life coaches; the most widely and internationally recognized form of certification is that of the International Coach Federation. This begins at the associate level which requires 60 hours of lectures and training and 240 hours of practicum to apply for credentialing. However not all practicing life coaches choose to become credentialed, but rely on ways such as peer supervision or membership of a community professional organization to help ensure that they provide a high standard of professional service.
While some competencies and ethical standards taught in life coach training are common to basic counseling training, there are areas of convergence and divergence. Coaching strategies are not designed to treat serious forms of mental illness that require medication or more intensive and prolonged forms of therapy. Life coaching training includes recognition of clients who require clinical assistance, and the development of appropriate referral systems.
For holistic practitioners life coaching provides greater flexibility as it has applications in the areas of, not only psychological, but also physical and spiritual well-being and the opportunity to practice effectively in integrating more areas essential to holistic human functioning. Although there are certain skills that are considered fundamental to most types of coaching; there are specialized skills specific to particular areas of coaching: health and wellness, spiritual, and integrative coaching. CIHS is planning to provide a certificate program the covers a range of life coaching approaches at the beginning of 2010.
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Kazuhiro Sensei's lecture on Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama
"Motoyama Model " |
 This article is a summary of Kazuhiro-sensei's one-day lecture on June 14, 2009. Kazuhiro-sensei is a son of Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama and his successor as Shinto head priest of Tamamitsu Shrine in Tokyo. Kazuhiro-sensei began his spiritual practice at the age of 14 under his father's guidance. He holds MS degree in physics and completed doctorate course requirements in theory of mathematical systems at Tokyo Institute of Technology. With his advanced spiritual practice, blended with logical/scientific thinking, he presented a comprehensive interpretation of Dr. Motoyama's world view and ontological theory of spiritual evolution, which he called "Motoyama Model".
The Motoyama Model consists of 3 pillars, namely, World View-Creation Theory, Theory of Spiritual Practice and Logic of "Basho" ("topos" or field).
First pillar of this model is World View-Creation Theory. Through his long acetic spiritual practices, he attained enlightenment and intuitively grasped the existence of the Absolute and this experience made him realize that this Absolute is the ultimate source of all creation. The Absolute gives birth to two principles, i.e., purusha and prakriti. Purusha is a Sanskrit word meaning the universal consciousness or simply "pure spirit" and prakriti means a primordial matter.
All things in material world are created by purusha acting on prakriti. Prakriti is the principle of matter, the potency not yet manifest. Prakriti is a material principle in formless primordial matter. Yet, it has essence of purusha within itself. Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama calls this essence of purusha in the primordial matter as "bud of spirit". He explains that, when purusha acts on the "bud of spirit", certain order is formed inside the primordial matter and creation of material diversity proceeds not only in physical dimensions but also in astral and causal dimensions. All things in the material dimensions are created in this way. Therefore, everything inherently contains the quality of purusha. This is true with us individual human being also. Most humans residing in the physical dimension are not aware of the purusha aspect. The effort of individual to develop awareness of purusha is the spiritual practice and this process is the spiritual evolution. The human soul was formed from the "bud of spirit" and has evolved to the stage where it is now. It is destined to further evolve to the stage where its spiritual qualities resemble those of "purusha".
 Next pillar Kazuhiro-sensei explained is the Theory of Spiritual Practice. In Motoyama Model there are 3 phases at each stage of spiritual evolution. Qualitatively there are 3 stages of spiritual evolution; physical-to-astral, astral-to-causal, and causal-to-purusha. In physical-to-astral ascension, for example, there are 3 phases for the practitioner to go through before achieving the complete ascension. Those phases are 1) Incomplete Union, 2) Ecstasy and 3) Complete Union. In the phase of Incomplete Union the practitioner feels the presence or power of the being of higher dimension and is fully conscious of its existence. Second phase is Ecstasy. It is a phase in which the being in higher dimension acts on practitioner's soul pulling it up toward the higher dimension but not yet quite accomplished. In this phase the practitioner feels intense power coming into him, experiencing an overwhelming sense of ecstasy. This phase is often mistaken as the moment of enlightenment but not really so, yet. The practitioner's consciousness still remains in between the two dimensions. The third phase, Complete Union, is the complete "unification of being".
This three-phase process is common to all ascension stages of astral-to-causal and causal-to-purusha in Motoyama Model.
The next pillar is theory of "Basho". "Basho" is a Japanese word meaning "place". Dr. Motoyama sometime explains it alternately in terms of "field" or "topos". This does not mean physical space, however. It is a philosophical term used first by a Japanese philosopher, Kitaro Nishida. A definition of basho according to Kazuhiro-sensei is a "field" which provides foundation for individual beings and sustains it. The individual being cannot exist without this "basho".
In Motoyama Model every being exists in "basho" without exception, from a piece of stone to human being and even spirits. One characteristic of basho is that basho does not have "selfness" and basho is there to solely acting to support the individual being. One may imagine a being as a dot drawn on a wide canvas. The canvas exists for the dot and the dot cannot exist without the canvas. The dot may be likened to the "bud of spirit" and canvas to basho. Spiritual practice is self-motivated effort by the being to expand the size of the dot as "bud of spirit" to the size of the canvas of basho. The important thing is that the practice fosters the essence of purusha, the bud of spirit, so that, as he progresses, the practitioner acts increasingly selflessly emulating the primary function of purusha. According to Dr. Motoyama, this is the ultimate goal of spiritual evolution.
 Above is a summary of the lecture on "Motoyama Model" given by Kazuhiro-sensei. Each pillar in this model is inter-related with the other two and provides logical basis for the other. It gives a logically consistent framework to comprehend Dr. Motoyama's work.
To the best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to interpret massive volume of Dr. Motoyama's work in a coherent manner. It was inspiring to everyone who attended his lecture.
We'd like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Kazuhiro-sensei who kindly agreed to share his thoughts with general public. We hope that he will put his thoughts into writing in the near future and make it available to our students and all who are interested in studying Dr. Motoyama's philosophy and spiritual teachings.
Hideki Baba
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Arrival of New Dr. Motoyama's Book in July |
" Science and the Evolution of Religion"
Religion and science have been in conflict with each other for many years. Intrinsically, however, religion lies at the foundation of science and is supposed to sustain science. They are not mutually contradictory but complementary to each other. Religions themselves have fought against one another and divided themselves. They should evolve in accordance with the stage of spiritual evolution of their leaders, and they can save human beings only if they could evolve to the level of "World Religion".
Based on this belief the author demonstrates, quoting his scientific experiment of light emission from a psychic's body and his research on acupuncture meridians and ki (qi) energy, that there is no contradiction between religion and science.
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