Other Influences

Although psychosynthesis and NLP form the foundations of our approach to working with people, there have been many other influences on Robert’s own personal journey, which also inform the way we work with others.

Robert has participated in numerous workshops and seminars, read countless books and practiced different exercises and forms of meditation as part of his own self development. Most have been enjoyable, some extremely difficult, a few somewhat unusual, but overall the process has nearly always led to a greater understanding of himself and others.

He first became interested in self development when he attended Practical Philosophy classes run by the School of Economic Science. These classes are largely based on Advaita Vedanta teaching, the philosophy of non-duality. During this time he learnt a number of self awareness techniques, mantra based meditation and attended residential retreats.

That was twenty years ago.

Robert’s interest in Advaita continues today, particularly as taught by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and Ramesh S Balsekar. Their books ‘I Am That’ and ‘The Ultimate Understanding’ are particularly useful and profound.

Because of the similarity of this teaching to the mystical traditions of both Christianity and Islam, Robert also has an interest in Gnosticism and Sufism. Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy’s books ‘The Jesus Mysteries’ and ‘Jesus and the Goddess’ have proved enlightening, as have Tim’s Lucid Living workshops.

Robert has learnt and practiced TM, has been on ten-day silent retreats with the Vipassana Trust at Dhamma Dipa in Hereford and has practiced yoga at the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre in Putney, London. He also spent two wonderful months touring south India with The Findhorn Foundation.

Two other significant areas of interest are the Family Constellations work of Bert Hellinger and the age-old wisdom of the Enneagram. Both offer considerable depth of understanding of human nature and our relationship with ourselves and others.

Finally, but of no less significance, is the profound teaching embodied by the Diamond Approach. This is a psychospiritual model of the human condition developed over the last twenty-five years by A H Almass. It’s a body of work that elegantly brings together the ancient wisdom of the world’s great spiritual teachings with the most modern object relations and depth psychology theories. An achievement of considerable intellect, beauty and generosity.