New book by Philip Kenney

Only This Step
haiku by Philip Kenney

Only This Step, haiku by Philip Kenney

Purchase from Finishing Line Press

See all books by Philip Kenney

Phil Kenney

Philip Kenney is a practicing psychotherapist in Portland, Oregon. He did his post-graduate work in British Object Relations at the Washington D.C. School of Psychiatry and has taught Self Psychology as part of his private practice. A long time meditator and poet, Mr. Kenney is the author of the novel, Radiance, and a collection of poetry, Where Roses Bloom. He strives to bring together the worlds of psychology, creativity and spirituality in his work and is the author of a new book on those subjects entitled, The Writer's Crucible: Meditations on Emotion, Being and Creativity.

My Approach

Doing psychotherapy is like reading Shakespeare. The comedies, tragedies, and histories make up every hour of intimate contact that is the psychotherapy session. This is such a unique relationship. Words are terribly inadequate to describe the subtleties and complexities of what takes place when two people come together for the purpose of exploring the mind and undoing constricted ways of being.

I can't tell you how privileged I feel to know the people who come to work and better their lives. Many people think it must be hard to listen to people's problems all day, but truly, people are more like poems than problems. Listening to the varying expressions of personal experience is to be welcomed into the mysterious movements of psyche and spirit in the remarkable search for well-being.

After more than thirty years of practicing psychotherapy, I have come to believe that the psychological and the spiritual are not two separate domains. In my practice I hope to help others understand this and experience even their darkest and most painful moments as expressions of the dynamic motion of spirit doing its best to bring us back into contact with the core of our deepest self.

This is not a simple or a brief process. Nor is it one with a conventional moment of completion. It is, however, a radical and honest approach to yourself and to living that can open the door to self-acceptance and being more fully alive. Together, through laughter and tears, we make sense of a life and realize the beauty of the human heart beating within.

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