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What Integration means
Q. I’m trying to understand how psychological Integration comes about. What actually does it mean? What integrates with what?
A. It is useful to look for the ‘third force’ in any interaction. The intention, dedication or conscious awareness takes forces in conflict and transforms or integrates them into something new – into a quality of Being perhaps. The concept of ‘Integration’ has a sharp edge which some holistic views do not acknowledge. If something is truly integrated, eg the body and its systems and organs, you cannot easily take one thing away without the whole thing dying.
Integration includes ‘at-war-edness’, or conflict—that’s the bit which gets left out!
Q. I read your last email about integration with great interest!
When I first saw it, I couldn't quite understand, and had to come back to it.
This last week has been an experiential understanding of how the intention and the dedication take form in conflict and transforms it into something new.
I have had to struggle with intense inner conflict in order to follow my dedication to take the next step in my own integration, and to go out to people and offer something. It was quite shocking to me to witness the level of violent inner conflict I felt in anticipating and stepping into last week’s work. …it felt like a jolting rewiring of my nervous system.
I think I can also see the kind of friction that a real developmental plan towards integration will evoke in my clients, and what it requires for them to stay with that!
So thank you, the comment was extremely timely!