Very thought provoking article on the use of the I-Ching (or not) in therapy by the scholarly--and I think very credible Dr. Dennis Merritt:
Use of the I Ching in the Analytic Setting by Dennis L. Merritt PhD
What do you think? Have YOU ever used or heard of a therapist using the I-Ching, either in sessions or "behind the scenes"? What would the value be if you did? and the downside?....
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Interesting article but I wonder if it did not go far enough. Merritt uses the I Ching with his individual analysands. The presenting issue may involve a relationship and the reading may guide the analysand to an answer or to further discussion with a therapist. The question, initially, is whether one views the I Ching as a mode of revealing the unconscious, archetypal dynamics within a person's life or not. As one who uses the I Ching from time to time in my own life, I recognize that specific answers like "yes" and "no" are not the result of a reading and so there is as much projection as revelation within creating a bridge between the I Ching reading and putting the information from the reading into here-and-now action.
Where the article does not go far enough is in the use of the I Ching within an MFT setting. Most theories within MFT appear to accept the idea that there is a separate "person," the couple, active as a separate energy in the relationship. My suggestion is that this third party also has its own archetypal energies that play out within the relationship. If this is "true" then doing a reading for the couple might be as helpful as two individual readings and the attempting to force these separate readings into a third, transcendent reading, fraught with potential projections by a therapist as by the individuals within the relationship. Why not go directly to the "person" created by the couple? Allow a question to be presented by the couple, the third person, (which would be hashed out in advance as is suggested by Merritt) and a reading to be shared with the couple as the third person. Anyone...anyone?