Abstract
In the 1980s, I became a client in depth psychotherapy with Jim Bugental. In this paper, I offer personal reminiscences of the hours Jim and I spent together trying to make changes in my life. In doing so, I focus on two central aspects of therapy from an existential-humanistic perspective. The first is the practice of inner searching, and I share memories of how Jim taught it to me. The second is an existential-humanistic model of the human being. Jim taught me to differentiate between what he calls the I or I-process and the self or self-construct. The I-process is one's true nature, one's pure contentless being and awareness, whereas the self-construct is one's acquired identity. For me, change occurred to the degree that I could differentiate the unconditioned I from the conditioned self and could begin to realize my identity as awareness itself rather than as a composite of images of who I am and what the world is, images based on impressions I'd been collecting from the first moments of my life. I share those experiences in which Jim helped me to disidentify from the conditioned self and what occurred as I reached inward to discover the I.
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