“Psychological life is devoted to continual inquiry, relishing the pursuit of wisdom more than the possession of it. It is the willingness to learn from everyone and everything by reflecting on others’ ideas without defensiveness. It is the ability to be deeply moved by what one sees, hears, and feels, accepting the full impact of living in complex emotional bodies. It is tolerating periods of personal doubt and confusion created by meaningful engagement with other perspectives. It is looking past the surface of things to their interior depths and their transcendent source. Finally, it is holding ideas, images, and beliefs lightly so that one can witness and learn from their inherent playfulness.”

— Joseph Coppin and Elizabeth Nelson

Resources

Recommended reading

  • Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life by Thomas Moore

  • The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk

  • The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell

  • Trauma and the Soul: A Psycho-spiritual Approach to Human Development and Its Interruption by Donald Kalsched

  • The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity by Esther Perel

  • Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter Levine

  • Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How it Can Help you Find and Keep Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

  • Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma, and Consensual Nonmonogamy by Jessica Fern

  • A Blue Fire by James Hillman

  • Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung

  • Psychotherapy Grounded in the Feminine Principle by Barbara Stevens Sullivan

  • The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor

  • Breath: the New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

  • Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

  • Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattie

  • Jung’s Map of the Soul by Murray Stein

  • The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz

  • The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

  • Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective by Mark Epstein

  • The Universe in You: An Inner Journey Guided by Rumi with translations by Omid Arabian

  • Making Space: Creating a Home Meditation Practice by Thich Nhat Hanh

Publications by Maura Tousignant

  • Tousignant, M. (2023). Transcendence and Its Shadow: A Depth Psychological Inquiry into Transcendence, the Transcendent Function, and Spiritual Bypassing. Psychological Perspectives, 66(4), 479–496. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332925.2023.2311547

    • Available to read via publishers Taylor & Francis: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00332925.2023.2311547

  • Master’s degree thesis: Tending Soul in Connection to Spirit: A Depth Psychological Inquiry Into Transcendence and Spiritual Bypassing. Available to read on ProQuest.

  • Undergraduate thesis: Sufis, Sheikhs, and Semazans: A Study of Persian Sufi Poetry in Verse and Ritual. Written for the Distinguished Majors Program in Comparative Literature, focusing on Mohammad Jalaluddin Rumi’s verses in Divan-e Shams and Sufi whirling, available at the University of Virginia.

  • University Award for Arts: The Lily: Transforming Images of Magical Realism into Dance. Written for the U.Va. Center for Undergraduate Excellence for an interdisciplinary, international research project, inspired by the Iranian novella Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur, on transforming literary imagery to movement through Persian classical dance and Sufi whirling, available at the University of Virginia.