Zen Therapy

ZEN

Zen Therapy involves understanding the personality or character structure as well as one’s communication pattern—including psychological games—and analyzing early childhood decisions. Self-awareness and insight are built from analysis of one’s behavior in order to achieve spontaneity and intimacy. This behavioral change is achieved by thinking and acting in the here and now from the here and now to create treatment contracts. Andrew Archer, LICSW teaches analytical constructs and applies somatic therapies, clinical hypnosis, and EMDR to assist the patient in “curing” themselves.

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Andrew - Zen Therapy

Lindsay - Movement Therapy

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ZEN THERAPY

ANDREW ARCHER, LICSW

Andrew Archer, LICSW founded Minnesota Mental Health Services in 2017. He is a clinical social worker, author, meditation instructor, and national speaker. Andrew is the host of KEYC’s On Mind mental health podcast as well as The Subversive Therapist podcast, which examines Big Tech, mass shootings, Transactional Analysis, Zen, and more! You will find writings by Andrew on Substack.

Andrew utilizes various treatment modalities including transactional analysis, EMDR, and hypnosis. He has also been a professor in various academic settings including the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He lives with his wife Lindsay and their three children (ages 8, 6, and 4) in Mankato.

with Andrew Archer

ABOUT ZEN THERAPY

Psychiatrist Eric Berne, MD, outlined a personality structure as well as methods of combating passivity and optimizing an individual’s ability to control their own “ego states” (three different social realities). The central features of his theory are related to how we are hungry to have our time structured, that we enter into symbiotic relationships that result in passivity (adaptations, “games”), and that there is a way to develop social control.

In Berne’s “transactional analysis” method there are three of us: Parent, Adult, and Child. These three realities are distinct, separate, contradictory, and autonomous versions of us. They each have their own voice, body language, rhetoric, and vocabulary. The three separate ego states make up the structure of the personality, which means there are essentially three different personalities (people) in your head. To put it simply, each of us has a copied version of our parents (Parent) in our heads as well as the one that feels like “me” (Child), which was internally programmed. But, there is a third ego state called the Adult. When we were babies we developed the awareness that we could move our bodies (locomotion) in order to appraise our environmental conditions. Therefore, the Adult (mindful) is a state of mind for survival via learning.

The psychotherapist Muriel James summarized how this mindful and analytical method frees us up to be a Real Person: "With the use of Transactional Analysis techniques, therapists, as well as patients, have the opportunity to become free—-free to be “real” because they have attained some measure of autonomy." We are all interdependent and interconnected. Autonomy is a mature balance of dependence and independence. I will help you help yourself. You will think for yourself (autonomously) as you undermine the authority of your cultural conditioning (Zen).

The method of this Zen therapy is based on a teacher-student relationship. The therapist will teach you meditation, i.e., zazen, and learn with you using cognitive, analytical, and behavioral methods. “Why?” To cure you of your problem. “What is my problem?” The Ego. In other words, this sense that we are separate vs. interconnected. The function of the Ego is that it creates an obstruction to intimacy.

Therefore, emotional energy is held in or held back out of fear and anxiety, so we contract and constrict our breath. Many of us made big decisions when we were very little. These existential commitments were about how we would be as a person, how to understand other people, and most importantly, how to live our life: “Never again will I…” or, “I’ll always…” because “Nobody is going to…”. We are obeying our cultural conditioning as a life plan. This is based on an existential sense of lack (Ego). We play psychological games with others in order to reinforce this life position and to feel familiar “bad” feelings.

The “games” we play are a means to structure our time in order to experience emotion and drama at the expense of the other people. Part of us knows that we are intentionally being a jerk in situations, but, lo and behold, despite this so-called self-knowledge you continue to repeat destructive patterns. “Why do I keep doing that thing that causes people pain and anguish?” Unfortunately part of human nature is competitively selfish and self-destructive based on how we were conditioned.

These ways of being were taught to us and we adapted in order to further our partially chosen destiny. This life plan we committed to is an artificial blueprint for how to live your life. The major issue with that is the decision was made when you were far too young. And the plan also answers three questions you will continue to ask the rest of your life: Who am I? What am I supposed to do? And, who are these other people?

“How do I change?” You learn how to control yourself through self-study, interpersonal analysis (for social control), and meditation practice (mind-control). After an initial assessment, we will build a therapeutic contract together to establish your goals for treatment. To learn more, contact me today!

-Andrew