Nattan Hollander, LMFT

In the last couple of years, I began referring to my practice as “Soul-Centered.” To help clarify what I mean by that, I would like to share the meaning the word “Soul” carries for me. This will require leaving behind the language of science, psychology, and neurology. Poetic language may serve us much better.

Let’s imagine Soul as an organ, not the musical kind, rather like our lungs and heart. This organ takes in the world and produces the experience of meaning. I’m talking about the felt sense of meaning. The kind that fills you up and lets you know “this is important,” “this is right,” “this is wonderful.” When this organ suffers, when it is cut off from the flow of sustenance, meaning disappears from our life. The world becomes flat and empty to us. A question that I ask in my life and in my practice as a psychotherapist is “what feeds Soul?” The answer to this question changes from person to person, and from one day to the next.

Let’s imagine Soul as a sense, like sight or smell. This sense perceives the inner world. We can liken it to the imagination, but it’s more than that. Soul is responsible for us seeing the monster under the bed or in the closet. Or hearing our grandparent ask us to put on a sweater, long after they passed away. Or seeing our future partner in this person with whom we’re on a second date. Soul is the sense that takes in the essence of things. When we don’t know about the sense of Soul, we confuse the inner world and the outer world and merge them into one experience. Psychology has given many names to this in phenomena — projection, delusion, fantasy. When I meet with people in my practice, I try to help them distinguish what they see with their eyes from what they perceive with their Soul. Then they can use their sense of Soul to better navigate their life.

Let’s imagine Soul as a tune, a song. It plays in the background day and night, a unique song for each person. We live our life to this tune, dancing or stumbling, always moving to its rhythm. It shows up in our own unique ways of doing things, or just our way of being. It shows up in our gifts and challenges. It can be heard by the ones who love us, and the ones we love. It resounds in the things we make, and in our choices. Sometimes it’s loud and sometimes it’s faint, but it never goes away until we go away, and sometimes not even then. To be a psychotherapist is to have unique privilege of listening closely to another person’s song. It is in the ancient Greek name for this profession: Psyche — Soul; Therapia — Attendance. Attending to Soul. To attend to Soul is to love Soul. To hear a person’s song is to love their song. That’s how I see my job.