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On the threshold of a new decade we are looking back on the past 10 years - in which the paradigm of mental space psychology has become more and more commonly known, not only in the Netherlands, but even more on a international level. In the past years we met many people who embraced this new and groundbreaking principle, and we are very thankful for their support and enthusiasm.
Now we are taking the next step forward, spreading the news towards regular health care providers, psychologists and psychiatrists. That is not an easy thing to do, and we cannot do it without your help and support.
After all: all psychotherapy aims at alleviating psychological suffering, and we believe mental space psychology makes an important contribution to the work of psychotherapy. Mental space psychology is now practice based – we know that it works! – and in the years to come we would like to lift it to the higher level of evidence based methodology. Not because we need that so much for ourselves, but because in the regular circuit of health care and psychology people are not “allowed” to work with it, as long as it is not based on scientific results.
So there is still a lot of missionary work to be done! We are very grateful for your interest and support and hope you will keep in touch with us in the years to come and help us to reach our main goal: mental space embedded in regular psychotherapy.
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As some of you already have noticed: the book Mental Spatial Diagnosis - MSD-1 - has been launched last August. MSD-1 is an addition to the symptom oriented approach of the DSM-5 and ICD-11, and helps understand the unconscious spatial cognition underlying all mental activity. It is an instrument for clinical psychological researchers, psychotherapists and psychiatrists, and is an illustrated guide to the spatial processes that underlie all manner of psychological problems and mental disorders.
The illustrations in the MSD-1 give a visual explanation of personal time-line, social panorama, self-representation, spiritual panorama and related spatial models as brought together by the International Laboratory for Mental Space Research (ILMSR). Please also watch the video on YouTube. The Society for Mental Space Psychology sponsored the creation of this manual, as the necessary next step forward and to connect academic psychology and psychotherapy into the paradigm of mental space psychology. For more information: please visit our webshop.
This book as well as Mental Space Psychology (both by Lucas Derks) are being translated in other languages and are now also available in Spanish.
If you would like to learn more about Mental Space Diagnosis and its practical applications, please read the article Mental Space Diagnosis in practice, Christine wrote about her work with clients.
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2019 was a very inspiring and rewarding year for Mental Space Psychology. First of all: Lucas Derks won the NLP Lifetime Research Award 2019 at the ANLP in London in May. A very well deserved prize, contributed to his research of the Social Panorama and Mental Space Psychology.
Not only Lucas is travelling all over the world to “spread the MSP gospel” – also other board members of our Society have been attending and giving workshops abroad. Jacqueline Heemskerk and Gert Arts went to India with Lucas (see our previous newsletter), and Jacqueline also went to PNL in Portugal with Lucas to promote and explain her important work with MSP and eating disorders. It is a whole new MSP based therapy method, which helps people to tackle the issues they are struggling with in relation to emotional eating problems.
If you want to learn more about this new methodology, please download her thesis MSP Binge eating and Overweight.
Christine went to the ANLP Conference in London to talk about Mental Space and Depression, and together with Michiel Brandt – now president of the SOMSP – she attended the Conference of Prenzlkomm in Berlin, to demonstrate the technique of Mental Space & Depression (MSP-D) and talk about other issues of importance in the field of psychotherapy. It was a very inspiring gathering, in which we made some nice new friends.
November Conference Prenzlkomm in Berlin, at Haus Tornow, Oberbarnim
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The mission of the international MSP Academy is to make Mental Space Psychology accessible to all those who seek it and to increase the global awareness of mental space psychology. Our aim is to found a national MSP academy in many countries. At the moment the following countries have MSP Academies: Germany, Portugal, Finland, Japan, Spain, India and Israel. If you are interested to start up an MSP academy in your own country, please contact Lucas Derks or René Koppelaar.
In case you missed it: watch our introduction video about the new paradigm Mental Space Psychology, that connects spatial cognition with psychotherapy.
Are your looking for books in the field of Mental Space Psychology (MSP)? Visit our webshop and find out what might interest you! We are still collecting titles, so if you can provide us with some good and informative books, please contact René Koppelaar.
The Mental Space Psychology Group has been launched on Facebook, and you are kindly invited to join us in discussions or post information in the field of mental space on this platform.
Jacqueline Heemskerk (j.heemskerk@somsp.com) is responsible for all our communication on social media. Our aim is to share interesting issues with each other and deepen our knowledge about mental space and spatial cognition.
We recently introduced the Dutch MSP-Academy platform on facebook: MSP-Academy Nederland. Where you will find all information about the Dutch MSP trainings and workshops.
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Our MSP-Depression research group consists of four people: Lucas Derks, social psychologist PhD, Dienie van Wijngaarden, health psychologist PhD, Christine Beenhakker, applied psychologist BSc and Jacqueline Heemskerk, psychological therapist.
The first analysis of the research project has now been done and the results are very promising! In the next newsletter we will give you a resume of the main conclusions so far.
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Our SOMSP community is growing fast. We are therefore intending to organize an international conference on MSP in 2021. Our aim is to connect people with each other throughout the world who are working in the field of MSP, and to inform and inspire people about the latest developments in mental space psychology. As soon as we have more details about this, we will let you know.
The SOMSP is looking for people who would like to commit themselves to our society – not only in a virtual manner, but also hands-on. For practical reasons we are especially looking for people in Europe, e.g. to help us organize this conference. The first contacts have already been made. As we are a non-profit organisation, we need all the support we can get to make it work. If you have any constructive idea’s, or would like to support us and/or contribute to our Society in one way or another, please contact our chairman, Michiel Brandt |
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Safeguarding the space around us - the role of peripersonal neurons in the body and social imagery, by Lucas Derks and Claudia Wilimzig (2019).
The recent paradigm of mental space psychology promotes a transdisciplinary view on the working of the psyche and it is unique in taking space as the primary organizing factor in the mind. For the latter one finds clear evidence in neuroscience and in the practical use of spatial psychotherapeutic tools like the Social Panorama. Several far reaching hypothesis unfold themselves when probing these connections. The findings are applicable for improving clinical interventions and also as diagnostic tools.
The Use of Clean Space to Facilitate a “Stuck” Client – a Case Study, by James Lawley &
Alexandru Ioan Manea, Bucharest: Journal of Experiential Psychotherapy, vol. 20, no 4 (80) December 2017.
Clean Space enables the client to use the interplay of physical and mental space, to externalize her thoughts, feelings, metaphors and symbolic perceptions thereby engaging her creativity in an emergent change process. It also shows how the therapist keeps his presence to a minimum, and his language “clean”, i.e. free of his own assumptions, interpretations and metaphors.
Conversations in Critical Psychiatry is an interview series aimed to engage prominent individuals who have made meaningful criticisms of psychiatry and have offered constructive alternative perspectives to the current status quo. Read the interview Dr. Awais Aftab ( geriatric psychiatry fellow at University of California San Diego) had with Allen Frances, MD, ( professor Emeritus and former Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Duke University, CA).
Stärkung Steuer Ich, by Rainer Wawrzik (in German)
Die Selbst-Leben-Kompetenz stärken
Re-imprinting mit der Interferenz 2, by Rainer Wawrzik (in German)
„Was spürst Du, wenn Du über Dein Gefühl nachdenkst?“
Eye movements reveal mental looking through time, by Stocker, Kurt et al, (2016)University of Zürich
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We hope you are just as enthusiastic as we are about mental space psychology! Please send us your experiences and ideas - we would be very happy to publish your views and comments in our newsletter.
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Our next newsletter is due in Spring 2020.
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