Gathering the Soul Gathering the Soul is a true story of spiritual healing. Told in alternating chapters - one in the author's voice, as psychotherapist, and the next in the voice of her former patient, Mary Ellen - who later changed her name to Ariel - it traces Mary Ellen's recovery from the effects of childhood abuse, including a severe eating disorder and a prolonged physical illness that rendered her for a time almost completely disabled. Gathering the Soul is an honest portrayal of Connie and Mary Ellen's therapeutic relationship over a nine-year period, during which time Connie moved from working as a more or less traditional Jungian psychotherapist to learning about and working directly with the human energy field as a hands-on healer. The book includes many details of this evolution, including the help and guidance both author and patient received through channeled guides and many other experiences which from a traditional psychotherapy perspective would be seen as extraordinary.

What many people seem to be longing for today is spiritual healing - healing that encompasses mind, body, emotions, and spirit. The old models are falling away, and a more holistic paradigm is taking their place. The relationship and the work this book describes represent the cutting edge of this new paradigm, where the therapist/patient relationship is one of partnership rather than hierarchy, and where everything that happens within that relationship is seen as opening up the possibility for a deeper connection to Self and the Divine, where we are all seen as spiritual beings on a human path.

Gathering the Soul deals with the healing that can take place directly through the human energy field, and with non-ordinary reality, subjects that have rarely been written about within the context of traditional psychotherapy. Although most of the names and places have been changed, and the author created some dialogue, much of the manuscript is drawn directly from Connie’s and Mary Ellen’s tapes and journals. Mary Ellen has reviewed and contributed to the manuscript and has written a prologue as well.

This book is written as a story, and as such will be deeply inspiring to those whose life experience may be similar to Mary Ellen's, but who may not yet know that healing of even the deepest wounds is possible. It is likely to appeal also to those in the healing professions, especially those interested in the integration of depth psychology and hands-on healing.

Gathering The Soul can be purchased online at xlibris.com