About

Let the beauty you love be what you do. Rumi

Maureen LumleyBecoming a psychotherapist was never part of my 10 year plan but rather a process of following the slender threads of synchronicity that presented on the path, and finding that almost without me noticing, the beauty I love had become what I do. This path has been one of recognizing the teachers when they appear, saying yes to the questions with no knowledge of the answers, and passing through doors with no knowledge of what lay on the other side. Thus, from my origins in England I traveled a path that took me to Africa as a nurse, and subsequently brought me to this American shore as wife and mother.

On this new shore, I began a journey of exploration into poetry and the arts which through the guidance of inspired teachers lead me to philosophy, psychology, dreams and the writings of C.G. Jung. It is fair to say that after a brief introduction to my dreams and reading Jung I quickly became hooked. Jung’s work resonated with my bones and I began recording my dreams, attending and facilitating dream groups and studying Jung as a non professional in Centerpoint groups. There is a Zen proverb that says, “When the student is ready the teacher appears.” I am living proof of the truth of this proverb, for so it was, that at the right time in my life the teacher appeared, I said yes, and the door opened into my new life of exploration into the soul.

It has been an amazing and exciting journey from my early beginnings in England to Pacifica Graduate Institute in California where I was blessed with inspired teachers, idyllic surroundings, and a rich community of fellow students. At Pacifica I delved deeply into the mystery of the human psyche and the discovery of the treasure that lies in the unconscious. My work now continues in the world where I hope to fulfill the promise of Pacifica’s motto, Animae Mundi Colendae Gratia which means “For the sake of tending soul in the world”.

I continue this mission now as a psychotherapist and through the C.G. Jung Society of North Texas where I served as president from 2002 to 2006 and where I now serve as the program chair. A different strand of individuation has further led me to explore my love of the arts through the medium of sculpture and ceramics.

I leave you now with a favorite quote from, Letters to a Young Poet by Rainier Maria Rilke, which for me provides a wise approach to the soul’s journey.

I beg you to have patience with everything that is unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. Rilke, (1929)

 

Educational background

Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Depth Psychology 2001. Pacifica Graduate Institute CA.

LMFT licensure 1996

M.A. Counseling Psychology with specialization in Depth Psychology 1993. Pacifica Graduate Institute CA.

B.A. Literary Studies 1990. UTD Dallas TX