Editor's note.

Welcome to this issue of the Journal of Heart-Centered Therapies as we begin our eighth year of publication. The Heart-Centered Therapies Association co-sponsored the 2004 Regional APPPAH Conference in November, and it was delightfully fulfilling. One of the participants, Deborah Drake, submitted a drawing inspired by the Conference, titled "Attunement." It appears as the fourth entry in this issue.

We are pleased to present three clinical articles, each of which deals with a different aspect of Heart-Centered therapies.

The lead article is Trauma, Transitions, and Thriving, by David Hartman and Diane Zimberoff, and it presents a detailed analysis of the process of development toward the "optimal expression of being human." This growth process proceeds in sequential stages, and in between these stages are transitional experiences, special windows of opportunity for transcendent growth. It is these transitional spaces that the article focuses on. The authors explore the varieties of transitions, our reactions to transitions, common impediments to navigating these transitional windows, and also the best known methods for facilitating transitions. The importance of and need for "transitional objects" to help navigate the transition is reviewed, and equated with the NLP concept of "anchors." The article discusses the necessity of unlearning, deintegration, and unintegration in any growth process, and offers as examples meditation, near-death experience, pre-conception experience, the lucid dream state, and the shamanic journey state. The article amplifies how, when confronted with adversity in one's life, choosing the path of traumatic growth leads to thriving in one's life.

The second article is Divine Homesickness: "What's' Too Painful to Remember, We Simply Choose to Forget" by Cathleen Jackson. The author proposes that we all suffer a deep homesickness for the Divine--a longing to re-experience that ultimate peace and clarity, acceptance and ecstasy, a time when your soul was together with God. She documents how the presenting issues of dissatisfaction, feeling alienated, unworthy/unlovable, abandoned, or separation anxiety can be manifestations of that primal yearning, and how to use hypnotherapy regression to take the individual back to the source of the life pattern.

The third article, The Benefit of Group Hypnotherapy in the Treatment of Sex Addictions by Edward Millet, defines addictions, describes the differences in the levels of sex addiction, and then discusses the impact addiction has on relationships, society, spirituality, intimacy, and the self-esteem of the addict. The author outlines an eight to twelve week therapeutic group treatment utilizing aspects of conventional talk therapy (person-centered and cognitive) and Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy.

Consider submitting a manuscript for the September, 2005 issue of the Journal, and share your clinical experiences with other readers!

David Hartman, LCSW 

Editor-in-Chief

Heart-Centered Therapies Association, Issaquah, WA USA