Donald Marmara

A conversation with Donald Marmara

• What led you to choose psychotherapy or counselling as a profession?

  I was motivated to train as a somatic psychotherapist following my own experience of anxiety and depression, and the frustration I felt with my lack of success in overcoming them via limited methods of counselling and psychotherapy.
  
  My search for healing led me to London, where I discovered a form of psychotherapy called somatic psychotherapy, and by having individual sessions myself I was able to transform my life.

• Which philosophical approaches have influenced your professional development?

  THE TASK OF A THERAPIST IS TO START WITH NOT KNOWING
  What works for one person does not necessarily work for another.
  
  Our tasks as psychotherapists is first of all to put aside all our knowledge and theories and to listen. To embark on a journey of discovery. To discover what the person we are working with needs.
  
  Then to discover, step by step, how we can use our skills and knowledge to help our clients progress in their therapeutic journey.
  
  To be willing to let go of whatever we may think works or should work but doesn’t.
  
  To encourage whatever increases feelings of safety, acceptance and contact with ourselves and each other.
  
  And most important of all to remember that WE ARE FIRST AND FOREMOST HUMAN BEINGS, then therapist and client.
  
  This is why I believe that BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT AND INDEED ESSENTIAL part of counselling and psychotherapy training is the therapist’s own personal therapy.

• Which particular aspects of health or the human journey are you interested in?

  Educating people to understand that there is no one right way, and that when conventional approaches don't work they can often still get the results they want in other ways.
  
  Also that seeking help is a sign of strength not weakness, and that symptoms that are often labelled in our society as "sick' or "dysfunctional' are in many cases the opposite - they are pathways to creating more fulfilling and successful lives.
  
  Some of our most creative, intelligent and successful people have at some point in their lives been considered inadequate or dysfunctional.

• What methods do you use?

  There is one major difference between my approach and that of many other therapies.
  
  I do not assume that signs of stress, anxiety, depression or other emotional challenges mean that something is necessarily wrong with you. Often these symptoms can be a normal and healthy sign that something needs to change.
  
  My approach is to explore these symptoms with you so you can discover what needs to happen and what is getting in your way. Together we embark on a journey with the intention of supporting you in creating a richer, more fulfilling and more meaningful life.
  
  I created Core Development from my professional training, personal therapy and life experience.
  Core Development is a learning experience not a clinical method. I have over 40 years' experience.
  
  If you're looking for help in creating a more fulfilling and meaningful life I would love to hear from you.
  
  Ph: 0412 178 234

• When do you think the client will start to feel that progress is being made?

  One size does not fit all - some clients start to experience benefits right away, whilst others may take longer. In some cases progress is regular and incremental, whilst others may feel that they are taking two steps forward and one backwards.The process is unique and different for each person.

• How has therapy made a difference in your life?

  As a teenager, I was diagnosed clinically depressive and for several years I was prescribed ever-increasing dosages of anti-depressant drugs. Eventually I moved to London where I discovered forms of therapy - mainly Biodynamic Psychotherapy and Biosynthesis - that enabled me to come completely off the drugs within a few months, and I have never taken an anti-depressant again.
  
  At first I reacted by wanting everyone to experience the forms of therapy that had such a transformational impact on my life. I was passionately opposed to all forms of drug therapy and western medicine.
  
  Gradually I came to realise that at the time that I was prescribed the medication, I was not ready to face my feelings and take responsibility for my life. I was too emotionally damaged to do this, and I reckon that the medication gave me the space and time to find the courage I needed to take the next step. I came to realise that, much as I resented being prescribed the medication, it probably saved my life!
  
  Fortunately, the practitioners who worked with me did not criticise me. They never suggested that I stop taking the drugs or even that I needed to change.
  
  They accepted me the way I was, in ways that I had not experienced before. They were able to listen to me, and to enter into my perceptual world and meet me there.
  
  I felt seen, heard and respected, and this more than anything enabled me to find the courage and motivation to come off the medication and change the direction of my life permanently. I am deeply grateful for this.
  
  I believe that, regardless of who we are, what we know or think we know, and what we do, we can all benefit from suspending our theories and judgements, even if only temporarily, and making a genuine effort to listen, and especially to consider points of view that to date we have dismissed or considered undesirable, dysfunctional or untenable.
  
  As the Native American saying goes, to walk two miles in each other's moccasins, remembering of course, to take our own cherished moccasins off in order to do this.

• What do you like most about being a therapist?

  Being able to help people transform their lives gives me the greatest joy and satisfaction.

• Do you ever have 'bad hair' days?

  Yes - whilst I dislike "bad hair" days, they give me the opportunity to reflect on the part I play in creating these, and enable me to get to know myself better.

• What do you think is the most significant problem we face, in the world today?

  I believe that we are currently largely motivated by fear.
  That is why it is important for us to learn how to deal with our fears so they no longer rule our lives.
  
  This is not only for our own personal good, but also for that of society and indeed for the world as a whole.
  
  John Steinbeck makes this comment in one of his novels:
  “as long as there is a hunger in the stomach, the bombs will continue to fall”.
  
  Yet as a society, we seem to be going around in never-ending circles, dealing with violence rather than with the underlying causes. Often we meet violence with violence. The hunger in the stomach, our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, are not being met.
  
  This is what Core Development - my approach to counselling and psychotherapy - is about. Doing what we can to heal ourselves so we are able to take responsibility for our feelings.
  
  Healing ourselves so we can recover our connection with our heart and feel no need to dump on others, and on our environment, the anger, fear, and other emotions resulting from our own pain.
  
  And this takes courage and commitment, as it is natural for us to close our hearts and sometimes also to lash out when we are hurt, in order to protect ourselves from further pain.
  
  It's not an easy process nor a quick fix, but it can be very, very rewarding.

• Can you share the name of a book, film, song, event or work of art that inspires you?

  Movies:
  The King's Speech
  One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
  
  Books:
  Your Body Speaks Its Mind, by Stanley Keleman
  The Wisdom of Insecurity, by Alan Watts
  To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
  Feel The Fear & Do It Anyway, by Susan Jeffers
  Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse
  Fear of Life, by Alexander Lowen
  Approaching the Corporate Heart by Margot Cairns
  The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz
  In The Wake of Reich, Edited by David Boadella