My Review on receiving Life Process Transformation Therapy that was created by Viola Fodor (2018 – 2020) Part 1

I received therapy called [i]Life Process Transformation by Viola Fodor back in 2018.   I would like to go through what my therapy was like over a series of blog posts.  It took me 1 ½ years to complete the therapy.  I highly recommend it.

I first heard about this therapy while I was waiting to see my Naturopath.  She was a bit late, so I took it upon myself to look through brochures that were on the coffee table.  My Naturopath owned and worked in a beautiful newly renovated century old house and a lot of different health practitioners rented rooms off her there.  I read about a psychotherapist who specialized in a therapy called Life Process Transformation.  I found this remarkably interesting and made an appointment the same day.  My psychotherapist was named Amanda, and she was kind and compassionate.  She explained to me that she received this therapy from Viola Fodor herself for an eating disorder and it worked.  She then went back to school to become a psychotherapist so she could help others using this particular kind of therapy.  She explained to me that the therapy will help you identify your real sense of self which is kind and wise and let go of your ego which is not who you really are but just a construct.  It sounded kind of deep but by this time I have been to energy therapists and have practiced meditations for a few years so I was into it.  I decided to give it a shot.  I enjoyed seeing her weekly and it lasted until 2020 when covid shut down all face-to-face therapy sessions.

The first session she  gave me a workbook for me to bring to all my sessions.  It was a great tool to have.  I would have some small written homework to do but my main homework was to have quiet time everyday for 15 minutes.  Quiet time (or meditation) was a time that you could sit either observe your thoughts and let them go or use concentration like counting your inhales and exhales.   I tried both types.  I enjoyed most of my quiet times and I loved the fact that I didn’t have to sit upright and experience back pain like I did at my Buddhist Meditation Centre or like my yoga class where I had to do difficult postures that I did not care for.  Amanda emphasized for me to keep it simple.  She told me to be an observer of your thoughts and feelings without judgement.  She explained to me that one my goals is to outgrow my judgmental mind.

Workbook

The second session, Amanda had me write down my problems in one column and my description of my self identity in the second column.  I wrote down anxiety and depression in the first column and wrote anxious, insecure, and depressed in the second column.  Amanda looked me in the eye when I was finished and said, “you identify as anxiety.”  I remember that really shocked me.  “Anxiety is a problem, and you are self identifying yourself as the problem, not your real self”, she explained.  We talked about how quiet time will help me discover my real self and how the “thinker” also known as the ego is not my real self.  It was just programed in my brain throughout my life.  This shook up my perception of my reality. 

Am I just a product of being a female that was born in 1969 in Canada, raised by my parents, values taught by society, my schools and my church?  Who am I? 

[i] Life Process Transformation Workbook written by Viola Fodor, Willow Press, 1981,2015, Paris, Ontario