Embrace the playful movement of life itself. See the inseparability of form and emptiness. Join the dance between Eastern and Western traditions of medicine and the sciences of the mind. Find the emergent, creative potential inherent in every timeless moment.
This is the essence of integrative psychotherapy.
East and West Meet in Seattle Psychologist
Dr. Sean Patrick Hatt is a licensed Seattle psychologist with a foundation in this holistic way of working with individuals, couples and groups. Taking this essence further, Dr. Hatt describes the following principle which guides his every contact with his clients:
Mind, body, Spirit & relationships are co-creative.
These four exist in an interdependent, complex, systemic relationship which is irreducible to any one alone. That is to say, focusing on any one of these aspects in isolation, to the neglect of the other three, is likely to be less helpful than working with the whole person.
This is an extension of Dr. Dan Siegel’s pioneering work in interpersonal neurobiology, which integrates neuroscience with attachment research, and more recently with Buddhist philosophy, primarily the practice of Mindfulness, which has a long history of clinical efficacy in and of itself, primarily due to the groundbreaking work of Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. But it goes deeper than all of that for Dr. Hatt. Informed by his own transpersonal psychological training, and a fundamental grounding in personal spiritual practice–which is primarily Buddhist and a more formless non-dual perspective inspired by spiritual teacher and scholar, Peter Fenner. He also includes other wisdom traditions like Sufism (introduced to popular culture in the ecstatic medieval poetry of Rumi), and mystical Christianity, as it is taught by his friend and teacher, Fr. Sean O’Laoire, Ph.D.
Numerous mainstream studies in the realm of clinical research have shown that an approach like this may be a more beneficial than a medical focus, whether in psychotherapy or psychopharmacology, alone.
To offer a few examples:
Taking psychiatric medicines (addressing the body) as stand alone therapies without simultaneously addressing the underlying causes of suffering in psychotherapy (addressing the mind and relationships) is generally less effective, and sometimes potentially harmful, when compared to a combined approach (addressing mind, body and relationships simultaneously. (Note: More recently, the actual effectiveness of antidepressant medicines which have become nearly ubiquitous has even come into question in cases of mild and moderate depressive states (which make up the vast majority of all prescriptions written for depression). It may be that their initial clinical efficacy was overstated in the process of seeking FDA approval.)
Supportive, psycho-spiritual interventions alongside the mainstream medical treatment of cancer patients has for many years been shown to significantly increase survival rates. (Look up the work of Dr. Barbara Andersen at The Ohio State University, and that of the Simonton Cancer Center in Santa Barbara, California for more in-depth information on psycho-social-spiritual oncology).
I hope you will give me the honor of working with you in this special, integrative way. In so doing, may we all be transformed. And may our transformational journey be of benefit for one and all without exception. –Dr. Sean Patrick Hatt, Licensed Psychologist and Founder of Seattle Integrative Psychology.
