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KERRY JESPERSEN

Master of Arts, Counselling

Lotus
L
COUNSELLING

#726, 10 Discovery Ridge Hill SW Calgary, Alberta T3H 5X2 403.606.1009 lotuscounselling@shaw.ca www.lotuscounselling.org

Instead of giving a fish to a hungry person... I teach that person how to fish for themselves
parts of our inner being which carry a great amount of pain and extreme emotion, and my role as a therapist is to help people unburden these vulnerable parts from all the pain. Beyond the various parts of ourselves, we all possess what could be called the Self. This Self is our central core of who we really are. It has leadership and healing qualities. When we are living from our Self, we typically possess characteristics such as calmness, compassion, curiosity, wisdom and perspective. The major goal of therapy is to find access to this Self, which innately possesses the wisdom to deal appropriately with our parts. Once therapy is wound up, Kerry says it is my hope the client would continue to live from the Self and exercise self leadership towards all of her parts in the future. Instead of giving a fish to a hungry person, I want to teach that person how to fish for herself.
www.lotuscounselling.org

otus Counselling is a private practice in Calgary, operated by Kerry Jespersen. Kerry is a trained Marriage and Family Therapist, having received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Alberta in 1988, and a Masters of Arts in Counselling in 1993 from Sioux Falls Seminary, South Dakota. Kerry has his spiritual roots in the Christian tradition, yet has developed great respect for many of the spirituality insights from Buddhism. He says Buddhists are much more clear about the process of ego transformation. Christianity seems to have drifted away from the message of ego transformation, despite the fact Jesus spent much of his time talking about a self that has to die so a new self can live. This new self is connected to the Divine. Its a wonderful message of union with the Divine. Unfortunately much of Christianity has been reduced to morality and belief systems. Kerry has a passion for integrating his therapy with spirituality when permitted. I find that a lot of people have a hunger to integrate their secular life with the mystical, because they know deep down that they are hard wired as spiritual beings. Our secular culture encourages us to discard our spiritual traditions, which only heightens our spiritual desire. His practice and model of therapy is an integration of sound psychological principles and spiritual understanding. His approach to counselling is known as the Internal Family Systems Therapy model.

It is one of the fastest growing psychotherapy approaches developed over the last 20 years. This approach is very effective in dealing with the entire spectrum of individual and relational concerns, including couples therapy. I tend to see our mind as possessing a multiplicity of parts. As an example, when we are trying to explain to another person what is going on within ourselves, we often find ourselves saying things like A part of me knows that I am competent in my career, yet another part of me feels like it is only a matter of time before everybody finds out how incompetent I really am. These parts within us are at times in conflict with each other. Sometimes parts of us take over, and we find ourselves acting in a way that is not in measure with the current situation. Kerry explains that When various parts of our selves interfere with our daily functioning, interpersonal or intrapsychic, it can drive us into the counselling room to take a look under the hood. And this is where I love to work with people. We will typically find that there are

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