Soulful Therapy with Israel “Rulik” Perla, PhD, MFT

 

People come to therapy for a variety of reasons

Often they have tried various kinds of solutions and asked others for help.  My role as a therapist is to be a change agent committed to serving your needs. Anything of value that you can find here will be in the context of our working relationship. I will be gently relentless in collaborating with you on finding a new path.

The source of healing

I want to know what brings a smile to your face as you realize that your life is waiting to be lived. Smiles might seem a remote option at this time, or even completely forgotten. You might be in pain and you hope for change. You might even think that there is something wrong with you. There is a part in you which knows the task at hand and exactly why it is here. It knows how to be alive and how to share that being with others. I am curious about that part.

New understanding through body and soul

A client recently told me: “I finally understood that in order to live the spiritual life I am so longing for, I need a healthy body and a thriving soul.” The most rewarding aspect of my work, is the privilege to witness the emergence of such new understanding that leads to change. Soul and spirit get often confused, especially when ideals and ideas overrule healthy intuition, and connections to earth, nature, friends and community. The body needs to be first of all accepted. A manly or womanly body, a small or big one, a gentle or fierce one, a strong or delicate one. Then, when respected and cared for, it can live and serve the whole.

Soulful therapy and real lasting change

On the path to real change, our separate parts need to be known, accepted and then brought together. The soul needs to be affirmed again and again, until it lets go and can simply BE.


Israel “Rulik” Perla, PhD, MFT

I have said that the soul
is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body
is not more than the soul;
And nothing, not God,
is greater to one than one’s self is,
And whoever walks
a furlong without sympathy,
walks to his own funeral,
dressed in his shroud.

Walt Whitman

You

Our Sessions

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Resources: Poems and Articles

The Woman Taken In Adultery

The Woman Taken In Adultery

The Woman Taken In Adultery The bible (John 8:3-8:11) tells us the following story:And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the...

The Prodigal Son

The Prodigal Son

Rembrandt -­ The return of the prodigal son Hermitage museum, St. Petersburg. In the bible (Luke 15:11­32) we find a short story – a parable Jesus tells to his disciples: "And he said, A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to [his] father, Father,...

Sweet Darkness | by David Whyte

Sweet Darkness | by David Whyte

A note from Rulik Sweet Darkness by David White is a good prescription for a certain kind of depression. The kind that comes from ongoing attacks on the self. Initially, these might have come from a judgmental parent. Later, that judgment was internalized, turning...