Personal Development.
Personal Development refers to the type of therapy used in a more in-depth analysis of the personality, and the underlying reasons for continuing or recurring problems.
As with Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, a variety of techniques may be used in order to examine the structure of a client's personality and to explore the roots of their problems.
My own approach to understanding the human personality is derived from a variety of sources, both ancient and modern.
Briefly, the personality can be understood as having four levels.
1) The Spiritual-Imaginative Level. At this level we can create ideas out of nothing, and also believe things without needing to understand them logically. All progress begins at this level, because we must imagine the possibility of something before we work out how to actually achieve it. Many problems also arise at this level, through imagining unpleasant future possibilities, or dwelling intently on past troubles.
2) The Mental or Rational Level. At this level we can examine ideas, labelling them and "making sense" of them logically, understanding how one thing comes before, and possibly causes, another thing. At this level we can understand life's "vicious circles," and make sense of our life stories.
3) The Emotional Level. Our emotions are the names we give to physical sensations. For instance, if we feel ourselves sweating, heart racing, stomach tingling, and we have just seen a car crash for example, we label these sensations as "fear." The same sensations could be labelled "falling madly in love" in a different situation.
4) The Physical or Sensation Level. This is the part of our mind that is no different from the mind of an animal. A dog, for instance, has the same "fight or flight" responses as a human being. These automatic responses are nature's way of enabling us to survive through the 100,000 years or more in which human beings lived a very basic, primitive existence. They are not always appropriate for dealing with modern problems. However, the basic instincts are still needed, and there are situations (such as sexual performance) when thinking just gets in the way of them.