Intensive Journal® Workshops

Intensive Journal® Workshops



About Intensive Journal® Workshops

Eremos is a proud sponsor of the
Intensive Journal workshops in Australia.

Is it time to pause and take a look at where /who you are?

The Intensive Journal process provides a means to clarify one’s purpose, deepen relationships and live more authentically. I invite you to participate and engage with this wonderful process which connects us deeply to our inner resources and opens new awareness.

This method developed by Ira Progoff combines keeping a journal, with a structured format that enables you to get to know the inner core of your life on an ever-deeper level. It empowers you to gain a fuller perspective of your life and unlock hidden creative potential.

The Intensive Journal® Program can help you to:

• Gain greater self-awareness and self-confidence;
• Work out career directions and major decisions;
• Live more authentically, connected to your deepest values and aspirations;
• Develop skills and practices to reflect on all aspects of your life.

Workshops currently available through Eremos.



Keep up to date with Intensive Journal Workshop news by subscribing to our newsletter here.

Click here to read our latest newsletter. Visit our Facebook page for more information.



Kate Scholl, Facilitator

These workshops are run by Kate Scholl.

Kate Scholl has been leading Intensive Journal® workshops for over 30 years and is passionate about their potential for enabling one to live more creatively and genuinely.

She is highly skilled facilitator and deeply passionate about the potential for transformation the Journal enables.

Read this article by Kate and her experience of using the Intensive Journal method and leading workshops:Writing our Truth

Eremos welcomes expressions of interest from individuals and groups that would like to hold an Intensive Journal workshop in their area. Contact Kate at events@eremos.org.au

Read Kate's Profile on the Dialogue House website. Visit our YouTube channel where Kate posts videos to support your Intensive Journaling practice.



Ira Progoff, Creator of Intensive Journal Process



More about the Intensive Journal Process:

Read Kate's article about Ira Progoff's work and the Intensive Journal process: Finding a Way that is True. 

You can read more about Ira Progoff, the creator of the Intensive Journal Method, here. Visit the Intensive Journal® website for more information: www.intensivejournal.org

"The Intensive Journal workbook is specifically designed to provide an instrument by which persons can discover within themselves the resources they did not know they possessed."
- Ira Progoff.

"The Intensive Journal is one of the great inventions of our time." - Joseph Campbell.

"Growth takes place in a person by working at a deep inner level in a sustained atmosphere of silence." - Ira Progoff.




Contemplative Practice

Read more about how the Intensive Journal process can enhance contemplative practice on this Intensive Journal website page and brochure.

https://www.intensivejournal.org/Specialized_Spirituality_ContPractice-Overview.php#contpract

spiritual-contemplative-3-2018.pdf (intensivejournal.org



Comments from previous Intensive Journal workshop participants:

• This workshop was a great catalyst for healing.
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• It’s helped me to recommence some in-depth looking at myself which had been on hold for a number of years.
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• Just superlatives...sensitive and wise facilitation; a strong and experienced guide through the materials and experience.
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• This workshop is a very important part of my faith journey – very rewarding, intense and challenging.
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• I entered this workshop having no real idea about what to expect. I have found a most stimulating approach to journaling that is most helpful and comprehensive – way beyond my earlier efforts at self-absorbed unhappiness. Thank you for the gentle guidance and secure environment.
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• Through the intensive writing process I was able to reflect on my life journey from different angles and through imaginative lenses. The workshop was a rich psychological and spiritual experience.
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• It was wonderful to learn how to connect to my deeper being; it made sense and encourages me to continue with this process.
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• It was amazing to find a way to journal that goes deeper and really allows me to discover different parts of myself.
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• Kate delivers this workshop in a respectful and serene way.
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• The workshop has opened up a way to explore the various aspects of my life and opened up possibilities for the future.
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• My life will never be the same again.
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• Kate was wonderful, so caring and empathetic, a gentle guide who was always happy to help. I got so much from the workshop-- I am sure it will be a life-long tool.

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Enhance Your

Contemplative Practice
with the Intensive Journal® Method


• Reflective / Contemplative Process
• A Form of Prayer
• Integrated Process Using Writing
• Develop Meaning
• Connect With Your True Self
• Access Inner Wisdom


"The ultimate task of psychology is to re-establish a person's connection to the sustaining and creative forces of life...through an experience of meaning and spiritual authenticity in the inner life." 1


Program Overview

The Progoff TM methodology provides you with a compatible way to develop a comprehensive spiritual practice for your ongoing development.

Created by Ira Progoff, PhD, a psychotherapist, accomplished author, and pioneer in developing spiritual methods as a component of overall individual growth, the Intensive Journal program provides you with an integrated system of writing exercises for connecting with the profound sources of inner wisdom.

At our workshops, conducted by certified instructors, the deepening atmosphere and unique structure of the Intensive Journal exercises help you access and learn how to work with a wide range of personal experiences and feelings to connect with your true self. Our process provides you with a compatible approach to, and companion for, deepening your spiritual awareness and contemplative practice.

Ira Progoff, PhD

Endorsed by Spiritual Leaders

"[The Intensive Journal method is] a modern system for achieving the deeper listening that brings a sense of God's presence, peace and will....on the way to our deeper self...that deeper awareness, and the power for Godly living that flows from it, is a practical way of speaking of the Intensive Journal method....Of all the spiritual disciplines that I have used across the years, this one has been the most dependable in keeping me on track, energized and focused." 2

Rev Wallace Chappell

Dallas, TX

Contact us for details about attending or sponsoring our program.

Join our mailing list for updates.



Dialogue House Associates, 23400 Mercantile Rd, Suite 2, Beachwood, OH 44122-5948

216-342-5170 / 800-221-5844 / FAX: 216-342-5168 E-Mail: info@intensivejournal.org www.intensivejournal.org

"Intensive Journal" (registered) and "Journal Feedback," "Process Meditation" and "Progoff" are trademarks of Jon Progoff and are used under license by Dialogue House Associates.

A Pioneer in Developing Techniques for Profound Spiritual Growth

Beginning in the early 1950s, Progoff was a leading proponent of the importance of spiritual development as

an overall component of psychological healing and growth.
The Cloud of Unknowing

Progoff wrote one of the leading introductory commentaries and translations on The Cloud of Unknowing by the 14th century anonymous monk as he describes how individuals can become connected to God.

"What is separating man from God is not any physical thing but the state of his consciousness. More specifically, it is man's consciousness of his separateness, of his existence as an individual apart from God that keeps him separated from God. To overcome this awareness of separateness, he must place himself in a psychological situation that weakens, and ultimately dispenses with, the conscious guidance of his personal being. He must permit himself to drop into a condition of unconsciousness, a condition of total unknowing. This encompassing state of unknowing is the cloud of unknowing that covers him in darkness, dulls his awareness of his separate existence, and provides the medium in which his union with God may take place." 3

Ira Progoff, PhD
Developing Spiritual Disciplines

As a leading psychotherapist, Progoff stressed the importance of creating a conducive atmosphere and approaches for connecting with your true inner self. He emphasized:

Direct ongoing experience "There is no use in one person attempting to tell another person what the

meaning of life is. It involves too intimate an awareness. A major part of the

meaning of life is contained in the very process of discovering it. It is an

ongoing experience of growth that involves a deepening of contact with

reality....The meaning of life cannot be told; it has to happen to a person" 4

Silence and privacy "Spiritual contact, the awareness of the profounder meanings of life and the

experience of its symbols, is an individual endeavor that can be carried through

only in the silence of privacy." 5

Working at an inner level "When our attention is focused inwardly at the depth of our being in the

context of the wholeness of our life, resources for a profound knowledge of life

become accessible to us." 6

Progoff's work then culminated in his creation of the Intensive Journal method that provided a practical means for implementing his philosophical approach described above. He provided a practical way for ongoing self-discovery and growth to develop your life, including spiritual awareness using his Process MeditationTM procedures (see p 4, para 4).
Dr. Progoff Defines His Work in Psychology

"The focus of my work has been to provide methods which will enable people to work continuously in their lives. It gives an inner perspective to guide them through transitions, evoking creative potentials and drawing forth new sparks of Spirit as they move toward becoming whole persons...I developed the Intensive Journal process in the mid-1960s to provide a structured way for people to work continuously to become whole persons." 7
Complementing Your Contemplative Practice

The Intensive Journal method can serve as a valuable resource, a companion on your journey for ongoing spiritual growth.
Learn Practical Exercises for Connecting With the Spiritual Dimension

• Deepen your experience of the Sacred in your life.

• Discern the deep inner purpose and direction of your life as it can be lived most authentically in the world.

• Connect with and develop greater awareness of religious/spiritual experiences.

• Clarify beliefs, priorities, truths, purpose and religious/spiritual experiences.

• Use Progoff's technique of inner dialogue to connect with the wisdom of spiritual figures to obtain clarity and understanding to resolve issues. Connect With Many Facets of Your Life

• Develop a foundation on your life as you work in many areas to create a more meaningful life. Examples include personal relationships, career/special interests, body and health, dreams and imagery, and your life history.

• Realize connections and relationships between different areas of your life and the spiritual component. Gaining self-knowledge helps you deepen spiritually. Experience a Workshop Atmosphere Conducive for Contemplation

• Increase your attentiveness to recognizing many different facets of experience. Become more receptive to hearing your inner voice.

• Benefit from a deepening workshop experience away from your daily routine to connect with your inner self.

• Apply a neutral meditative process for becoming centered and deepening your inward journey. Discover Your True Self

• Use nonjudgmental, non-analytical techniques in a meditative atmosphere to become centered, bypassing preconceived ways of thinking.

• Apply exercises to connect with your inner process in total privacy to be honest with yourself.

• Employ the Journal Feedback TM process to develop new integrations of awareness as you move toward greater wholeness (see p 4 , para 2).

"What appears on the surface to be an inner dialogue between myself and contents of my past is, from the perspective of faith, a dialogue in which I listen to God speaking to me from within my own life / experience. The Intensive Journal structure is a vehicle for such interior dialogue, which is a form of prayer.

"...The object of each individual life / process is to establish and maintain contact with the God of all. The procedure of moving toward that objective is the practice of a spirituality of experience. It is my position that Ira Progoff's Intensive Journal method is a link between inner renewal and the outer life ....It is an introduction to a spirituality of experience." 8

Fr John McMurry, SS

Former Director, St Mary 's Spiritual Center, Baltimore, Maryland

Implementing the Progoff Methodology

Through the Intensive Journal Process

The Progoff methodology is designed to further the processes of growth by helping people connect with the movement of their lives and strengthen their inner capacities for self-development.


Intensive Journal Workbook: Mirroring the Growth Process

The structure of sections and corresponding writing exercises in the Intensive Journal workbook mirror the subjective process taking place in personality development. Designed with minimal terminology, these procedures provide the means for moving directly into the inner process and drawing forth emotions and experiences to make them accessible and tangible for further development.
Journal Feedback Technique: An Active Dynamic Process

Structured as an active and evocative instrument, the Intensive Journal workbook helps participants generate energy and momentum to propel them forward through cumulative ongoing entries.

Through the Journal Feedback process, participants avoid self-conscious analysis and preconceived ways of thinking to overcome blockages and foster breakthroughs. Issues are viewed from different angles to realize connections and to create integrations of awareness.
Inner Development: Evoking Your Potential

Focusing on inner development, where the most penetrating insights are generated, the Intensive Journal method provides an integrated system for dealing with issues through a direct experience in your life. Certified trainers guide you through the method in a contemplative atmosphere.

Non-judgmental and non-analytical approaches further the psycheevoking process. Participants become immersed in their own growth, drawing forth their unique potential and unfolding life process.
Process Meditation Procedures for Spiritual Growth

Process Meditation methods provide an integrated set of procedures for deepening inner experience in the context of your entire spiritual life. They provide an ongoing spiritual discipline for working actively and systematically at an inner level reaching toward an experience of greater meaning.

Dr. Progoff's Philosophy

"... the net result of modern psychology has been to reaffirm man's experience of himself as a spiritual

being." 9

"Intensive Journal approach... deepens the level of experience and this draws an individual into contact with the profound

sources of inner wisdom.." 10

"People become sensitive to the elusive thread of their lives when they have a definite way of working with them." 11

The Unique Nature of Writing: A Process That Can be Done by Many

The requirement of writing is not a roadblock for your participation. You do not have to like to write, or be a good writer; people who are barely literate have benefitted greatly. You are the only one who reads what you write. The exercises are paced with breaks; you are not writing the entire time you are in the workshop.

You write down your thoughts and feelings that come to you, applying the exercises to your life; you are in effect a reporter on your life. Writing in the workbook (journal) makes your thoughts tangible for further development using Progoff's techniques. However, we do not regard our process as journal writing but rather an integrated approach for your ongoing development.

Intensive Journal Method: A Form of Prayer

The format of the Intensive Journal workbook and its individual exercises, and the workshop atmosphere are some of the reasons that the Intensive Journal method has been viewed as a form of prayer.

• Prayer and meditation in the midst of life: Dr. Progoff states that the

"Intensive Journal work is indeed a type of prayer and meditation but not in isolation from life and not in place of active life involvement. Rather, it is meditation in the midst of the reality of our life experiences. It draws upon the actualities of life for new awarenesses, and it feeds these back into the movement of each life as a whole." 12

• Atmosphere for prayer: The inward movement of the method creates an inherently meditative quality where the workshops have reminded participants "of profound prayer or of deep meditation." (AJW p 8) Prayer requires a "special condition of being, an inner state of unity, freed from the interventions of his [her] conscious ego, in which the ground of his [her] being was connected with an at-one with the abiding reality of God." 13

• Being in relationship with God: The essence of prayer is being in relationship with God. A key aspect of the Intensive Journal method is being in relationship with major aspects of your life, including wisdom figures such as God. These exercises help you gain unpredictable insights as you deepen your connection to each area.

• Adopting an accepting and non-judgmental approach: Effective prayer requires each of us to bare our soul to God to accept divine wisdom and forgiveness. We work in the Intensive Journal method using a non-judgmental approach, recording both positive and negative thoughts as a way to honestly connect with the full scope of our lives.

• Repetitive meditative breathing exercises: The Intensive Journal method uses a repetitive meditative breathing exercise that is called the Mantra/Crystal exercise, to create a great energy and atmosphere for wisdom.
Endorsements*


"The Intensive Journal method is a dynamic tool and practice I use to support my contemplative life, helping me to understand the transformation process, uncover my true self, and live the life I was meant to live.

"The Intensive Journal workshops helped me to affirm the meaning and purpose of my life, to look for any new direction I want to take, to touch into any places that still needed healing, and to uncover creative energies. The workshop experience helped deepen my insights and self-knowledge in a way that gives me great satisfaction."

Julie Saad

Denver, CO

“I have found the Intensive Journal method to be an excellent complement to centering prayer/contemplative practice in which I have practiced for over 20 years. It provides many practical exercises for conducting the deep inner work for connecting with my true self and experiencing God’s presence within.

Conducted in a quiet reflective atmosphere, the Intensive Journal method is compatible with our practices in centering prayer/contemplative practice, a companion on my lifelong journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth. I strongly encourage you to attend these workshops.”

Mary Kaplan LPC

Commissioned Presenter of Centering Prayer


Introductory Workshops, Phoenix, AZ



See article at www.intensivejournal.org/articles/ entitled: "Using the Intensive Journal® Method to Complement Contemplative Practice: An Interview with Julie Saad," by Jon Progoff, July 2018.

* Comments from individuals, including presenters or participants, reflect their personal experience and do not constitute an endorsement by Contemplative Outreach Ltd or other organizations in the field of contemplative practice.
Try a Sample Intensive Journal® Exercise

Experience how the Intensive Journal method works through a sample exercise. It is important to do the exercise in a setting of complete silence, with a pen and paper (not a computer), when you can relax and take your mind off your daily life. Record what comes to you; do not edit or censor. Write the date at the top of the page and the name of the exercise, "Period Log." Allow 45 minutes to complete the exercise.

1. Describe the "Now" period of your life; an open ended period that has a beginning but no ending.Examples include: three years since you moved to a new city or started a new job.

2. Record your thoughts, feelings, memories - whatever presents itself to you. Complete the phrase: "Itis a time when..."; record images that describe the period.

3. Describe more details about this period: personal relationships; projects or activities; body andhealth issues; attitudes about society; important events; dreams or imagery; people who inspired you; and choices or decisions you have made.

4. Read back what you have written and record any thoughts and feelings that you have during thisprocess of writing and reading back.

Through the Period Log exercise, you are beginning the process of reconnecting with different aspects of your life from which new perspectives and opportunities can reveal themselves.


Award-Winning Book by Ira Progoff, PhD

Ira Progoff, PhD: Founder


Ira Progoff, PhD, a nationally Describes the Selected as one of the 65 most recognized psychotherapist, was a Intensive Jour- significant books on psychology & leading authority on designing nal exercises spirituality of the 20th century. systematic approaches and techniques and principles. to foster human development.

Source: Common Boundary,

$19.95 (plus shipping) "Simply the Best," Jan.-Feb., 1999. As a university-based research


Continuing Education

Dialogue House is an approved provider of continuing education by:

• Association of Social Work Boards (#1036)

• International Coach Federation

• Nat. Ass'n of Alcoh & Drug Abuse Counselors (#456)

• National Wellness Institute

• Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Mental Health Counseling (50-14644 - exp. 3/31/19)

• Illinois Dep't of Fin'l & Professional Regulation (197.000213)

• California Board of Registered Nursing (CEP-15073)

• State approvals recognized by the Ohio Board of Nursing.

Call 800-221-5844 for brochure about details or see continuing

professor and psychotherapist, Dr. Progoff developed his theories of holistic depth psychology. He then implemented these theories by creating the Intensive Journal method in 1966.

Dr. Progoff continued to refine the method while serving as director of Dialogue House. Dr. Progoff authored fourteen books pertaining to the

Intensive Journal method, depth psychology, Carl Jung and related subjects, including an introductory commentary and translation of The Cloud of Unknowing by the Anonymous Monk.


education section of www.intensivejournal.org



1 The Death and Rebirth of Psychology, by Ira Progoff, PhD (Julian Press NY 1956), page 265.

2 "The Intensive Journal® Program: A Spiritual Tool for Modern TImes," by Rev. Wallace Chappell, Progoff TM Ministry Newsletter, vol 1, issue 1, winter 2007, page 3.

3 The Cloud of Unknowing, by Ira Progoff, PhD, page 34.

4 The Symbolic and the Real, by Ira Progoff, PhD, pages 13-14.

5 At a Journal Workshop, page 5. 6 At a Journal Workshop, page 9.

7 "The Intensive Journal® Process: A Path to Self-Discovery, An Interview with Ira Progoff, PhD," by Kathy Juline, Science of Mind Magazine, July 1992, p 40.

8 "Blueprint for a Spirituality of Experience," by Rev. John McMurry, SS, STL, PhD, The Priest, November 1988, vol 44, no. 11. 9 The Death and Rebirth of Psychology, by Ira Progoff, PhD, (Julian Press NY 1956), page 3.

10 At a Journal Workshop, page 7.

11 At a Journal Workshop, page 225. rev. 7/18

12 At a Journal Workshop, page 8.

13 At a Journal Workshop, page 314.