Is This For You?
Questions people ask before beginning.
Who is this for, and who is it not for?
Second Summit is for people in midlife who sense the story they have been living has run its course, and who want to find what comes next rather than repeat what came before. Some arrive after a loss or the end of a career. Others arrive with nothing visibly wrong, only a sense that something essential has been left behind.
It is not the right work during a mental health crisis, unresolved trauma, or a period that calls for clinical care. Descending into the unconscious asks a lot and needs stable ground underneath. If that ground isn’t there yet, therapy is the better first step, and I’ll say so in our first conversation. If you are in crisis now, call or text 988.
How is this different from therapy or life coaching?
Coaching works on behavioral goals: what you want and how to get there. Therapy treats psychological suffering and mental illnesses, and a good therapist is the right person for that work. I don’t diagnose or treat anything, and this is not a substitute for therapy.
Depth facilitation asks different questions: what parts of you were pushed into the unconscious during the first half of life in order to get on in the world? Through dreams, myth, reflection, and practice, those parts are brought back into conscious awareness, so that the life you live begins to answer to them. The aim is to discern your wounds, gifts, and vocation, and to bring your daily life into harmony with them.
What is a Guide and what is a Traveler?
The Guide has made the crossing and knows its terrain, from experience and from long study. The Guide doesn’t walk the path for you, but helps you make your own discoveries, read the signs, keeps the way safe, and tells you where you are when the ground is unfamiliar or you feel lost.
The Traveler is the one making the crossing for the first time. Along the way, they will uncover what has been hidden and bring their life back into line with what lies deeper at the center of their being.
Do I need to know anything about Jung, mythology, or dreams?
No. You’ll receive selected readings along the way, and I’ll teach you how to work with your dreams and with mythic material. Curiosity and patience are the only prerequisites.
I don’t remember my dreams. Does that matter?
Not for long, usually. Dreams tend to respond to attention. Once you start keeping a dream journal and treating them as worth remembering, most people find they remember more, and more clearly.
How long does the journey take?
The Group Journey meets every other week for a year, 26 sessions, with no more than five travelers. That year teaches the whole map and its practices and takes you through the opening stages of the crossing. You continue at your own pace afterward, on your own or in the Accompanied Journey.
The Accompanied Journey has no fixed length. We move from stage to stage as you are ready, and the psyche, not the calendar, sets the pace.
Can I do this remotely?
Yes. Both formats can meet in person or online. I prefer to meet in person when that’s possible.
Is it religious or spiritual?
It isn’t tied to any religion or creed. It draws on Jungian psychology, myth, art, folk knowledge and the world’s wisdom traditions, because those traditions share a common psychological ground. Jung spent much of his life tracing and explaining them. We work with that underlying ground, not with any tradition’s dogma or doctrines, and you are welcome whatever you believe or don’t believe.
Is it private?
Yes, with the limits any responsible practice has. What you share stays between us. I work under the supervision of a Jungian analyst and may discuss our work with him, without identifying you. Group members agree to keep what they hear inside the group. To be clear, this is not licensed mental health therapy, however I follow the ethical standards and disclosure practices that Vermont requires of rostered, unlicensed psychotherapists. (See here).
What happens in the first conversation? Is it online?
It is a free online conversation about fit, for both of us. I’ll explain how the work unfolds, the practices involved, what each of us commits to, and the practical arrangements, and I’ll answer your questions. If we both want to go ahead, you’ll write me a short request to begin. From there we choose a format and set a schedule.
Do you take insurance? What does it cost?
No. Second Summit isn’t therapy, so it isn’t covered by health insurance, and clients pay directly. An employee assistance program (EAP) occasionally covers it, but that is rare. The Accompanied Journey runs on a sliding scale, typically $80–125 per session, according to ability to pay. The Group Journey is $60 per session, 26 sessions over the year.
