Riding Dragons: Our Journey Through Trauma to Love, Intimacy, and the Deep Self

Riding Dragons: Our Journey Through Trauma to Love, Intimacy, and the Deep Self

Philip and Vellie Helfaer take us into the experience and sources of the joys and sorrows of the love relationship with searing honesty and impeccable integrity. Both authors document the painful effects of traumatic childhoods that created inner obstacles to fulfilling their longing for sexual love and intimacy. They committed themselves to working through their difficulties using self-study and an innovative set of therapeutic and healing practices. Their book is a testament to how two people in the face of serious difficulties can become equals living in sexual intimacy with enduring love. "Not since the films of the great director Ingmar Bergman has there been such an honest exploration of a relationship between two individuals who struggle to seek what everyone wants: acceptance, understanding, deepest intimacy and union in marriage and in love. Riding Dragons is a daring experiment, a fierce commitment to the self, to personal growth, and most of all, to the beloved other." — Kathleen Spivack, With Robert Lowell and His Circle, University Press of New England, 2012; Unspeakable Things, Alfred A. Knopf, 2016-17 "What a momentous achievement!" — Mary Anne Bright, MSN, EdD, Associate Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts-Amherst "... an intimate, soul-searching account of heroic journeys ... to live in a fulfilling, loving relationship." —Peter S. Fernald, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of New Hampshire "An astounding journey into the depths of self-exploration that is possible when two people commit to their individual healing and to developing a truly loving relationship." — Susan Kanor, MA, Director, Massachusetts Society for Bioenergetic Analysis Philip and Vellie Helfaer take us into the experience and sources of the joys and sorrows of the love relationship with searing honesty and impeccable integrity. Both authors document the painful effects of traumatic childhoods that created inner obstacles to fulfilling their longing for sexual love and intimacy. They committed themselves to working through their difficulties using self-study and an innovative set of therapeutic and healing practices. Their book is a testament to how two people in the face of serious difficulties can become equals living in sexual intimacy with enduring love. PHILIP M HELFAER, PhD. For me, life has been amazing and I am filled with gratitude for the multiplicity of gifts it has given me. The greatest gift is to be with and love and be loved by my wife, Vellie. My work-life and manner of earning a living as a psychotherapist, trainer and writer is another gift. This was made possible by the social circumstances that made my education possible (M.A. philosophy, Cornell University; PhD clinical psychology, Harvard University). My life gave me the time I needed for wanderings, meanderings, and various adventures, alone and with Vellie. We both found our way to bioenergetic analysis, a body-mind therapy, and I founded the Massachusetts Society for Bioenergetic Analysis. We travelled to Norway and Israel for many years to teach our work, and lived in Israel for 12 years. I see our teaching and my books as a way to give back to the society which has given so much to me. Books: "The Psychology of Religious Doubt," "Sex and Self-Respect," and the present book written with Vellie, "Riding Dragons: Through Trauma to Love, Intimacy, and the Deeper Self." I am planning a collection of recent papers under the title, "Therapy As If Being a Person Matters." We are retired, living in a beautiful spot in  North Carolina, and pursue the activities we love, writing, cooking, being together, watching the beauty of our garden, our meadow, and surrounding woods. For the record, I was born in a lovely village in western New York State in 1933.