Sulfiati Magnuson's Threshold Counseling

Sulfiati Magnuson's Threshold Counseling Answers to "when a community weeps." Sometimes it’s voluntary, other times not. On one side, is life as we have known it.

Anxiety and Depression issues, Loss Grief Counseling, Trauma, support to manage life's many transitions, Imago Relationship Therapy (individuals & couples), Living with Aspergers. Her practice is called, “Threshold Counseling.” There are many times in life where we seem to be facing a doorway that we have never passed through before. Once we cross its threshold, life will never be the same again,

sometimes literally, and sometimes the transition is not visible to the naked eye. The essential healing ingredient in therapy is the relationship that develops between the therapist and the client. Through the trust that is established, she is able to bring a wide range of tools and modalities to customize the therapeutic experience for each individual client or couple. She serves as a guide for client/s who are undergoing the process of healing old traumas and wounds, assisting in the development of resilience or identity, or teaching concrete tools to improve the communication of relationships. She holds with certainty and empathy the knowledge that while current circumstances may seem intolerable, the healing process will result in a positive and transformative change. For over twenty years, she has served individuals, couples and families as they struggle to resource their individual and God-given strengths that enable them to cope with stressors, losses, or all the, “little deaths,” we each experience as we face life’s challenges. She brings her rich life experience to the therapeutic process: lay-midwifery; a corporate career; working in a hospice; serving with the Red Cross at 9/11 in NYC; grief counselor at Columbine High School; teaching at the university level; parenting three daughters; being an artist; and most recently life overseas where she served Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa. As she walks through life in awe of the beauty of the earth, and the human soul, her life motto is, “Love now, love hard, and live clean!”

Michael Meade, poet and mythologist, is a fountain of wisdom, especially in our dark times. This clip gives context for ...
02/01/2025

Michael Meade, poet and mythologist, is a fountain of wisdom, especially in our dark times. This clip gives context for these intense times.

Why I watch the RNC Convention07.19.24It’s not that I enjoy watching train wrecks! As a former producer of large scale c...
07/19/2024

Why I watch the RNC Convention
07.19.24

It’s not that I enjoy watching train wrecks! As a former producer of large scale corporate events, I’m in awe of the masterful stagecraft of this convention and the brilliant composition of the building blocks that force the only possible conclusion: join us and you will be happy, rich, oh so safe and “one of us!”

My professional training, my deep spiritual roots, my personal experiences with all the Abrahamic religions and the wisdom I now receive from the pulpit of my Episcopal church all encourage me to deeply and openly listen first, especially if I disagree with a speaker.

This requires setting aside my own agenda or perspective, and forces me to above all be curious, without assumptions. I’m grateful to my Imago Relationship training for the tools to do this. In my psychotherapy practice, I have been forced to become a compassionate witness as I’ve listened to people disclose their deepest shame, including a murder committed as a gang initiation, helpless rage at injustice or abandonment, theft, vengeful jealousy or their deepest fears and nightmares, personal or existential. Empathy is the food for healing.

Perhaps the hardest part of this task is the simple, everyday witnessing of people everywhere who are unaware of the consequences of their actions to themselves or others – family or strangers, the environment or upcoming generations. This blindness is the toxic fruit of not feeling our intergalactic homogeneity, of never having been loved or protected, of being a stranger to kindness and above all not having a relationship with something larger than one’s self.

I love people’s stories! People only do what makes sense to them. Being curious about the how and why of that is fascinating to me, and it creates a non-defensive connection. It is a relief to not be afraid, or angry or to have to be, “right.” I have to giggle because at my age, I think I present as pretty non-threatening anyway, so people are more likely to be genuine and often vulnerable with me – another gift of aging.

My homework now is to find someone different from myself, and engage with them, to listen first, and then maybe we can find a tune to sing together a song without words.

Small acts done with kindness, everyday, one moment at a time assuages my personal grief and relieves me of my sadness, as does finding a new recipe for baba ganoush (with pomegranate molasses) or a new pattern for an afghan for a grandson, or weaving brightly colored yarn onto the branches of the tomato cages in our garden plot.

We may not be able to see or feel what it will look like, but I do believe as Julian of Norwich said, “All we be well.”

And, please forgive me if any of this offends you?

05/04/2024

Yesterday I attended this presentation on "Extinction Anxiety." It's powerful and sooo relevant. The presenter is my good friend and mentor, Randyy Morris, Ph.D. (The link to the recording will be available on the West Mass Jung Society page.)

The Jung Association of Western Massachusetts presents
The Therapeutics of Extinction Anxiety: A Depth Psychological Approach.

As a culture we are swimming in a psychic soup of apocalyptic stories, images and symbols of nuclear war, social injustice, anthropogenic climate change, and global pandemics. As a result, we are experiencing high levels of anxiety about the human future, which I am calling ‘extinction anxiety’. This anxiety is so strong and pervasive that mighty engines of cultural repression are at work to numb our feelings and prevent recognition of the object of our fear and our worst nightmare — the extinction of the human species. But if we are willing to turn toward this psychic soup, if we can learn how to ride the dark emotions that arise rather than turn away from them, then, I suggest, we will be given the seeds of a new revelation. I want to make the claim that apocalyptic imagery and extinction anxiety are promptings from the sentience of the earth herself, inviting human beings to walk through a threshold toward personal, cultural and planetary renewal. Jungian depth psychology offers a therapeutic frame of reference to understand how to navigate these rough waters with courage, resilience and grace.

Randy Morris, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus at Antioch University Seattle where he taught in the BA Liberal Studies Program for thirty years and was the coordinator of the Psychology and Spiritual Studies concentrations. Prior to his career at Antioch University, Randy taught K-12 students for 10 years, including 3 years at the Hiroshima International School in Hiroshima, Japan. He was a vision quest guide for many years and is a Certified Sage-ing Leader with Sage-ing International. Currently he is the Co-President of The C.G. Jung Society of Seattle, bringing the insights of depth psychology to bear on global rites of passage and the dark night of the species soul."

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“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” Rumi

Sulfiati Magnuson brings her rich life experience to her therapeutic practice. Recently she has spent time with family in Kampala, Uganda. A mother of three adult children, and a grandmother to two boys, she has also had both corporate and academic careers, worked in a hospice, was a lay midwife and childbirth educator, taught at the university level, and is a photographer. Sulfiati has been a Certified Imago Relationship Therapist for over twelve years, and has mentored other Imago therapists. Her post-graduate training includes Sandplay Therapy and S*x Therapy. She has also been trained as a Psychodrama Group Director. She offers therapy to adults in the Pacific Northwest, as well as around the United States and other countries as well via Skype, Google Hangouts and Zoom. She is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in the State of Washington (LMHC). She has taught, "When a Community Weeps," at Antioch University Seattle, and various courses for professionals on trauma at local mental health agencies. She has been a Red Cross Disaster Mental Health Counselor. Her education includes getting her B.A. in Psychology, Creativity and Spirituality, as well as her M.A. in Psychology, Mental Health Counseling, both from Antioch University Seattle.