Intensive Journal Program for Self-Development
Progoff Series of Workshops

Specialized Audiences | Spirituality | Spiritual Direction

Endorsements

The Progoff Intensive Journal method is a powerful reflective tool for accessing inner wisdom and the movement of the Spirit. Its process for deepening awareness enhances the spiritual journey. I highly recommend it for those providing or receiving spiritual direction.

Dr. Marianne LaBarre
Portland, OR

I found the program initially attractive because it is open to and compatible with the possibility of a relationship with the transcendent. In other words, it has a spiritual dimension.

Rev. John McMurry, SS
Baltimore, MD

The deep presence and listening of a Spiritual Director can assist us to be attuned to God’s grace within and discover the unique life and sense of future directions we experience. I have found the Progoff Intensive Journal method to be an excellent companion in this process of Spiritual Direction.
The Progoff Intensive Journal method is designed with ways to go into our life without judgment. It puts us in touch with the movement of our life both personal and more than personal. The gathering of the material of life along with active methods of the journal help us to dive into the flow of our life and experience insights, connections, invitations and clarity our own beliefs and values. It helps us to consider the new in our life and reconsider some aspects we have let go. It helps us to touch into the Wisdom within.
In light of spiritual direction, it can help us continue the reflection between sessions and personally deepen and move forward with greater clarity. It truly is for us a companion for the ongoing journey our life is leading.

Evelyn Wemhoff, MED, MA, LMHC
Director, WomanSpirit Center
Bellevue, WA

"As a spiritual director, I find the Intensive Journal method to be a helpful tool on the spiritual journey in many ways. It provides an opportunity and a tangible process in which to do the 'inner work'. The method can help broaden perspectives, and facilitate awareness of the connections that exist in all areas of our lives, facilitating integration and expansion of various aspects of our lived experience.
The Journal honors every aspect of our life and encourages us to trust what we experience. It encourages us to develop and use our intuitive gifts as a way of knowing.
The Intensive Journal method provides the same sort of inner space that a retreat can for anyone wanting to open themselves more deeply to a spiritual process. It can be a gift to us as spiritual people trying to tend our journey. The Intensive Journal process is a tool that can help us honor the life that we live and in that, the Source from which that life flows."

Ruth Wirtzfeld
Fargo, ND

Spiritual Directee
I have been involved in spiritual direction for many years and the Intensive Journal process was an integral part of enhancing the sessions with my director. My spiritual director and I have both utilized Dr. Progoff’s Intensive Journal method, having attended many workshops.
The Intensive Journal method was an extremely important tool in a number of ways. My spiritual director and I could follow the threads of continuity or connections between different phases of my life, and see patterns in my life history as they emerged in the Progoff approach. Using the method helped me develop an expanded consciousness about the elements of my life and synthesize a coherent whole identity from all the various and divergent areas of my life.
We also focused on issues of belief, personal limitations, challenges for personal and spiritual growth, sexuality, my professional counseling career, and even balancing my participation in both Christian and Buddhist traditions. I gained clarity as we worked through these issues. My tendency to over-scrupulosity from boyhood, my fears of having no beliefs, and my major life transitions as I grew older all were reflected into our spiritual direction process with the Intensive Journal method being the vehicle we used as our primary mutual referent.
The entirety of my life at each step of the way was reflected in the Intensive Journal method and we actively used my journal as a tool for discussion of my issues when we’d meet face-to-face for spiritual direction. I developed more responsiveness to my director’s suggestions and directions, and documenting the process gave me a substantial body of material to embrace as the content of my inner life, and claim as my own. I believe I developed a much clearer identity as a result of the Progoff process, and that both my spiritual director and I used the Intensive Journal method to traverse sometimes difficult ground with ease and in-depth.

R. Glenn Guillory, ACSW, SFO
Glenmora, LA