• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Kim Hermanson PhD

Facilitating Creative Breakthroughs

  • Home
  • Books & Courses
    • Books
    • Audio Courses
    • Courses to License
  • Work with Me
    • Doorway Sessions
    • Metaphor Readings
    • 15 Minute Energy Shift
  • Media
    • Interviews
    • Articles
    • Blog
    • Youtube
  • About
  • Contact
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Drawing on bigger wisdom

May 21, 2011

I finished teaching my last Psychology of Transformative Learning class yesterday. The title of the course felt daunting to me (I didn’t come up with that title, the class I suggested would have been called “Imaginal Ways of Knowing” or “Psychology of Perceiving and Knowing”), but I did what I always do–I taught it from “third space.” I knew that it wasn’t me who was teaching this class. The subject itself (transformative learning) was teaching it, and I was there to learn about transformative learning along with my students. I didn’t need to fret about the material, because the right material would show up.

Third space is similar in some respects to Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious and psychologists often refer to third space as “liminal” space. Theologians define it as a “Divine Third” and Martin Buber called it “Thou.” One might also call it the imagination. Our traditional institutions—religion, psychology, medicine, education—have removed the liminal layer from their practices. If something can’t be measured or seen clearly, it is presumed to not exist. Third space is where we find inspiration, creative renewal, and meaning.

Third space is that place of expanded knowing and intuitive wisdom; it’s the great unknown of inspiration and possibility. We could define it as our creative process, or as a realm that is just beyond our ordinary, every day rational intellectual capacities. When groups of two or more come together in meaningful ways for a shared purpose, there is a larger wisdom available to draw upon, a wisdom that lies within the center of the group itself. Teaching from that place keeps me inspired and renewed. It ended up being a great class!

Previous Post
Next Post

Inspiration, Teaching, Coaching & Facilitating carl jung, martin buber, third space

Primary Sidebar

Blog Categories

  • Art
  • Books
  • Doorway Sessions
  • Earth/Nature
  • Imaginal
  • Inspiration
  • Learning & Creative Process
  • Metaphor
  • Miscellaneous
  • Social Change
  • Teaching, Coaching & Facilitating

Blog Archives

Blog Tags

aesthetic space albert einstein artist beauty beginner's mind Book Passage carl jung coaching consciousness courage creative breakthrough creativity deep knowing depth psychology eckhart tolle esalen institute form genius george lakoff getting messy goethe heart imagination james hillman john o'donohue key image marshall mcluhan martin foss mihaly csikszentmihalyi play poetry psychology of creativity psychology of metaphor right brain robert henri shamanism singing Sophia Center soul calling square energy stanley kunitz strength thinking third space transformation

Get clarity, see opportunities, and uncover resources that can’t be known any other way.

Copyright © 2023 Kim Hermanson, PhD | Website by Digital PDX