FAQs Archive | Margery Runyan, PhD

Q: Can you tell us anything about the next book on twins you are writing?

So many twins have told me that psychotherapy was useless for them because the therapist did not understand the twinship and its centrality in their lives. The therapist did not accept the endless grief of those twins who had suffered the death of a twin nor did they grasp the quality of the marriages, friendships, and family relationships outside the twinship. The life stages and attachment styles were misinterpreted as the same as singles. Almost nothing about the experience of twinship was grasped within the therapeutic relationship. The only articles that I have discovered on the subject were focused on the drive to twin with others and the inability to individuate properly. The labeling was stigmatizing and pathologizing. Twins know that we are perhaps the most fortunate people on earth. An approach to healing our attachment and separation difficulties is needed to support us in our efforts to find ourselves and each other within the Twin World, not outside of it. I have been gifted with an unique position to undertake the quest for wholeness. This book is dedicated to our love for each other as Twins.

Q: What would you like your readers to get out of your book, The Tao of Twins?

The Tao of Twins is a spiritual journey that every heroine must undertake to reach her highest self. We all must stumble and fall into the abyss and climb out of this private hell to truly serve others. I want people to understand their courage and perseverance as qualities necerssaryfor transformation. Without suffering we cannot evolve our consciousness to embrace the interconnectedness of all: spirit and matter, death and rebirth, despair and joy.

Q: How long did the Tao of Twins take you to write?

I started this manuscript with the description of my twin sister’s death and the aftermath of clinging to life in spite of my best judgment. During this period in my soul, I believed I would be better off with her or dead to the pain. Constructing this section brought back so much pain that I set the book aside for several months. After reviewing my notes of my spiritual explorations, I realized that I had been searching for Malinda. Then the book fell into place within two years. I was practicing psychotherapy so I did not have big spaces to write.

Q: Can you explain where you came up with the title of your new book, The Tao of Twins?

After 10 years of studying Medical Qi Gong, I had adopted the Taoist world view. The flow of the river and the interconnectedness of all energy were engrained in my approach to life. The Tao Te Ching showed me how to stop pushing and allow life to unfold in its intended way. The Tao is the journey and twins have a very different path that society needs to try to understand. Friends and family have the right to know who we are.

Q: With multiple births being on the rise, is there one thing you would like parents of multiples to understand?

Twins can be separated in time and space but never in the spiritual dimensions. Their souls came to earth intending to be twins and to experience a way of loving that changes the evolution of those souls forever. They go where you cannot follow. Let them soar.

Q: What was the biggest takeaway from your study of twin dreams?

Twins have thinner boundaries than singles, therefore producing elaborate dreams with more characters and events. We allow deeper stimuli to affect us because our defenses are less rigid. Dream products arise from life experience as well as the collective unconscious of all humanity, and twins have more direct access to this material. The quantum theory of entanglement is perhaps an illustration of our openness across dimensions.

Q: What prompted you to write your thesis on twin dreams?

Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung were my mentors in dream study. Freud used free association to get to the heart of the dream images and believed that repressed personal material in the unconscious was the undercurrent of all big dreams. Jung adopted the practice of amplification, probing the symbol ultimately into the collective unconscious of myth. The archetypes at this level inform the symbols of the dreams and elucidate the soul’s intentions in coming to earth. I believed that I would find answers to my sister’s death and perhaps preserve something of her memory by exploring the dream depths of twinship.

Q: Will you be working with twins in any capacity in the future?

Twinship is my passion. The next book, Healing Twins, is already underway and my studies are directed towards capturing the content necessary for adult twins and their support systems. Both energy healing and talk therapy will be incorporated, starting with the world view of twins, covering the life stages from a twin viewpoint, and elucidating the best methodologies for twin healing. We are not singles who happen to have a sibling. We are so much more than that. We deserve to achieve our highest purposes. I may also provide some psychotherapy as needed for twins together or apart. I would need to find a site in Durango, CO, to do hands-on healing. Thus, I could also practice Medical Qi Gong as an adjunct to the other therapies.

Q: Are you still practicing psychotherapy? If not, what will you miss the most?

I intend to practice psychotherapy as a traveling social worker in prisons, hospitals, and community mental health centers through Aya, Maxim and other placement firms. I spent the last two years practicing telehealth on zoom and am more than ready for face-to-face sessions. The 10-year private practice was stimulating, and I encountered beautiful souls who wanted to transform. Now I am going to the very Heart of Suffering to serve other populations who need my life experience. The 50-minute hour and the insurance billing are the past now. I want to encounter other aspects of my Self through populations in extremis.

Q: You were a social worker for a long time. What motivated you to leave the industry?

I advanced through all the social work methods from child abuse casework with the State of New Jersey in Hudson County, through program development in the 1970s, creating domestic violence, seniors centers and childcare programs. Later I practiced group work and community organizing as the Department of Human Services’ Representative to Union and later Hudson and Bergen Counties. After 25 years, I retired to Durango, Colorado, where I refined my clinical skills and practiced psychotherapy in Florida, New Mexico, and Colorado as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. I also taught human services, sociology, and social work at New Mexico Highlands University and San Juan College in Farmington, New Mexico. I have completed everything I ever wanted to do with social work and now I am focusing on the Tao, specifically Medical Qi Gong. I have been practicing this path for 10 years with Dr. Isaac Goren in Hollywood, Florida; Dr. Goren studied with the grand master Jerry Allan Johnson whose five treatises are available on Red Wing. I achieved the Practitioner, Therapeutic and just short two sessions of the Masters in Medical Qi Gong. Talking therapy without energy work is admittedly limited.

970-946-0992

970-946-0992

Can you tell us anything about the next book on twins you are writing?

By bob swoboda|2022-05-17T15:37:48+00:00May 17, 2022|

What would you like your readers to get out of your book, The Tao of Twins?

By bob swoboda|2022-05-17T15:37:25+00:00May 17, 2022|

How long did the Tao of Twins take you to write?

By bob swoboda|2022-05-17T15:36:27+00:00May 17, 2022|

Can you explain where you came up with the title of your new book, The Tao of Twins?

By bob swoboda|2022-05-17T15:35:41+00:00May 17, 2022|

With multiple births being on the rise, is there one thing you would like parents of multiples to understand?

By bob swoboda|2022-05-17T15:35:07+00:00May 17, 2022|

What was the biggest takeaway from your study of twin dreams?

By bob swoboda|2022-05-17T15:34:37+00:00May 17, 2022|

What prompted you to write your thesis on twin dreams?

By bob swoboda|2022-05-17T15:34:13+00:00May 17, 2022|

Will you be working with twins in any capacity in the future?

By bob swoboda|2022-05-17T15:33:41+00:00May 17, 2022|

Are you still practicing psychotherapy? If not, what will you miss the most?

By bob swoboda|2022-05-17T15:33:03+00:00May 17, 2022|

You were a social worker for a long time. What motivated you to leave the industry?

By bob swoboda|2022-05-17T15:31:57+00:00May 17, 2022|

Title

By Appointment Only:

CLICK FOR DIRECTIONS:
160 East 12th Street Suite 1&2
Durango, CO 81301

To schedule an appointment for a free assessment 970-946-0992

Offering In-Office or Telehealth Sessions.

$100 for in-office sessions including energy work, $60 for video, $40 for phone sessions.
If you have an Employee Assistance Program, we begin with that.
I prefer not to take insurance; we can discuss a superbill that you would submit to your insurance company.
We will discuss a rate and session frequency that is affordable for you during our assessment session.