Dr. Paul Dunion has been in private practice as a Counselor for the past 27 years with his areas of specialty being men's healing and couples' counseling, although he does counsel women as well. Previous to his counseling, he taught Philosophy for 12 years at Mohegan Community College and the University of Connecticut.


EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOTHERAPY FOR INDIVIDUALS
Dr. Dunion offers individuals an existential healing perspective, which focuses upon four pathways to individual deepening.

The first of these focuses is learning to see change as an ever-evoloving process of becoming more of who we were meant to be rather than becoming a better human being. This view of change is not based upon improvement but rather upon deepening a capacity for integrity, whereby we become more acquainted with our own values and beliefs while creating a capacity to make choices which truly reflect what we believe and value.

The second pathway is strengthening our ability and willingness to identify the truth about ourselves, especially as it pertains to how we are wounded, how we are gifted, and what we desire. Individuals learn to hold what they discover about themselves with compassion.

The third pathway is one of reparenting. Here, individuals learn to identify missing pieces from their own childhood or how their parents passed on ineffective ways of relating to themselves, to others, and to life in general. Dr. Dunion's BEND reparenting model is employed, emphasizing the roles of Boundaries, Encouragement, Nurturance, and Discipline.

The fourth pathway is learning about the dance between personal will and destiny. Individuals deepen their awareness about the power and the limits of their own wills while learning to make peace with the mystery of their healing.


MEN'S SOUL WORK
Paul Dunion has been offering counseling, trainings, and workshops for men over the past 27 years. His work with men focuses upon the hazardous impact rigid definitions of maleness and manhood have upon the development of boys and men. Males struggle to find the meaning of their gender identity by constructing limiting descriptions of masculinity that have been reinforced by parents, teachers, and coaches. These gender demarcations are typically restricted to social-economic achievement, athleticism, and attainment of intellectual acuity and soldiering. The greater the need to demonstrate gender legitimacy, the tighter a man's grip becomes upon one of these ways to exhibit male prowess, which consequently diminishes the warmth of a man's heart, impairs his capacity to be soulful, and ultimately endangers his ability to be himself.

In our culture men typically spend an inordinate amount of time and energy proving that they are men. Since manhood is not something mostly to be proved, men end up failing at that which is sacrosanct and are confused about being a man. Without the presence of elders and meaningful ritual, adult male status often remains illusive, leaving men depressed or caught in endless attempts to prove the unprovable. Manhood, however, is something to be initiated into and blessed.

The culture gives men little or no permission to have an inner world or to know what it means to honorably labor in that world. Hence, men are deeply confused about what they need, what they feel, what they love, and what they long for. Prohibition from their own inner world guarantees isolation from the outer world.

Dr. Dunion's work with men is designed to help men relinquish cultural injunctions against their own depth by offering mentoring, initiation, and ritual aimed at welcoming men to their inner worlds and to the world of men.

Dr. Dunion also offers a healing community experience for men. In these communities men have the opportunity to shed their isolation, discover the uniqueness and the nuances of their own manhood, reclaim what was lost, create expressions of authentic self-empowerment, experience participation in genuine brotherhood where men are not asked to give up part of themselves in order to belong, and receive the blessing that is their birthright.

Dr. Dunion believes that women were stripped of socio-economic and political entitlements and privilege. The feminists taught them to complain in order to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. Men, on the other hand, were barred from full participation in their inner worlds, making them strangers to their emotional lives, their intuition, and their capacity to steward. The tragedy facing men is that they are not complaining.

SHADOW MARRIAGE COUPLES COUNSELING
Shadow Marriage explores the nature of Shadow - not only as those elements of the personality we deem unacceptable, but also as our own unique personal gold. Special attention is given to the roles of denial and projection of shadow and their impact upon a marriage. We explore ways to welcome Shadow into a marriage in order to deepen our capacity to have intimacy. The counseling also focuses on ways that we can cope with conflict through creative self-empowerment and radical self-responsibility.