Concepts & Methods
Dr. Ritterman teaches a model of a therapy as an “awakening” from destructive and self-degrading trance states. Over the years, she has developed methods that utilize a mutually elevating process of cooperative exchange of “gifts” between therapist and client. Dr. Ritterman has trained psychotherapists around the globe in her approach to working with couples and families.

Below are various key concepts about psychotherapy that may be useful for practitioners, students and clients alike.

Therapy as a Model of Mutual Cooperative Exchange
When practicing as a therapist, Dr. Ritterman learned about giving from interactions with clients, as well as from family and teachers. Below are four case studies or “vignettes” demonstrating the process and outcomes of mutual cooperative exchange in therapy.

Case studies from Dr. Ritterman 

The greatest gift of all…
At the end of her therapy, my first client in grad school gave me a small object of appreciation. The head of my program, based on some draconian model of psychotherapy, told me to return it or be thrown out of the program! As he watched behind the two-way mirror, I explained the situation to my beloved client, telling her I would treasure her appreciation forever, and if I returned this object, it was to receive from her the greatest gift of all—her acknowledgement that I should go forth and heal others. With tears in our eyes, she accepted the return of the object in exchange for her life-long blessings. A lasting treasure…

My cousin was among the first to be dying from AIDS. Near the end of his young life, he called me from Canada, “Shellie, I just had to tell you that there was a soothing light rainfall today and a cool drop touched my cheek." That drop of rain touches me now.

Learning from a lamb…
During an internship at where? my favorite client was an eight-year-old who had set fires in his grandma’s bathtub—acting out as a cry for help. 

The child was deeply affected by the poverty of his family in the heart of the Philly ghetto, where I worked. He came in one day and began talking about the plants in my office—this one reaching out to that one and that one reaching out to others. He literally danced the energy of my office plants. At the time, I didn’t yet get the message. So, the next week, he brought me a cracked ceramic lamb he’d found in the glass and rubble of a barren lot—he handed it to me with eye contact and clarity. 

With the gift of that lamb, the child client was taking his leave, assuring me that he and Grandma would be alright. He was proud of himself and had taught me the art of give and take…which became my own therapy model…gift exchange and “presentation” the sequential offering of gifts. I treasure that little lamb to this day and know that healing is mutually elevating and reciprocal.

Giving too much…
I was a young middle-class woman working as an intern and still in grad school and still in the Philly ghetto. An African American woman client clearly had much sorrow and extensive life experience. From the second we met, we seemed to have a rapport that transcended age and race. She must have sensed she could trust me, and while my supervisor watched from behind the mirror, she poured out her heart to me. But then she never returned. Distraught, I asked my supervisor what he had observed. He replied, “You let her give you too much. When she got home, she woke up and realized the revealing she’d done with a young girl and was ashamed.”

The gift of love and respect…
With a mom who was hard to please I was in the habit of giving less-friendly grown-ups love, so they could be nicer. My high school Latin teacher, Miss Doyle , was not known for her kindness. I became a super serious student and showed my appreciation for all she knew and shared that year. In my high school yearbook, at the end of that year, I asked would she sign it. She wrote a life lesson: amor omnia vincit. Love conquers all. What a gem!

Life lesson learned: Give, and let give, but not too much or too little.

Ecology of Heart - Heirloom Seeds
Each person is to be regarded as a unique cross section of the tissue of the species at this time. Often one starts a healing process with a wide angle lens and overview of the person seeking help….as they are positioned in the world, in their country, their state, city, job, family, community, within themselves. 
 
In the tradition of environmentalists like Jane Goodall and Sir David Attenborough, Dr. Ritterman's body of work offers an Ecology of Heart. She asks: is it not a responsibility of practitioners of the healing arts to preserve the endangered “heirloom seeds” of the emotions of compassion and empathy…. that are essential for individual and collective sanity and well-being? 

In the anthropological tradition of presentation, the model supports a sequence of cooperative exchanges between therapist and client, whether that is an individual, couple, family, or larger social group. And a preservation of heirloom seeds of the feelings, sensations, memories that contain the world within a person.
In the tradition of the idea that “to save a life is to save the world.”

"I’ve never met anyone who has paired intellect/academics with compassion/advocacy the way she has.”
-- Scott Shimabukuro, student 

The Fire Between Us
What is essential is the rapport between them, at every step of the way, an energetic bond of trust and presence, with the client determining what they wish to offer, bringing the therapist into their world at their pace and in their language and their style. As in many cultural ceremonies, the focus is on the fire between them, their shared and protected energetic field, their sensed safety. Dr. Ritterman has found that little happens without this sense of presence.  

 “You trust in me/love for me helps me start to trust/love myself. This is teaching by spirit. I think this is the ultimate secret in hypnosis. Not direct or indirect techniques.” 
-- Po-Chun, Sun 孫柏鈞 student, Taiwan

"Thank you very much for this so generous attention and beautiful understanding. I felt heard and understood, and deeply respected. It is as if your presence had leaked, infused into my world and that already, I didn’t feel so lonely in it. It will certainly change byway of considering this essential attention, much more than an essential ingredient of a safe space for care, it is as an act of care. And cure."
-- Cecile Henriques, student and therapist, France
 

The Art of Transparency
 The Glasswing Butterfly in Therapy 
Influenced by the glasswing butterfly, whose protection is its transparency, rather than concealing itself, as other creatures often do. Certainly today’s world is riveted to how people can conceal themselves and appear in ways that hide who they are and how they feel.

Revealing fragile frightening emotions to a therapist requires a level of vulnerability mistaken for weakness in today’s competitive world, vulnerability is the foundation for compassion and one of our greatest human strengths. But in our world, indeed it must be safeguarded, not eliminated.

If therapist and client are n profound rapport there is deep trust and reciprocal transparency at the psychological level…a true seeing and veritable knowing.  

Dr. Ritterman advocates for the idea of mutual transparency between therapist and client. In a world where image is highly regarded, transparency is shown to provide a great protection against harm for clients who have never been both Seen and Accepted. This process leads to the possibility of trust and helps to break the spell of dysfunctional rapport. 

Hence, Dr. Ritterman's logo.