Written by: Betsy on January 23, 2025

The word threshold causes me to dream of pretty doors, gates, and entrances into new spaces, all of which, in my imagination, are places of transition into new ‘wide open spaces’ to use biblical language.

My first PhD research in 2006-8, which I had to defer completing due to having my fourth child (and then was unable to finish as my tutor moved cities), was exploring a question about facilitating ‘the aha moment’ both in a psychotherapy context and a church context. I realised these ‘light bulb moments’ excited me more than other aspects of my senior church leader and psychotherapist roles. In both settings, the momentum for growth and change, accompanied by a sudden burst of excitement and energy, were the moments of ‘the light shining in the deep darkness’ and clarity being sudden and exhilarating. I spent those years wondering why we weren’t specifically aiming to facilitate these moments strategically because it seemed that they were the moments that fuelled or kickstarted transformation. In Gestalt psychotherapy, unlike other psychotherapy models, it is a core concept that uses the name ‘aha moment’. Hidden within a book called ‘Gestalt Psychotherapy’, it is described as [1]‘quite simply a moment of sudden insight. Often, it will be preceded by a period of stuckness, an impasse, and surface as the client begins to accept that impasse or makes an authentic movement away from it.’ Whilst the aha moment or the light bulb moment could be the actual few minutes of realisation and clarity, it is always followed by a process of application and transformation, which can bring the conflict of hope alongside destabilisation in some areas. A threshold concept is related in many ways, but rather than being an instant moment of realisation, it is an integrative process. Both are irreversible and become part of what we know, and both change how we view and interact with the world, both immediately and over time. An aha moment can occur when wrestling with understanding a threshold concept, but it is maybe less like a flash of light and, instead, maybe a small fire that flickers through the liminal space until it begins to burn brighter with understanding and clarity and subsequent transformation.

The peri-menopause powder that sits in my kitchen in a pink and white bag is what I add to my morning drink to attempt to keep me healthy, and it is called Liminal. It is named to give voice to that stage of life where women can feel somewhat suspended between the youth of our past and the older stage of our future. That suspended feeling of being in between is the sense of liminality that uncomfortable place many of us will continually feel in the active journey of embracing change. We can imagine the future where the dust has settled, and we are confident and can see clearly, but we are caught in the middle of being less sure than we were and not certain of what we think we may be grasping. It’s uncomfortable and stretching, and the world no longer feels the same as it did. I teach people about trauma and watch the process of their wrestling with the liminal space. As they become aware of trauma symptoms and coping mechanisms, they can find themselves immediately feeling the discomfort of suddenly being aware of the connection of their past with their present and how that has formed part of their way of interacting with the world. They are immersed into the liminal space where they cannot ‘un-know’ what they now know, but they are often frozen as they look forward and backward, reflecting, questioning and wrestling with how much trauma has been a theme that has been woven into the tapestry of their life.

This three-year study is part of my intentional decision to try and navigate my age-related liminal period of my life with focus and grace and as such I am hopeful for some aha moments to be a part of the transformation process. The ‘mess of the middle’ is a phrase that is applied to many aspects of transformation, whether it is the building of a house or a cake or recovery from a mistake or trauma, or being on the edge of a new understanding or concept, but it is also applicable to a period of growth, change and learning and it can be accompanied by feelings of insecurity, lack of confidence and feeling fear of potential failure. Acknowledging difficult feelings can be less overwhelming and less secretly destructive when we realise that every human wrestles with such feelings. Being within a liminal space where our thoughts are not ordered yet and our understanding is changing can be uncomfortable and irritating but the difficult feelings decrease as the uncertainty is embraced with humility and curiosity. The feeling of shame can accompany the fear of failure, but both can diminish when others who are on a similar path or have walked the path before us can empathise and offer encouragement that it is worth the effort of the discomfort to keep journeying towards growth and new understanding. My new goal is to master the ability to be a learner who is maturing in my learning approach, and so has become [2]‘more relaxed about the liminal zone and actually finds the tension stimulating and a necessary part of the learning trajectory.’

#DLGP, #Meyer

[1] Mann, Dave. Gestalt Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques. 1st ed. London: Routledge. 2010.

[2] Meyer, J., & Land, R. Flanagan. M. (2016). Threshold Concepts in Practice. Educational Futures: Rethinking Theory and Practice. Vol. 68. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers, 2016. 326.

About the Author

Betsy