David Richo, PhD, MFT, is a psychotherapist, teacher, workshop leader, and writer who works in Santa Barbara and San Francisco California. He combines Jungian, poetic, and mythic perspectives in his work with the intention of integrating the psychological and the spiritual. His books and workshops include attention to Buddhist and Christian spiritual practices.
RECENT PRESENTATION: (recording starts part way through program)
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The impulse to retaliate is in all of us. Spiritual teachers have offered an alternative: “Love your enemies.” This is a challenging practice indeed. It will take effort and an openness to grace if we are ever to fulfill it, or even believe it has value.
When we notice that we retaliate even against those we love, within a family or in an intimate relationship, we come face to face with a big challenge: we wonder whether love has truly taken hold in us.
This workshop is an invitation to explore the role of revenge in ourselves and in the world around us. We can look for ways to choose reconciliation over retribution, forgiveness over payback, love over division. We can find spiritually skillful ways to respond when others retaliate against us.
In this lecture and group discussion, we visit the possibilities in relating to others with caring and compassion.
Guided Meditation on Love
from How To Be an Adult in Love
Video Clips from Talks and Interviews
Six Minutes of Reflection -- Quotes from the Books of David Richo
David Richo on Tranference in Daily Life and Relationships 
(1 hour 10 minutes)
A Loving-kindness Affirmation
I say Yes to everything that happens to me today
as an opportunity
to give or receive love and to free myself from fear.
I am thankful for the enduring capacity to love
that has come to me from the Sacred Heart of the universe.
May everything that happens to me today
open my heart more and more.
May all that I think, say, feel, do, and am express loving-kindness
toward myself, those close to me, and all beings.
May love be my life purpose, my bliss, my destiny, my calling,
the richest grace I can receive or give.
And may I always be a compassionate assisting force
toward people who are considered
least or last or who feel alone or lost.
May all of us co-create
a world of justice, peace, and love.
–David Richo
By Your Side: How to Find Soulful Allies and Become One to Others
(Shambhala, 2024)