Wisdom Keepers: Dimensions of Susan Jewkes Allen
Sara Vatore
In this installment of the Wisdom Keepers series, I am joined by Susan Jewkes Allen, founder of the Synthesis Center San Francisco, which is currently evolving into the Psychosynthesis Institute. Susan was a meaningful mentor during an important transition in my own life, supporting me during the period when I was leaving my work as a guidance counselor and stepping into building my own business and body of work.
Susan takes us on a journey through her lifelong attunement to the “inner life,” a sensitivity that began in childhood and led her through decades of exploring creativity, leadership, meaning-making, and transformation.
Together, we explore the tension between sensing the mystical or transpersonal dimensions of life and the vital work of grounding those experiences into everyday living, relationship, and contribution. Susan shares the story of being “bitten by the psychosynthesis mosquito” and how discovering psychosynthesis gave language and structure to many of the questions, experiences, and dimensions of human life she had long been exploring. Over time, this path evolved into a deep commitment to teaching, collaboration, and helping bring psychosynthesis to future generations of practitioners and seekers.
Susan Jewkes Allen is the founder of Synthesis Center San Francisco, now evolving into the Psychosynthesis Institute (Pi): Tools for Personal and Social Transformation. For more than three decades, her work has explored psychosynthesis and transpersonal psychology as pathways toward greater coherence, meaning, responsibility, and participation in the world.
Drawing from psychosynthesis, depth psychology, contemplative practice, and lived experience, Susan’s approach holds the psyche as a living whole, inclusive of suffering and aspiration, instinct and imagination, will and relationship. She has a particular interest in creativity, purposeful life design, and supporting leaders and emerging leaders navigating significant life and professional transitions.
Her work explores healing as a threshold into deeper purpose, presence, and contribution within both personal and collective life.
Susan also writes Synthesis Muse, a reflective Substack exploring psychology as a living conversation through essays, practices, and inquiry grounded in both soul and everyday life. https://synthesismuse.substack.com/
Inside this episode, we explore:
The early sensitivity to inner life, emotional tone, and what lives beneath the surface
The search for meaning, grounding, and orientation during times of personal and cultural upheaval
How psychosynthesis offered language for psyche, soul, creativity, spirit, and human potential
The evolution from Synthesis Center San Francisco into the emerging Psychosynthesis Institute
The desire to bring psychosynthesis to a new generation through collaboration, training, and shared leadership
What multidimensionality means when we hold our practical lives, inner worlds, wounds, purpose, and potential
How intuition, impulse, imagination, and the body each play a role in inner knowing
The power of signs, synchronicities, dreams, and unexpected moments that affirm a calling
Becoming a “grandmother to oneself” as a practice of tenderness, patience, perspective, and compassion
The importance of love, self-responsibility, compassion, and staying connected to something larger than ourselves
I hope you enjoy this installment of the Wisdom Keepers series.
To learn more about the Psychosynthesis Institute, visit The Psychosynthesis Institute
If something in this conversation stirred remembrance, sparked an insight, or opened a new doorway for you, I’d love to hear from you at sara@saravatore.com.
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