Thomas Keating on the "Third Movement" of Centering Prayer

In Intimacy with God, Fr. Keating describes what he calls Centering Prayer's "third movement." Within Centering Prayer this interior movement is a gift from God that provides theraputic unloadings of psychic debris. Many who practice Centering Prayer share Keating's awareness of the gift which he elaborates upon here:

I call this third moment in the circular movement of Centering Prayer "the unloading of the unconscious." "Unloading" refers to the experience of psychic nausea that occurs in the form of a bombardment of thoughts and feelings that surge into our awareness without any relationship to the immediate past. That lack of connection with the source of painful thoughts or feelings is what identifies them as coming from our unconscious. Evacuation of this primitive material is the fourth moment of the circle. Having carried this emotional pain for twenty or thirty years (or longer), the evacuation process may be extremely painful, but if it is prepared for by the discipline of a practice like Centering Prayer on a daily basis, then the trust in the Divine Therapist is there to enable us to handle it. We just have to put up with the turbulence; when it is possible to return to the sacred word, we return to it and start the circular process once again. (79)