ABOUT ME

My name is Karol Domański. Since 2013, I have been working as a psychotherapist in the process-oriented psychology approach and also practicing Jungian psychoanalysis. Together with my friend Adam Kościuk, I founded the RefleksJA Psychological Workshop. I love my work, but at some point, I felt that I also needed something else in life: creating handpans 😀

I started with shy attempts at shaping metal with a hammer at my friend's plot, and over the next year, I acquired skills, gained knowledge, putting more and more heart, energy, and money into it. Sometimes it was literally a painful journey—blood, sweat, and tears 😀 When, after several months of such efforts, I finally managed to tune the first note, I cried tears of joy. But I was still at the beginning of this path—there were still many hours of effort ahead before I created my first fully functional instrument. In the meantime, I found a place for my own workshop, which, in Warsaw, was not easy at all.

ESSENCE HANDPANS

The name 'essence' comes from a term used in process psychology, meaning the source from which all our experiences emerge. We often access it through various subtle, instinctive feelings that elude traditional analytical understanding. When we consciously create space for it and allow it to emerge, unexpected ideas, solutions, and emotional states that we truly need often appear.

It’s something that moves us in life, somewhat beyond our will. If we forget about it, we quickly burn out.

In practice, we can connect with the level of essence by closing our eyes and opening ourselves to every, even subtle, sensation that arises. We allow this sensation to move us: either physically through movement, or as a feeling in the body, or as an image unfolding like a dream in our imagination, or finally—as a sound that we make or play on the instrument :) When we allow ourselves to be carried away by it, we begin to feel that something is trying to happen within us or through us.

Psychological work at this level has often shown me that beneath the surface of consciousness, much, much more is happening than we suspect. When we experience problems and conflicts in life, we most often only have access to the tip of the iceberg and get stuck: in thought patterns, emotions, and states of consciousness. However, when we support the flow of experiences, consciously giving them attention, we discover deeper meanings and gain a fuller connection with ourselves and with the world.

Handpans are, for me, primarily a therapeutic tool for inner work at this level. They are very intuitive instruments: they are built in specific musical scales, which makes all the notes on a given handpan sound harmonious with each other. I know many people (myself included) who, without completing any music school or instrument-playing course, took a handpan in their hands and let themselves be carried away. They connect with themselves on a different level, which often brings them harmony and peace.

RefleksJA Psychological Workshop website: https://refleksja.com