Arif Dyrud – An appreciation, by Steven Flowers and Frederick Nathanael
On April 1st, after a short illness, Arif (Per Jarle) Dyrud died in Norway surrounded by friends and family. He was 73 and had taught and supervised extensively at the Psychosynthesis and Education Trust and at institutes in Scotland, Sweden and Norway. His work had, in many ways, been his passion and he considered himself fortunate to have had two careers that he loved. He trained first as a dancer at the Norwegian National Ballet School and then as an actor at ArtsEd, The Place and the Drama Studio London. For 25 years he worked as a performer and director for stage and television. This he followed with 35 years of practice as a psychotherapist and an educator. For almost 20 years, since his return to Norway, my contact with him had only been fleeting, but from 1985 to 2005, we were very close as colleagues and as friends.
We met when we both took part in the Essentials at the Psychosynthesis and Education Trust. I remember a sub-personality mask-making exercise in which I just about managed to cut three holes into a sheet of cardboard. In the same time, Arif created a plumed masterpiece that turned inside out to reveal a hidden face on the inside. With the physical grace of a dancer and the expansiveness of the actor/director, he could be 
beguiling and charismatic. Often he evoked envy and there were times when I felt privileged to defend him and other times when I watched helplessly while he stirred the hornet’s nest and then stepped back confused and outraged to have been stung.
To his Psychosynthesis training he added psychodynamic training at WPF, psychosexual training and a further Middlesex University course in Psychoanalysis. He had a considerable appetite for learning and a wish to understand at depth both his own struggles and those of the many individuals and groups with whom he worked. He combined this with great sensitivity and with a theatre director’s feeling for ritual and orchestration. It made him a therapist who got to the heart of things and a creative, skilled facilitator of group and individual processes. He took a great interest in Transpersonal Psychology and was, in many respects, a religious man. Brought up in Christianity, he had a deep feeling for religious experience and practice whether Western or Eastern. His last request to me was that, after his death, I should recite for him the traditional Jewish mourner’s prayer, the Kaddish. He considered himself most fundamentally an existentialist and was passionate, above all, about seeking the multiple meanings of human experience and the many potential sources of meaningful living.
He wrote a blog with the Norwegian title Den lille mann, the little man. In it he curated an extraordinary collection of things he valued: poetry, music, art, film, theatre and the natural world. These nourished and inspired him. But he was not all about the light. One of his great contributions and commitments was to explore, in those drawn to the transpersonal, the evasions, the distortions, the inevitable shadows. He did this with great sensitivity, with courage and with a, sometimes, outrageous humour. He loved irreverence, laughter, sharing food and wine with friends. For all his sophistication, Arif stayed close to his experience growing up in rural Norway. He had loved the mountains and forests and it was to the countryside that he returned in later life, savouring time with his ‘treasure’, Luxor, a handsome Pharaohound, whom Arif described as ‘a great mate’.
At times this simplicity was elusive and, perhaps too often for his own good, he became embroiled in battles or grievances. There were times when he was certainly treated badly, though he clearly played his own part in some of these difficulties. They took a lot out of him and I am not sure I recall the complexities of his own understanding of these dynamics. He knew though that he could be exasperating and it made him more appreciative of those who stuck with him and loved him nevertheless. There was much to love. A Norwegian colleague, Frederick Nathanael, wrote an obituary which included the following appreciation:
“Thank you for walking us through thick and thin. It wasn’t always a journey we were grateful for, but many of us are truer, more delicate and stronger, more diverse, braver and more alive because you were here.”
Arif helped many people. He taught, inspired and touched many people. He lived passionately, creatively and with great commitment. I, like many, am enormously grateful to have known him.