Nowadays most people usually seek instant therapy. I do not know if the reason is that they are exhausted from suffering or they are just accustomed to the fast rhythm of our current way of life, so that our concept of therapy has somehow become part of the same vortex.
So the question is what does a patient seek, and what therapy ought to aim at?
The term “therapy” includes all means which aim at healing. In ancient Greek it used to have the meaning of being of service, attend with eagerness, take care, look after, foster, satisfy, treat, heal, rehabilitate.
Therapy, that is the relevant means and methods used, is not bound to lead to healing.
But what is the definition of healing? Despite the richness of the Greek vocabulary, English language seems a little more opulent on this topic.
There are two English words describing the result of a treatment: cure and healing.
Cure means minimization or elimination of the symptoms of a disease, while healing is identified not simply as the expulsion of symptoms but as the achievement of a new whole, different and better compared to the total state of health preceding therapy. This novel condition includes not just physical but also mental, emotional and spiritual health.
What most people desire deep in their heart is the elimination of symptoms, which is partly quite normal. Beside that, for such elimination of their pain, they fully rely on their therapist. They believe that he ought to offer them the palliation they seek, based on his knowledge and experience.
However, true healing is acquired when we heal the source of pain, the one that makes symptoms appear. In order for that to happen, it takes time as well as the acceptance of personal responsibility by the patient.
Western medicine emphasizes mainly on the repression of symptoms or their elimination and is confined in labeling the cause of symptoms at the level of biochemistry. Who would dare to open the chapter of the individual’s personal choices which contribute to the disease? Toxic relationships, negative thinking patterns, poor diet, sedentary way of life, difficulty in stress management and many more. Even when we, as representatives of holistic therapy, make simple suggestions concerning diet and exercise, the response is disheartening the majority of the time.
Beginning from my own self and my personal resistance to change of negative habits, as well as observing the resistance of people coming for treatment, I have tried to explain the reason for that.
Why is it that, although at one level we long for a better state of health and wellness, we eventually most of the times fail to implement the guidance and advice of the experts?
Why is our will so easily exhausted?
Latest neurophysiology studies emphasize on the fact that painful experiences we had during childhood have an enormous impact on the way the nervous system has been structured and the brain functions. People carrying severe childhood traumas have multiple chances to ail, get addicted or depressed.
More or less, each one of us, carries one’s own wounds since childhood; painful events which the child’s mind interpreted in its own way in an effort to explain them. And what it usually came down to is that the child itself is responsible for what it experiences, and the sole reason that could happen to it, is that it is not worthy; not worthy of living, not worthy of being loved.
This false belief around “I am not worthy” is shaped in childhood and carried on through adulthood.
So how would it be possible for a person who feels unworthy to put one’s will into action so as to enhance one’s feeling of wellness and internal bliss?
This is the most important obstacle we are must tackle; that is the reprogramming of this false but extremely strong imprint.
That journey requires a lot of courage. It demands that we do not yield when facing phantoms of our past, which are, anyway, alive inside us; to mourn for our wounds, to feel compassion for the pain we experienced as a child and embrace it.
The word “heal” derives from “whole”. It means I become whole. And from that comes the term “holistic therapy”. It was difficult for me to understand what becoming whole means. Until I got it.
It means that every trauma we have repressed, every wound on which we have refused to cry, every behavior of ours that we deprecate, consists a part of ourselves of which we deny the existence.
The goal is to regain all of our pieces which we have diligently hidden in the dark, see them in a new light and give them some internal space. To forgive ourselves and recognize that we did the best we could.
Following the path of internal reconciliation, we will reach a point when we can say with certitude that “I am worth living!” and will be able to lovingly proceed to the essential care of our body and soul.
Αφήστε μια απάντηση