1. Strictly speaking the answer is no. How could a separate
profession be one in which everyone is engaged? And how could
any limits be laid on an interaction in which everyone is both
patient and therapist in every relationship in which he enters?
Yet practically speaking, it can still be said that there are
those who devote themselves primarily to healing of one sort or
another as their chief function. And it is to them that a large
number of others turn for help.
That, in effect, is the practice of therapy. These are therefore
"officially" helpers. They are devoted to certain kinds
of needs in their professional activities, although they may be
far
more able teachers outside of them. These people need no special
rules, of course, but they may be called upon to use special applications
of the general principles of healing.
2. First, the professional therapist is in an excellent position
to demonstrate that there is no order of difficulty in healing.
For this, however, he needs special training, because the curriculum
by which he became a therapist probably taught him little or nothing
about the real principles of healing. In fact, it probably taught
him how to make healing impossible. Most of the world's teaching
follows a curriculum in judgment, with the aim of making the therapist
a judge.
3. Even this the Holy Spirit can use, and will use, given the
slightest invitation. The unhealed healer may be arrogant, selfish,
unconcerned, and actually dishonest. He may be uninterested in
healing as his major goal. Yet something happened to him, however
slight it may have been, when he chose to be a healer, however
misguided the direction he may have chosen.
That "something" is enough. Sooner or later that something
will rise and grow; a patient will touch his heart, and the therapist
will silently ask him for help. He has himself found a therapist.
He has asked the Holy Spirit to enter the relationship and heal
it. He has accepted the Atonement for himself.
4. God is said to have looked on all He created and pronounced
it good. No, He declared it perfect, and so it was. And since
His creations do not change and last forever, so it is now.
Yet neither a perfect therapist nor a perfect patient can possibly
exist. Both must have denied their perfection, for their very
need for each other implies a sense of lack. A one-to-one relationship
is not one Relationship. Yet it is the means of return; the way
God chose for the return of His Son. In that strange dream a
strange correction must enter, for only that is the call to awake.
And what else should therapy be? Awake and be glad, for all
your sins have been forgiven you. This is the only message that
any two should ever give each other.
5. Something good must come from every meeting of patient and
therapist. And that good is saved for both, against the day when
they can recognize that only that was real in their relationship.
At that moment the good is returned to them, blessed by the Holy
Spirit as a gift from their Creator as a sign of His Love. For
the therapeutic relationship must become like the relationship
of the Father and the Son. There is no other, for there is nothing
else. The therapists of this world do not expect this outcome,
and many of their patients would not be able to accept help from
them if they did. Yet no therapist really sets the goal for the
relationships of which he is a part. His understanding begins
with recognizing this, and then goes on from there.
6. It is in the instant that the therapist forgets to judge the
patient that healing occurs. In some relationships this point
is never reached, although both patient and therapist may change
their dreams in the process. Yet it will not be the same dream
for both of them, and so it is not the dream of forgiveness in
which both will someday wake. The good is saved; indeed is cherished.
But only little time is saved. The new dreams will lose their
temporary appeal and turn to dreams of fear, which is the content
of all dreams. Yet no patient can accept more than he is ready
to receive, and no therapist can offer more than he believes he
has. And so there is a place for all relationships in this world,
and they will bring as much good as each can accept and use.
7. Yet it is when judgment ceases that healing occurs, because
only then it can be understood that there is no order of difficulty
in healing. This is a necessary understanding for the healed
healer. He has learned that it is no harder to wake a brother
from one dream than from another. No professional therapist can
hold this understanding consistently in his mind, offering it
to all who come to him. There are some in this world who have
come very close, but they have not accepted the gift entirely
in order to stay and let their understanding remain on earth until
the closing of time. They could hardly be called professional
therapists. They are the Saints of God. They are the Saviors
of the world. Their image remains, because they have chosen that
it be so. They take the place of other images, and help with
kindly dreams.
8. Once the professional therapist has realized that minds are
joined, he can also recognize
that order of difficulty in healing is meaningless. Yet well
before he reaches this in time he can go towards it. Many holy
instants can be his along the way. A goal marks the end of a
journey, not the beginning, and as each goal is reached another
can be dimly seen ahead. Most professional therapists are still
at the very start of the beginning stage of the first journey.
Even those who have begun to understand what they must do may
still oppose the setting-out. Yet all the laws of healing can
be theirs in just an instant. The journey is not long except
in dreams.
9. The professional therapist has one advantage that can save
enormous time if it is properly used. He has chosen a road in
which there is great temptation to misuse his role. This enables
him to pass by many obstacles to peace quite quickly, if he escapes
the temptation to assume a function that has not been given him.
To understand there is no order of difficulty in healing, he
must also recognize the equality of himself and the patient.
There is no halfway point in this.
Either they are equal or not. The attempts of therapists to
compromise in this respect are strange indeed. Some utilize the
relationship merely to collect bodies to worship at their shrine,
and this they regard as healing. Many patients, too, consider
this strange procedure as salvation. Yet at each meeting there
is One Who says, "My brother, choose again."
1. Do not forget that any form of specialness must be defended,
and will be. The defenseless therapist has the strength of God
with him, but the defensive therapist has lost sight of the Source
of his salvation. He does not see and he does not hear. How,
then, can he teach?
Because it is the Will of God that he take his place in the plan
for salvation. Because it is the Will of God that his patient
be helped to join with him there. Because his inability to see
and hear does not limit the Holy Spirit in any way. Except in
time. In time there can be a great lag between the offering and
the acceptance of healing. This is the veil across the face of
Christ.
Yet it can be but an illusion, because time does not exist and
the Will of God has always been exactly as it is.
