Psychotherapy and A Course In Miracles
The foundations for true healing
I wrote this article to summarise what A Course In Miracles has to say about psychotherapy and the principles upon which my wife and I base the therapy we provide at our own Private Hypno-Psychotherapy Practice here in the Isle of Man.
Change 's of the mind
The goal of psychotherapy or psychoanalysis is to aid people to change their minds about the reality of illusions. Illusion is a physical manifestation of a mind in need of healing.The illness we perceive exists in the mind and therefore such illness needs to be addressed by the mind.
In many cases people do change their perceptions of what they call reality but that is normally as a result of a shift in how they perceive some interpersonal relationships and extraordinary experiences that leave them no alternative but to question their beliefs about reality.
Psychotherapy offers formal structured help to people which affords them the opportunity to question their reality in a safe and non-judgemental setting.
Reality and a delusional belief system
Most people are unaware that the cause of the problems they experience lies in their delusional belief system about reality.They are completely unaware of the relationship between cause and effect upon which their delusional system is based.The goal of psychotherapy therefore is to guide people to giving up a delusional belief system that sustains the suffering they experience.
Body identification
Most people identify with the body and use it to attack and to defend against perceived attack.What they don’t realise is that the body like everything else we perceive in the world is a concept made up by the mind.The victim we see ourselves as is something we make up in our minds and even defend and this gives rise to a situation where the individual feels at the mercy of spurious events and relationships that make them feel helpless and incapable of making their own decisions.
The purpose of Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy aids in restoring people’s awareness of their innate ability to make their own decisions.To do this they have to be willing to turn upside down the thinking that has brought them to this state of helplessness.
Psychotherapy helps people to understand that what they perceive as an attack from an external source is nothing more than their own projections reflecting back to them.Until people accept that the world they perceive does not really exist they remain incapable of making their own decisions and remain at the mercy of effect rather than the cause.
Psychotherapy serves to help people separate truth from illusion.The degree to which they can do this determines the progress of the therapy. The therapist and the patient are at the mercy of a delusional belief system so by calling on a higher consciousness they both avoid being directed by each other’s ego. They then can trust to be directed by a higher consciousness to rescue them by healing their minds.
“Psychotherapy, correctly understood, teaches forgiveness and helps the patient to recognise and accept it.And in this healing is the therapist forgiven with him”.
