Therapy, Healing and Spirituality: Part 1 – Promises and Disappointment
Today there are many people who are disillusioned by their experience of therapy, healing or spiritual practices. The promises of complementary and alternative approaches to healing or enlightenment were great in the 1970s and 1980s. Here, at the beginning of the 21st century, 40 years of results deserve a review.
But does anyone really question therapy and healing practices? Today, people continue to flock to reflexologists, aromatherapists, NLP practitioners, counselors, etc., presumably convinced that handing over their money and spending an hour or so of their time will lead to some desired result.
What we want
What’s the score? Well, I recently saw a movie to market alternative therapies that tries to answer this question clearly. What we want, and watch the ‘we’ that always makes us (Whoops!) Think we’re being subtly or blatantly sponsored, even though we’ve learned to love and accept the sense of belonging and the inclusion or exclusivity it gives us . it is happiness, health, money or attractiveness (defined as “sensuality”). Difficulties in relationships, career, meaning, purpose, and that sort of thing apparently don’t matter that much, although most therapists would have us believe they do.
With such exalted goals, you might think that the confusion of self-help books, psychospiritual gurus, and weird and wonderful methods would have some effect, right?
Variety of therapies
Well, judging by the variety of approaches, the proliferation of methods and schools, and the significant promises made by them, maybe not. Because after all, if these approaches were effective, the appetite for new approaches would not be so great.
On the other hand, if these ways and methods were ineffective, wouldn’t the growing number of seekers and clients for healing and self-improvement have dried up, or is it at least showing signs of decline?
An impossible link?
It is reminiscent of the impossible link of law enforcement agencies having to justify the request for increased funding while demonstrating that they are effective because crime figures are falling. If crime figures are falling, the police must be doing their job. If crime is increasing, why increase police funding? Alternatively, if crime is on the decline, why not cut police funding? Why increase funding if the police are ineffective?
There is no easy answer. If healing-spiritual-psychological practitioners were subject to the same scrutiny, what would they say to support their claim that they are rendering effective service, while every year more and more people, and often the same people, keep coming back for the same thing? thing?
A curtain of secrecy
In fact, the alternative / complementary sector has done a lot of what the police do in this almost impossible predicament: it plays with the terms, ‘bites the numbers’ and creates new ways of looking at the problem to convince us of the essential services they offer. and the illusion that they are delivering the goods. A curtain of secrecy is drawn across the actual events to justify the ending.
This curtain includes returning responsibility to the patient, client, student or adept (“if you were truly committed, you would be successful “). In psychotherapy the term used is resistance (” your unconscious is resisting your growth process “). Or there is” if we work a little deeper, we will find the right remedy for you “, or” the cure has started “to justify alternative, often bizarre and inept methods of healing. Of course, there is always the quasi-religious, ‘Just have faith and … a little more faith.’
How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?
These comments evoke the specter of the old ’70s therapy joke: Question: “How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?” Answer: “One, but the bulb must Really I want to change! “(Ba-ass!)
