Love
in Psychotherapy & Medicine Without love we will not bother It is not a mystery that human growth occurs most favorably in meetings when individuals express themselves vulnerably and authentically. The authenticity of open, honest and sincere relationships, that are vulnerable in nature, is a necessary and real prerequisite to successful healing relationships. Since these are all basic attributes of love, it should come as no surprise to hear that love is what heals, love is what sustains, love is what cures, and love is what makes therapy successful. It is not negative to point out that the great problem with medicine and psychotherapy and the human race in general is the lack of love. Professionals are not trained in love; they are trained in something else, that is what is supposed to make them profession, but if it makes them highly ineffective, we have something serious to confront and correct. But before going further with any discussion on this subject we must be alert to the use of the word love. So far here we have defined love as something to do with sincerity, openness, honesty, authenticity and vulnerability. In venturing into such a delicate area as the role and purpose and application of love in therapy and medicine, it would be helpful to clearly define love. Love is something we feel when we are close and feeling one with another being. M. Scot Peck defined love as the willingness to go out on a limb, to truly involve oneself and struggle at an emotional level with another in a relationship for the purpose of shared growth. World Psychology, Biogenic Medicine, HeartHealth and The Marriage of Souls all have their common roots in a definition of love that clearly states that: Communication is Love These two most practical definitions of love combine to form a context in which love can be understood, measured, learned and practiced in all situations including the medical and psychotherapists’ office. Love is more than acts, deeds, words, or feelings. To love someone, is to give part of our heart to them. And how do we do this? It is through our willingness and openness to communicate and listen to someone that we most readily can demonstrate the truth of our love. It is impossible to have much love, compassion and understanding for another unless we are in touch with their world. When we love another it shows some kind of appreciation for their existence and world of experience and this assumes listening on a very deep level of being. Listening is the most basic skill of life and the most basic psychological and spiritual process that moves us to evolve, change, grow and learn and it determines more than anything the quality of care we give a person either in medical treatment or in psychotherapy. There is no slick therapeutic technique or medical technology or treatment that can replace this absolutely necessary basic human life skill. The kind of listening being referred to here is not the kind the mind can do, it implies deep empathetic listening with what is known as the heart. This is the kind of listening that only happens when we empty our minds of thought, projection and judgment. And it is the kind that comes only after long periods of training in the communication arts, a type of training that can only be called spiritual for it involves learning to throw away most of our most cherished concepts that clog our minds with the type of garbage that blocks listening and the true intimacy of being. Therapeutic listening and therapeutic intimacy, the kind that heals, is an intentional giving of love and that implies a real giving of oneself. Israeli philosopher Martin Buber expressed much of this to Carl Rogers many years ago saying that authentic “I-thou” relationships was necessary to make therapy effective. He did not believe that authentic and vulnerable type relationships were likely to exist when people meet in the roles of psychotherapist and client. Rogers responded agreeing that authenticity was important but maintained that enlightened psychotherapists could choose to transcend their own role and encounter their clients authentically. The level of listening and the type of intimacy that is being discussed here is diametrically opposed to the standard type of clinical detachment that is taught as a sacrosanct rule in most formal therapy training. Traditionally it has been thought that to bring ones own feelings, thoughts and needs into psychotherapy was wrong and a sign of pathology on the part of the therapist. Normally the standard image of therapy involves the therapist to act as an objective mirror onto which patients project their transferences, which are then worked on week after week, month after month in therapy. With
empathetic therapeutic listening With empathetic therapeutic listening we directly attack the sense of separation that most people feel with others; and with this true intimacy and vulnerability is generated, and a person is enabled and encouraged to actually melt the sense of separation between their own mind/ego and deeper sense of heart, which represents the deepest sense of feeling self. This is facilitated by the therapist’s vulnerability and willingness to engage his or her patients on a heart to heart level. Scott Peck was absolutely correct that the most important aspect for successful therapeutic work and progress is love. With love we listen, with love we risk heart-felt communication. We use love to melt the ice. We warm the others heart with our own. We show a kindness that is real, warm, and sincere. With love we build trust. All the professional degrees on earth cannot build the simple trust that an open heart tuned to love can conger up. The therapy I do with people emphasizes the pure vulnerability of being and the role of love expressed as pure listening. The crucial point about therapeutic intimacy that is generated by the type of listening and communication I am talking about is that we are actually caring about the being of the other. Meaning our communications is held as a sacred responsibility. Therapeutic intimacy is a private thing between souls and in this we are responsible only to a higher authority, to our own highest inner self or God for what we do and say. This kind of attitude transcends any kind of professional ethic, and though at certain times it might entail certain risks, there is no way of getting around the fact that the heart level of life, and the realities of heart to heart communication always contains at least some element of risk. Therapeutic communication and intimacy is the use of our being to help create union and love and thus healing in the therapeutic hour or in the medical office. It is independent of all rules and all roles. It is the pure impulse to give love in a warm way, in a way that reaches into another’s inner being. It is meant to heal some of the wounds people feel in their core. It is a sacred place that comes with the willingness to simply share our own vulnerabilities, experiences and concerns. It comes from the courage to be where we are, with another soul, as a soul, who will respond and relate spontaneously to what is happening in the present moment. When it comes to the practice of medicine, initially it entails our willingness to spend extra time listening to all the details of a patient’s situation. There is a level of medical listening that has been completely lost first and foremost because it takes up too much time. Instead of listening from the heart the modern doctor sends a patient quickly onto medical laboratories that apply tests of doubtful efficacy. It is no longer known that pure listening is one of the best diagnostic tools a medical practitioner has and with the trained open ear, most problems can be discerned. The problem here, as in clinical psychology and psychiatry is that practitioners are trained not to listen to their patients; they are trained to diagnosis. Meaning they are trained to apply concepts and diagnostic labels on people. The practice of diagnosis usually implies mental acts of judgment and projection of mental models in lieu of real heart felt feelings and appreciation for the suffering of others. These kinds of mental activity cut off deeper levels of perception that can lead to an entirely different appreciation for a person’s life problems and states of disease. In therapy as in our primary love relationships our primary concern is to create atmospheres and support systems based on love and the true vulnerability of being. Cold clinical relationships only create more pathology and confusion in patients and have nothing to do with healing the source of people’s problems. Professional healers are not trained to listen with the heart and they are certainly warned not to touch clients unless it is the clean cold touch of the physician. Just to touch someone’s arm or hold their hand would be taboo in many circles but such intimacies go long and far in helping open up inner doors. It is not part of the professional gestalt to even contemplate being friends with a client and thus some therapists are even warned to run in the other direction when they encounter clients in public. Some of the best therapists I know are terrified of meeting their patients outside their office. Virtual therapy is very interesting in this regard because it removes the fear of touch and sexual attraction that therapists who even think of opening their hearts fear. If we are afraid to be friends, to genuinely approach clients and be comfortable with them socially it approaches the unimaginable to suggest that we love our clients and cultivate that love directly in our work and relationship with them. Many years ago Scott Peck laid down the first foundation stones for a therapy of love when he said, "We are now able to see the essential ingredient that makes psychotherapy effective and successful. It is not 'unconditional positive regard,' nor is it magical words, techniques or postures; it is human involvement and struggle. It is the willingness of the therapist to extend him or herself for the purpose of nurturing the patient's growth - willingness to go out on a limb, to truly involve oneself at an emotional level in the relationship, to actually struggle with the patient and with oneself. In short, the essential ingredient of successful deep and meaningful psychotherapy is love."
Peck said "most mental illness is caused by an absence of or defect in the
love that a particular child required from its particular parents for successful
maturation and spiritual growth." It becomes obvious then that what patients need
more than anything is that love that they we missing from their parents. They need this
love for a genuine healing to take place and this means that the answer to mental illness
does not lie in resolving the problems in the head. It means that we need to reach into
the issues of the heart and this we can only do when we ourselves are in our heart
practicing therapy with love and the vulnerability of our own beings. |