May 2005, Volume 5, No. 2

BEING IN A HEALING PLACE

Editorial

Bioenergies respond to the psychological states and intents of the healer and healee. On the one hand, this leave healees and healers vulnerable to distortions and disruptions of their energy fields when their mental or emotional states are unsettled. On the other hand, this allows both healers and healees to alter the biofields through mental intent.

The more clear and focused the intent, the more likely there will be a positive result. Where intent is unclear, unfocused or mixed, the results are less likely to be positive.

Many factors can influence the clarity of healers and/or healees:..

Many and varied are the approaches that have been developed to help clear the dross that could get in the way of a caregiver in listening to careseekers and responding to their needs. I share with you here a few of the various approaches I've found that help to release anxieties, fears and old hurts that can get in the way of clear healing. (All of these are described and discussed in greater detail in Benor 2005.)...

Research

As in all disciplines, common assumptions by practitioners and scientist evaluating those practitioners are made despite the best efforts of those involved. Among the energy medicine practitioner community there is a common belief that no harm can or will be done to the client. Since there are now studies documenting actual physical change as a result of energy medicine practices, we cannot assume that practitioners cannot cause damage. Careful assessment of the practitioner will help the scientist select individuals who are competent and safe to practice in the research environment...

Being in a Healing Space

DB: When you’re doing these readings, do you have a particular range or area of problems that you feel that you’ve been able to help with, perhaps more than others, or particular areas that you are responsive to, or resonate with?

JO: I’m always very, very good at helping people find what they’re meant to do because I can sense that in them. I’m really good on career.

DB: What is that like, that sensing of the ‘meant to do’ awareness?

JO: Well, often they ask, or sometimes I even immediately get that somebody would be an amazing healer and that’s what they have to do. It would serve them to do that. And I ask them, “What do you do?” and they’ll say, “I’m an engineer,” “I’m a bank teller,” or whatever. And I’ll say, “Well, have you thought of going into healing, in whatever capacity?” “Well, as a matter of fact, yes I have, but I haven’t known how to do that.”

And so I nudge people over the edge. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve nudged over the edge of going into healing because I truly feel that gift coming from people. And we are so desperately in need of having good healers out there that I seem to be quite interested in that intuitively, in terms of picking that up in people and encouraging that in them...

Freud depicted religion as inherently pathological and inconsistent with psychological maturity. Yet many of us in the field of emotional and psychological well-being have felt the opposite. We have been aided and guided in our work by spiritual concepts from both ancient and more recent traditions. We have seen the healing power of spiritual practices -- those which help us to experience the sacred, and enable us to connect with what is most central to our lives. We have seen the power of awakening, gratitude, humility and faith to promote and foster well-being.

Some of us, myself included, entered the field of medicine for religious or spiritual reasons. My Jewish background taught me, "If a person saves one life, it is as if he has saved an entire world. And if a person destroys one life, it is as if he has destroyed the entireworld." This sentiment, embodying all that really matters in the universe, continues to be my touchstone. With its simple eloquence, this lesson reminds us that every life is of infinite value and deserves to be nurtured. It advises us to respect the internal world of the self, as that is where much of real consequence in this world resides. It extols the virtue of self-love and love of others. It instructs us on how to find meaning and fulfillment in life: Save yourself and save others, love yourself and love others, grow yourself and help others to do the same.

Many traditions teach that we are a creation of the sacred and that our deep inner wisdom is linked to the Divine...My patients have taught me how to bridge the medical, psychological and spiritual worlds. In entering their trauma, stories, lives and pain, I have learned to silence my cognitive mind and trust my intuition. When I see each patient as the Divine with skin on, I can help countless individuals recover and graduate from psychiatric care...

Wholistic Approaches

For every beneficial thing there is a point beyond which more is not necessarily better; where what is good for you in moderation gradually becomes harmful. This is not only true for the individual but also true of communities, nations and the planet. Whether we call it moderation, frugality or simple living, there is evidence to suggest restraint is good for health and wellbeing at every scale. The evidence for this article comes from data from a variety of sources that suggest that the relationship between growth in the consumption of resources and improvements in quality of life is subject to a threshold effect. Growth improves quality of life up to a point, until a threshold is reached where improvements in wellbeing begins to taper off (the point of diminishing marginal returns) and then may even decline. This relationship shows up in such areas as the relationship between Gross Domestic Product and national wellbeing, between income and satisfaction, energy consumption and welfare, health expenditures and health outcomes, and between personal consumption and personal health. Sufficiency and satiety may be the most important paths to health. Despite this, in many measures of consumption there is an increasing amount of scarcity and poverty on one end and growing profligacy and wealth on the other, with a shrinking middle zone of existence in-between. The threshold effect suggests that it is at the middle levels of resource use where basic needs are met and there is enough for a range of personal growth opportunities, so that society gets the most health and well being for its resource use..

I want to explore how we can center architectural education on an approach that honors the conscious and unconscious aspects of the self in architectural decision making. In this paper I take the position that new knowledge is knowledge about the self. I approach psychology rather than technology as a vital and animating force that needs to find its way not only into architectural education but also into the act of designing and architectural ‘know how.’

This discussion draws on the concepts and insights of Jungian psychology...

We hear a great deal about ‘new knowledge,’ and the information society. We have heard about the promise of a new global culture and the convenience of making on-line purchases 24/7. The quantity of information available, and the rate and ease at which it can be moved, points to a technologically based revolution whose impact is the subject of endless speculation. We have no idea where these new tools will take us. Whether you believe technological change is positive or negative, most would agree these changes are unstoppable. In fact, everything points to the idea that whatever changes are taking place represent the first stages of potentially much larger transformations that are affecting and redefining individuals as well as global images of community. The best news may be that ‘new knowledge’ has created an infrastructure capable of sharing information at a rate and scale never before attempted. The ability to access information is not dependent on particular cultures or beliefs; it is tied to the technological sophistication of a machine.

You might assume that with the extraordinary expansion of new sources of information we would see a corresponding increase in our ability to solve problems, but this has not proven to be true...

Variations on the Theme of Healing