Paragraph 1. “The process of Psychotherapy, then, can be defined simply as forgiveness, for no healing can be anything else.” (P-2.VI.1:1) This beginning sentence on “The Definition of Healing” will remind you of the Introduction in the section “The Process of Psychotherapy” where it says:

“Its whole function in the end, is to help the patient deal with one fundamental error;

the belief that anger brings him something he really wants, and that by justifying attack

he is protecting himself. To whatever extent he comes to realize that this is an error, to

that extent is he truly saved.” (P-2.IN.1.5-6)

So if psychotherapy is “forgiveness,” then psychotherapy is also “letting go of anger and attack.”

For as long as you withhold forgiveness, you will feel unforgiven and feel a need to protect yourself. And you will feel sick with guilt over your own errors. Holding onto guilt is simply a “grim refusal to forgive” yourself. In effect, you are saying “God may not enter here.” (P-2.VI.1:2)

How foolish is that? Who in their right mind would want to leave God out? So if you are experiencing guilt (weakness, fear, uncertainty, etc.) simply recognize that you are choosing to leave God out, and choose once again. And this time let Him back into the place He never left.

Healing occurs when the patient begins to see the cycle of what he has been doing: he has been holding onto unforgiveness and guilt (darkness), and blocking forgiveness and innocence (light). Wisdom suggests otherwise. Question: Would you rather choose wisdom or foolishness?

Paragraph 2. There is a tendency to recognize this choice to be unforgiving, and thus unforgiven, and yet then dismiss it UNCORRECTED. For an instance you may hear this unforgiving song of death that you have been singing, and feel the heavy lump of guilt that goes with it. Then you may dismiss it without correction and continue on with your life as if there were no interruption that brought clarity.

But you must STOP, process what you have recognized, and literally CHANGE YOUR TUNE. But first you must be willing to question the “truth” of this song of condemnation you have been singing. These brief instances of clarity are your opportunity to sing the herald angel’s song, instead of emitting loud discordant shrieks of the ego. Yet you have taught yourself to love the song of death you have been singing. It was the only way you could endure it. Love that song no more.

Paragraph3. Jesus says “The ear translates; it does not hear. The eye reproduces; it does not see.” (P-2.VI.3:1-2) He says the ears and the eyes are your slaves, reproducing the sounds and sights the mind wants to hear and see. They are of the body, after all, and the body is the home of the ego. Their task is to make agreeable the disagreeable, to make pleasant the unpleasant. They answer the decisions of the mind, whatever it may decide at any given moment. This leads to rationalization, making excuses, concocting reasons, and making explanations – all in a grim and desperate effort to avoid the truth. And yet the truth will set you free!

Sometimes the thought behind the form breaks through, but only very briefly, and the mind grows fearful and begins to doubt its sanity. But quickly it will rally and re-enter the illusion it has made, leaving the truth once again outside the door. This is the “remedy” of the ego, its “safeguards” from insanity. Ask: “Does leaving truth out sound like sanity or insanity to you? Is THIS where safety truly lies? Remember, the first step is to recognize that you are singing the song of guilt, and that it is NOT a pretty song, despite what your ego has been telling you.

Paragraph 4. “These testimonies which the senses bring have but one purpose: to justify attack and thus keep unforgiveness unrecognized for what it is.” (P-2.VI.4:1) You have hired your eyes and ears to present the ego’s message. Yet your senses are not objective reporters; they are slaves to the mind’s twisted desires. Falser witnesses never were than these! When you look upon the world, you are really only seeing your own thoughts projected outwards! And you call this “the world” and perceive it as outside yourselves. You see attack and guilt everywhere you look. It is no wonder you do not want to leave home – yet you see it there, too. You go to sleep and there it is again, in your dreams. Is there no respite anywhere?

Without the kinder images you conjure up with your minds, and the forms you see with the eyes and ears that obey the mind, you think you would go stark raving mad at what you see. Yet this does not have to be. Understand that when an unforgiveness is not recognized, it is seen as something else. And it is this “something else” that seems to terrify. But it is not the “something else” that can be healed. It is not sick and needs no remedy. To concentrate your healing efforts on this is futile, for who can cure what is NOT SICK, and make it well? To heal an unforgiveness is to see it where it is, and how it is, and to see that it is not real because it is based upon an untruth. This is not a distortion to placate the mind; this is true kindness.

For example, sickness is one of the unpleasant forms of unforgiveness. The purpose of sickness is to conceal the unforgiveness and so preserve it. When the body “gets sick,” do you rush straight to the mind to uncover the underlying resentment? Or do you take a pill, then withdraw and recline the body? The sickness is the “something else” that seems to terrify, the “something else” that cannot be healed, a decoy for the unforgiveness. The underlying resentment is where the healing must take place, and then the symptom or the guise of bodily sickness will disappear.

You tend to think that if you are sick, that is an acceptable form of unforgiveness. After all, in the world, sickness is often the norm. It does not appear to set you apart from your brothers, but rather makes you appear more like them. It is considered an acceptable form for the body to use, thus so many choose this form as the “something else” to disguise unforgiveness. Sickness is even rewarded in the work place, as often you are given a number of “sick days” when you are employed.

Resentment, on the other hand, is not so acceptable. It is considered childish and petty and not suitable behavior for a mature Christian. Yet the sickness is not real, and is merely a disguise for the resentment, and an attempt to hold onto it. You heal when you decide to let it go, when you decide it is no longer worth it to hold onto it. And some would rather “die” than let resentment, unforgiveness and guilt go. Is that choice worthy of a “mature Christian”? Not at all. Yet many seem to think that it is.

Paragraph 5. “Sickness takes many forms, and so does unforgiveness.” (P-2.VI.5) And of course, they do, because THEY ARE THE SAME ILLUSION. The forms of one reproduce the forms of the other. A careful study of the forms of sickness will point quite clearly to the form of unforgiveness that it represents. (See Louise Hay, You can Heal Your Life, "Body Illness Chart.") Yet seeing the unforgiveness will not effect a cure. There is only one solution: only forgiveness will heal or cure an unforgiveness and its effects. Nothing else will do it. So if you expect to skirt around forgiveness in this world, then you may as well expect to be “sick” in this world, in one form or another. They go together and are inseparable.

Do you have an illness of the mind or body that has plagued you for years – perhaps even for the entire duration of your time in this world? Illness is guilt’s shadow, and guilt comes from -- you guessed it – the unforgiveness of God’s Son. Do you have a financial lack that just will not seem to let go of you? It is an unforgiveness. Do you have difficulty in relationships? That is an unforgiveness, too. Only an unforgiveness can possibly give rise to sickness of any kind, and only forgiveness will heal it. Heal the unforgiveness, and heal your life!

Paragraph 6. The realization that only unforgiveness causes sickness and only forgiveness heals, is the final goal of psychotherapy. Yet this is rarely apparent to the patient, and seldom apparent even to the therapist. So how does the therapist aid the patient to accepting this as true – completely true, not just partly? By the therapist seeing this truth so clearly himself, the truth cannot fail to penetrate the questing mind of the patient.

You see, the patient and therapist have been brought together for the healing of God’s Son. And each patient has been carefully selected by the Holy Spirit for each therapist -- because He sees in these two the potential for healing.

The therapist will naturally see his own guilt projecting from the patient. He will disguise this as righteous disapproval of his dysfunctional patient, and attempt to “correct” him. Yet he will of necessity begin to see himself in his patient, and will begin to recognize that what he is telling his patient was meant first for himself to hear, and gradually both patient and therapist will realize that “there is only one of us here.” It becomes not “patient and therapist,” but the joining of two Sons of God as one Son. Only then can the dirge, the song of death, be relinquished and exchanged for the herald angel’s song – and only through forgiveness.

This patient has shared your dream of sickness. His healing is your own. As you see his sinlessness come shining through the veil of guilt that shrouds the Son of God, you will behold in him the face of Christ, and understand it is but your own. What a joyous awakening this is! And worth every minute of the time you spend together, with the Holy Spirit and Jesus guiding you all the way. And God Himself will wipe away all tears, and you shall know the happiness and the peace that surpass all understanding.

Paragraph 7. “No one is healed alone.” (P-2.VI.7:1) This is the joyous song salvation sings to all who hear its Voice. Thus, forgiving your patient is the holy road to your own salvation. The song of guilt has different words: “God may not enter here.” This is the road to continued separation and guilt and misery. The road you choose and the guide/Guide you choose to lead you along the road, is all important, as you can readily see.

“No one is healed alone.” These words cannot be remembered too often by those who choose to see themselves as therapists. This will aid them in seeing their patients as “bringers of salvation” and not as egos to be endured until healing is effected for them; not as trials and tribulations, but as the stairway to Heaven for both patient and therapist. The proof of your own sinlessness lies in seeing sinlessness in your patient. This is what joins you as one. ♥

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RECAP

Lesson 9

Psychotherapy: The Definition of Healing

• Psychotherapy is forgiveness.

• Anger brings you nothing that you want.

• Protection is not obtained by justifying attack.

• Holding onto guilt is a “grim refusal to forgive yourself.” Why waste time with guilt? If you want to experience cleanliness, do you wallow in mud? If you want to experience innocence, do you wallow in guilt?

• The eyes and ears of your body respond to what you ask them to do. Ask them not to show you illusion, but to show you truth.

• Projection takes many forms. Yet accepting responsibility for your thoughts, instead of projecting them onto others and blaming them for them, is a sign of growth and maturity.

• Sickness, lack, relationship problems, emotional discomfort – all represent the displacement of unforgiving thoughts. Unforgiveness is not that difficult to remove. And it is not worth taking the effort to find outlets for unforgiveness instead of removing it or letting it go.Sickness and unforgiveness are the same illusion.

• Let go of unforgiveness – or get sick. See the truth -- or deceive yourself. Do you see what your choices are? Instead of just drifting along, doing the same things you have already done, make a new choice – to correct all the dysfunctional thoughts and to live sane lives. It will only take an instant.

An Excerpt from “The Process of Psychotherapy"

Stand silently before God’s Will, and do what it has chosen that you do. There is only one way by which you come to the gates of Heaven, where you lay down all dreams and illusions and come away in peace forever. “Hear a brother call for help and answer him.” It will be God to Whom you answer, because you called upon Him. There is no other way to hear His Voice. There is no other way to seek His Son. There is no other way to find your Self. Holy is healing, for the Son of God returns to Heaven through its kind embrace. For healing tells him, in the Voice for God, that all his sins have been forgiven Him.” (P-2.V.8:1-10)

ALL your “sins” have been forgiven you, brother. Begin again, afresh, anew, alive with love and joy. Let this be a time of rejoicing! You are finally free, and can be Who you really are! OK?