By Daniel J. Benor, MD 

Having no expectations enables us to love those who seem to unlovable, no matter what they have done.  They need it.  It enables us to love ourselves.  We need it.  We are much more than our achievements and our misachievements.  In the end, healing is not some impersonal technique of running energy.  What heals is love.  Our essence is love, and it is who we really are.  The rest is just insanity, but it’s only temporary.    
                     – Deena Zalkind Spear

The healing practice of conscioiusly including unconditional love in one’s relationships can be an important part of the therapist’s side of psychotherapy. When I began training in psychiatry, the focus of this profession was entirely on psychotherapy – in contrast with today’s psychiatric practice that focuses almost exclusively on medications. The instruction included intensive supervision of the residents (trainees) in conducting one-on-one psychotherapy, in addition to formal lectures. I recall in particular a six-month seminar on the first four minutes of the psychiatric session, helping us to attend to every nuance of verbal and non-verbal language for guiding us in identifying the issues and assessing responsiveness to interventions in the people we were helping.

I was fortunate to have Joe Golden, a very wise individual supervisor in my first year of training. He advised me that I must always find something I love in the people I was helping – in order to really connect with them on the deepest possible levels. Without this, he observed, no true therapy is likely to occur.

Over the years, I’ve had numerous occasions to recall that advice. As a psychiatrist, I was often referred the most difficult of clients, after they had failed to respond to interventions of medical doctors, counselors and non-medical psychotherapists. At times it was a challenge to follow Joe’s advice. On more than once occasion, I had to seek consultations or supervision from mentors and colleagues in order to overcome a negative reaction or distaste for a client.

Early career lesson:

In my third year of psychiatric training, ‘Vance’ came to me for therapy. He was a 56 year-old executive with a drinking problem that was starting to impact this marriage and his work.  He had had behavioral therapy, hypnotherapy, several visits to Alcoholics Anonymous, as well as antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications – all to no avail.

I found myself utterly helpless to help Vance because his rigid way of dealing with any and all suggestions was some variation on the theme of “Yes, but…” In these early days of my work in psychotherapy, I was the eager beaver knight on a white horse, ready to help my clients do battle with any and all problems they brought for my treatment. Vance stopped me cold every time I suggested a tactic for dealing with his issues. He would not examine his feelings in any depth, saying: “I’ve explored that, and nothing came of it.” He blamed everyone else for his problems and was unwilling to take responsibility for causing or worsening them. Medications were out of the question because all of the ones he had used had unpleasant side effects. An on and on…

I found myself frustrated because my help was unwanted, and I became increasingly helpless and angry with Vance’s responses. My supervisor suggested I accept as an absolute given fact that Vance was never going to change or improve because of his resistances to taking responsibility for his issues. My best course would be to help him accept that the world is a difficult and negative place, and to suggest to Vance that my job would be to help him make his peace with being stuck and unable to change any of the external factors that were making him unhappy and frustrated.

While I had anticipated that Vance would take this as a rejection, I was surprised to see him responding like a cat being stroked in the right direction – after having been petted the wrong way for a long time. While my acceptance of his resistances did not open doors into new ways of understanding or reacting to problems, Vance experienced my acceptance of him as a caring, loving response. Feeling accepted on the one hand, and unthreatened and not attacked on the other hand, he gradually softened and was eventually able to consider some healthier alternatives.

Unconditional acceptance is one of the most important attributes of love. It is also very empowering and one of the most effective interventions to help people find the confidence and activate their self-healing capacities for change.

As my experiences of psychotherapy, life and spiritual awarenesses deepened, my encounters with negativities that made it challenging for me to hold a space of love and healing in therapy shifted in their impact and in my responses. Now, when I am able to hold myself and my client in a space of love and healing, then – in addition to the therapy that is focused on the presenting problems of the client – everything that happens between us is an invitation for me to learn lessons about myself, about the client, and about the processes of each of us changing and growing along our life paths.

Another avenue for enhancing healing is to invite people to use affirmations that embody statements of self-love, and of being loved and accepted – wholly, and completely and unconditionally – by significant others or by the Divine. This is one of the generic aspects of TWR . (This is not a prescription, but just an invitation to those who are open to these suggestions for using such positive statements to counteract the negative feelings and cognitions that they are working to heal.) Many people find such affirmations soothing, comforting and healing, in and of themselves. Repeating them in the course of using TWR makes their beliefs in these statements stronger.

Some find it difficult to say that they love themselves, or difficult to believe that others would love them. Even here, however, the therapist’s suggestions to consider these possibilities may open doors to exploring them at a later time.

Another possibility is that people can pause in addressing their presenting problems and use TWR to address their feeling unlovable. This is a deeper level of work that often has profound healing effects.

Holding a space of unconditional acceptance and love often opens into a deepening space of personal spiritual awareness for the therapist. And when the therapist can access this space, it is easier for the client to access it for their own personal development and healing.

Your feedback on this article is welcomed.

Dan
[email protected]

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