The fundamental question in psychotherapy is: why are you in counseling? What’s your problem? Are you hurting? Some people avoid psychotherapy because they do not wish to face this question "Are you hurting?" This question must be answered so that the denial of pain does not continue. Every person on the face of the earth has some suffering, some symptoms, some anxiety, some stress, some pain. We may be too ashamed and embarrassed to admit this and we may deny it, but every person has some stress and some symptoms which result from the beliefs in separateness, deficiency and entrapment.

1. The first step then in psychotherapy is to admit one’s problem, stress, suffering, and symptoms, as opposed to a state of denial
2. The second basic step in psychotherapy is to address the question of why am I suffering, which usually is answered by blaming someone or something else, even if it is one’s genetics, one’s body, one’s addictions, one’s emotions, one’s past, God, evil, etc.
3. The third step is acceptance of responsibility for one’s suffering and symptoms. As long as we remain in a state of projection and blame, we are bound and not free.
4. The fourth step is discovering what creates our pain and symptoms, exactly what one was trying to blame on others and what one is responsible for.
5. The fifth step in psychotherapy is the recognition of what the unconscious beliefs are that produce my symptoms and my suffering.

6. The sixth step in psychotherapy is to accept my symptoms as a blessing in disguise, because they point to my hidden potentiality

7. The seventh step to freedom is the awareness that my beliefs are doubtful and that I am no longer bound by an untrue finite belief system

The first 5 steps have to do with diagnosis and the last two have to do with revelation.

 Why wouldn’t a person want to know that he or she has infinite hidden potentiality? Why would a person prefer to remain attached to a binding finite belief system? Basically, because such a recognition means seeing that my ego is wrong, and being willing to change one’s story about his identity. We have to admit clinging to our mistaken beliefs, even though those beliefs may be causing enormous suffering.

We had rather be right and bound that wrong and free. We would have to give up all of our blame and anger. Our whole system of judgments would collapse. Our whole system of paranoia and self-justification would have to go.

Our greatest love and our strongest hate arise from the same story, because our greatest love is our attachment and our greatest hate is our resistance. Attachment and resistance occur only within the story.

The key question in psychotherapy is: Do victims exist? Within the bio-socio-psychological model, we would have to answer yes. Victims exist, perpetrators exist, rescuers exist

Someone is to blame. We have rules, punishments, and protections to deal with the fallout from victimization. Someone is hurt, someone is to blame, someone is responsible, and someone must be punished. If a single victim exists, then there must be a system of law, legislation, police, courts, jails, government, medicine, psychiatry and religion to moderate and enforce restrictions and punishments for the perpetrator.

If victims and perpetrators exist, then unconditional love cannot, even in heaven, unless we have a spiritual model of reality. Fortunately, unconditional love is reality and cannot exist in the psychological model, in our story. We give lip service to it, in our story, but that is all. None of us believes unconditional love, while holding on to the belief in judgment model at the same time. You can’t have it both ways. They are mutually exclusive, and so that leaves the judgment model in the story as an illusion. The whole good guy/bad guy mentality falls apart, and that is why we resist spiritual psychotherapy, because we are so attached to our judgments.

Letting Go

When you let go of the story, you experience non-story. When you let go of crime and punishment, you experience grace.

When you let go of judgment, you experience the unconditional

When you let go of illusions and lies, truth arises

When you let go of bondage, freedom arises

When you let go of the past and future, Eternity arises

When you let go of attachment to the finite, the Infinite is experienced

When you let go of fear, peace comes

When you let go of blame, forgiveness occurs

When you honor the positive meaning of your symptom, healing comes

The world of rules and law is where psychotherapy begins and the world of grace is where it ends. Symptoms seem to arise from conflicts within the world of finite rules and laws, but that is not true. Symptoms arise because of the discrepancy between the world of law and the world of grace. The self-image exists in the world of law, but you yourself exist in the world of grace. When you are identified with your self-image, you will have symptoms to remind you of that false self-identification, and you will blame that symptom on various conflicts within the world of law. The patient thinks that law will settle those conflicts. While it is true that some things may be mediated and settled, within the finite world of the court system, the big step is not really taken. While the conflict seems to occur between who is right and who is wrong, between the perpetrator and the victim, in the world of law both parties "lose," and neither is "right." The conflict is not settled because the guilt and innocence of both parties are relative in the absolute sense. In the relative sense, both parties have some guilt, and in the absolute sense both parties are innocent.

In the psychological model, one party is perceived as innocent and the other as guilty; one party is the victim and the other is the villain. To use injustice as a redemptive symptom, one must step out of the story. Psychotherapy is one vehicle for this realization, but unfortunately it is often not the case. Psychotherapy, like law, politics, science, education and religion, may unconsciously fall prey to the finite belief system of our story.

Whether you call our symptoms by the names of crime, sin, dysfunction, neurosis, psychosis, unfairness or other names, they are all indicators of an identity crisis. Who and what we are is the chief issue in symptom formation and correction. Spiritual amnesia is the single ultimate cause of all symptoms.

Diagnosis without the consideration of spiritual amnesia is going to miss the target. All relative diagnoses and treatments will only provide relative remedies, and the meaning and purpose of the symptom is aborted. Adjustments within the dream do not constitute awakening. Physical health as an end in itself is a short-sighted goal. Even the preservation of life cannot be looked upon as the ultimate goal of healing. As spiritual beings, we will survive and we will live forever.

The patient comes to therapy as a righteous innocent victim. He/she is hurt and angry and cannot forgive or forget.

Her only alternative seems to be to be blamed and condemned as either a victim or a perpetrator. She wants to escape any further such actions because she has already done both of those things to herself. How can she be responsible and yet not continue to suffer for her crimes, sins, and offenses, either against others or against herself? She believes that her offenses are real and that punishment must be real. She cannot find release and healing within the world of law, judgments and punishment. She must take the leap of faith into unconditional love and forgiveness. She must awaken to the spiritual reality of self-realization and drop the entire story of judgment. When she follows the seven steps of spiritual psychotherapy she discovers the truth for which her symptom arose.

"The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up."

H. M. Power