THE BEAUTY OF SPIRITUAL PSYCHOTHERAPY:
From Despair to Hope; From Rage to Infinite and Unconditional Love

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I have a small group of patients who are caught in a net of modern-day insurance greed. They are victims of the Worker's Compensation system. Each of these victims is hard working and honest by nature, self-reliant people who have become disabled in the course of a work related injury. The system was undoubtedly begun with the charity of the heart and mind -- but it has become contaminated by human failings, perhaps on both sides. On the one by those who would play injury, even supposed injury to the hilt; on the other there are many, many others who are hurt, their lives destroyed, and the physical injury magnified, multiplied, hugely enlarged by the walls of a catch-22. On the one side they are not allowed to seek an adjustment to a real living wage, and become dependent on the insurance check. On the other side, our society has bred an attitude of suspicion, in which surveillance videotapes follow these patients into their every activity. And this investigation is caught up in a matrix of suspicion on all parts. My physician colleagues (too many of them) approach so-called "Independent Medical Examinations" with a ready-made suspicion of the motive of the patient to be examined. Too many of these examiners become themselves too dependent on the income from the insurance companies. These attitudes operate under the surface -- but they operate, and they influence. They are the inheritance of a society that measures success and survival in terms of dollar bills, rather than service, and love, and gathering together as a unit of humanity. More and more, this is evidence of the decline, not only in the standards of my profession, but also of our attitudes in business and in society. Not all of us. There is the other side of love, which was so powerfully shown in the heroes, and heroic acts of September 11th, 2001. There is the other side shown by the Mother Theresas and the many random acts of human kindness that are everywhere to be found if one looks and is aware. There is the other side of those who seek to know more about the expanding realms of mind and spirit, which go far beyond our present material and conventional knowledge. And all of this is preamble to the beauty of spiritual psychotherapy.

One of my patients is a Tiger of a man. His integrity is rock-solid. He is a part of the salt of the earth that built America, the pioneer spirit that stood up to all obstacles while moving into expanding territories. He is an iron-worker. A man in his early fifties and known for the quality of his work and the quality of his life. He was a foreman, and much sought after by his company. But he fell in an accident that destroyed both shoulders. Operation after operation brought no relief, and now he is not able to raise his arms above his shoulders, and is incapacitated for the only work that he knows.

His compensation has been stopped. He is living on dwindling savings. Rather than let himself feel anxiety or despair or fear, he will go into a rage. He becomes a "wolf" within himself, and could become dangerous to himself and to others in the face of his increasing helplessness and his outrage at the falseness of the reports of the investigators and the "Independent Medical Examiners."

I am able to help him to a degree. I give him the assistance of an anti-depressant, a tranquilizer for anxiety, and even an anti-rage agent. I listen to him, and the group joins as he pours forth his rage and frustration, and bellows at the unfairness that greed breeds.

His story is really reflected by at least three others in the group, and in truth, when I listen, I ask myself, and I ask them, "Am I treating, and taking money dishonestly? What can I do? I can advise you to link with others who are victims of worker's compensation malpractice, and bring your lives to the attention of your legislators and the newspapers. You may do that, but you still feel caught in helplessness -- and so do I."

Then it occurred to me, that I was, in my own feeling of helplessness, being untrue to the very teachings which I have learned, and of which I seek to learn more, and which I seek to live and to propagate: These teachings say that there is something larger than this material world of society, much as we must strive to improve it. That we are more than body, and that we are more than this lifetime, and that in fact there is a purpose hovering over the scene. And so I told this man, one day, this man who is intelligent, but not educated in the conventional sense, that he should do all that he can to assert his rights. But if he were to engage only in his rage against his helplessness, and against the company that fosters it, he would be stuck on this plane, and using his energies foolishly. I spoke of a larger plane. We had previously talked of re-incarnation, and he easily understood that he might well have been a Roman warrior, for he is warrior-like in his personal way. He is also very loving of his family, of his friends, of loyalty and of truth. When I began to talk to him about the larger picture, then he himself said (and this took me by surprise to tell the truth) that he knew of a man who was very successful in business, and had a child who had been born with severe Down's Syndrome. The child was to live only five years, by medical prediction, but now was thirty. A friend commiserated with him for having had to bear the burden of such a handicapped child. The man protested, "Oh no! My son is the greatest joy of my life. He is so full of unconditional love." And it is true in my experience, that those with Down's Syndrome do emanate great love. My patient went on to say (again taking me by surprise) that he had heard somewhere that the soul chooses where it is to be born in the next life, and where it is to serve its purpose. And maybe that soul chose to come into the body of a Down's Syndrome child, in order to fulfill its purpose to spread unconditional love.

My patient is a very good subject for hypnosis, and self-hypnosis, and will see very beautiful colors as he goes into his altered state. He will be transported to a rather lovely land, sometimes invaded by a wolf, but then the wolf is overcome by the beauty of the colors and the landscape. And then he went on to tell another story that he had not shared with others. He is now in a second marriage. His first wife died of a heart attack, really a broken heart as he saw it, that they would end in poverty because of his incapacity, his work-related incapacity, his loss of a living and the withholding of worker's compensation funds. He said that he had never dreamed about his wife, much as he loved her — but his daughter had. One day his daughter's son came and said that he had dreamed about grandmom. That she had taken him to a place that was so full of the most beautiful colors, more beautiful than he had ever seen, much richer and more beauteous than anything on earth. And everything was alive. The flowers were alive. The river was alive. And she told him to tell his grandfather, my patient, about this. At that point he realized that perhaps he had seen his wife (this was shortly after her death), and that she had come through the child to deliver a message. And perhaps that's where she is, and that's the way that it is, after death and in between lives. And if he could believe that then he has something to look forward to, and it mitigates his rage, and increases his understanding -- and releases his love.

Now I would not have been able to talk, or even listen, in his terms, some time ago, when I was studying and learning the very valuable basis of personality functioning, the psychoanalytic theory of how we work, valuable as that was. But I have been blessed, and brought out of my own despair, by having the opportunity to learn and to see the richer world that surrounds us, even now, even as it lies beyond at the same time. And while I look at all the things that are wrong with our society, and while I acknowledge all the things that are right as we look back on our heroes of 9/11, I also see and give thanks for the beauties of spiritual psychotherapy. And I pray that this beauty and this kind of therapy, will continue to exercise its expanding effect on our world society, to bring out our natural condition of unconditional love.

Maurie D. Pressman, M.D.
200 Locust Street
Philadelphia, Pa. 19106
www.mauriepressman.com
Email: mauriedavid@earthlink.net
Tel: 215/922-0204