Psych. 3. II. 1 – 3. Jesus: Is psychotherapy a profession? In the context of this course, strictly speaking, the answer is no!
How could something in which everyone is engaged be considered a separate profession? And how could any formal limits be laid on an interaction in which everyone is both patient and therapist in every relationship in which he enters?
Yet practically speaking, it can still be said that there are those who devote themselves primarily to ‘healing’ of one sort or another, and practice that as their chief function here. They are devoted to serving certain kinds of needs in their professional activities. And it is to them that a large number of others turn for help. In effect, this is what we think of as the ‘professional practice’ of therapy. These are what we have referred to as ‘official’ helpers.
Yet outside of those specialized activities these people may be far more able as teachers of God. They need no special rules for this, of course, but they may be called upon to use ‘special applications’ of the general principles of healing. For one thing, the professional therapist is in an excellent position to demonstrate that there is no order of difficulty in real healing. For this, however, he now needs the special training which this course offers, because the curriculum by which he became a therapist probably taught him little or nothing about the real principles of healing. In fact, it probably taught him how to make real healing impossible!
Most of the world’s teaching follows a curriculum in judgment, with the aim of making the therapist a better judge. Even this the Holy Spirit can use, however, and will use, given the slightest invitation. The unhealed healer may be arrogant, selfish, unconcerned, and not even completely honest. He may not, as a conscious goal, be at all interested in real healing.
Yet something happened to him when he chose to be a healer, however slight it may have been, however misguided he may have been, when choosing his direction. That ‘something’ is enough!
Sooner or later that something will rise and grow; a patient will touch his heart, and the therapist will silently ask his patient for help. The therapist himself has now found a therapist! By virtue of the joining in purpose, he has asked the Holy Spirit to enter the relationship and heal it. He has thus accepted the Atonement for himself!”