Psych. 2. – III. 1 – 4. Jesus: “The psychotherapist is a leader in the sense that he walks slightly ahead of the patient, and helps him to avoid a few of the pitfalls along the road by seeing them first. Ideally, he is also a follower, as ahead he lets the Holy Spirit walk, that he may be given light with which to see.
Without the Holy Spirit, both therapist and patient will merely stumble blindly on to nowhere. It is, however, impossible that this Guide be wholly absent if the goal is truly healing. He may, however, not be recognized. And so the little light that is accepted is all there is to light the way to truth.
Healing is limited by the self-imposed limitations of the therapist, as it is limited by those of the patient. The aim of the process of psychotherapy is therefore to transcend these limits. Neither can do this alone, but when they join in purpose, the potentiality for transcending all limitations has been given them. The extent of their success depends on how much of this potentiality they are willing to use. The willingness may come from either one at the beginning, and as the other shares it, it will grow. Further progress then becomes a matter of decision. Their progress can reach almost to Heaven or get them no further than a step or two out of hell. It is also quite possible for psychotherapy to seem to fail, and sometimes the result may even look like retrogression. But in the end there must be some success.
One has asked for help; another has heard and tries to answer in the form of help.* This is the basic formula for salvation, two joining in one goal, and it must heal! It is but divided goals that can interfere with perfect healing.
One wholly egoless therapist could heal the world without a word, merely by being there. No one need see him or talk to him or even know of his existence. His simple Presence would be enough to heal. The ideal therapist would be one with Christ. But healing is a process, not a fact.
The therapist cannot progress without the patient to join with, and the patient cannot be ready to receive the Christ, or he could not be sick. In a sense, ‘the egoless psychotherapist’ is an abstraction that stands for one who has reached the end of the process of healing, too advanced to believe in sickness and too near to God to keep his feet on earth.
Here and now, the psychotherapist can help through those he sees in need of help, for thus he carries out the plan established for salvation. In a sense he becomes his own patient, working through other patients to express his thoughts as he receives them from the Mind of Christ.”
*Helen Schucman, Ph. D., to whom these inspirations came, was a licensed psychotherapist in New York as well as Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia University. “Therapist” here is equated with anyone who would be truly helpful to another seen as asking help, irrespective of the form of help that one may have to offer.