Psych. PPP. 2. 1 – 4. Jesus: “Psychotherapy is a process that changes the view of the self. At best this ‘new self’ is a more beneficent self-concept, but psychotherapy of itself can hardly be expected to establish or restore one’s reality. That is not its function! If it can help make way for awareness of one’s eternal reality, psychotherapy has achieved its maximum success.
Psychotherapy’s whole function, then, is to help the patient deal with one fundamental error; the belief that anger brings him something he really wants, and that by justifying attack with his projection onto others, he is somehow protecting himself. To whatever extent he comes to realize that this is an error, to that extent is he truly saved!
Patients do not, however, enter the therapeutic relationship with this goal in mind! On the contrary, such concepts mean little to them, or they would not need help. What they really want from psychotherapy is the ability to retain their self-concept exactly as it is, but without all the suffering that it necessarily entails. Their whole equilibrium rests on the insane belief that this is possible. And because, to the sane mind this is so clearly impossible, what they are seeking is but magic, not awareness of reality, and therefore just a less distressing dream.
In illusions, the ‘impossible’ is easily accomplished, but only at the cost of making the illusions ‘true.’ The patient has already paid this price in his attempt at separation and a ‘self-concept.’ Now what he wants is a ‘better’ illusion!
At the beginning, then, the patient’s goal and the therapist’s are at variance. The therapist as well as the patient may cherish false self-concepts, but their respective perceptions of ‘improvement’ still must necessarily differ. The patient hopes to learn how to get the changes he wants without changing his self-concept to any significant extent. He hopes, in fact, to stabilize it sufficiently to have the ‘magical powers’ he seeks; desiring to make the vulnerable ‘invulnerable,’ and the finite limitless!
The patient has made his self-concept into a ‘god,’ believing it to be real, and seeks only to serve it better. With respect to the therapist and the role in which he sees himself, no matter of how sincere he may be, he must want to change the patient’s self-concept in some way that he believes is the patient’s reality!
A major task of therapy, then, is one of reconciling these differences between therapist and patient. Hopefully, both will learn to give up their original goals, for it is only by joining in real relationships that salvation can be found.
At the beginning of the relationship, it is inevitable that patients and therapists alike accept unrealistic goals not completely free of magical overtones. As they join in purpose, however, these are finally given up in the minds of both.”