Why We Must Relive to Get Well (Part 1/2)

So again, why do we have to relive our early lives in order to get well? What is the magic about reliving that cures anything?" Or how does reliving rewire nerve circuits?"
It means that we go back in time to enter pains that were too much at the time to feel. Repression sealed them off. And deep down they were imprinted and kept doing their damage. Once we lift the repressive lid (done in orderly fashion) there is no longer unconscious forces driving behavior and symptoms.
How do we go back in time? Good question and the answer is simple. We don't deliberately decide to go back and visit our early lives; that is a recipe for abreaction. We cannot engage the higher level cortex; we must disengage from it. Cede to feelings; and that is our scientific mission: to provide access to feelings and let the whole organism proceed in an ordered, slow descent into the deep unconscious. As odd as that seems, feelings are the vehicle that take us where we need to go. There is a biologic sensor that knows not only where we have to go in the past by how far.

It is the deeply disturbed that enter therapy, and because of severely damaged gating system, slide immediately down to some kind of birth trauma, way off a proper evolutionary voyage. They usually need help in gating, and we may recommend medication of some kind that temporarily enchances gating so that a proper descent is now possible. Without that there is no integration and therefore no getting well.

A well ordered therapy begins in the present, anchoring feelings in the present which eventually will lead to deeper levels along that same feeling path. Feelings, their chemistry and frequencies bind or bundle similar feelings together and lead the neuro-biologic system by the hand to go deeper; it cannot be forced or decided in advance. If it is decided by a therapist about where the patient has to go there is danger and no integration. We must trust the feelings totally; but first we must recognize them and be able to differentiate them from abreaction—the discharge of the energy of feeling without connection. Our job is providing access and to follow evolution every step of the way. Reliving birth in the first weeks of therapy is defying evolution and leads to disaster. It is arriving at deep levels of consciousness prematurely, skipping evolutionary steps and going through the motions of feelings without feeling. I have seen people who have gone to rebirthing centers and come to us prepsychotic.

Whenever a therapist tells the patient what to feel we know he is already on the wrong path. We must sense feelings and follow the patient, not lead him. We take him by the hand and follow where he leads, not vice versa. We doctors must avoid the temptation to act smart. We spent years in college learning to be smart, and now we must elude it. How ironic; yet the history of psychotherapy was intellectual and provided a therapy of the intellect, exactly what we don't need. We don't let the patient act "smart" we allow her to act intelligent, to recognize her feelings and how they drive her and cause her to act out. When she tries to act smart we help her get to the feeling; of how to please momma or father. Finally it is a great relief just to be yourself and not have to act this way or that to get love.