Term Papers on The Healing Process

Term Paper Title	The Healing Process
# of Words	1036
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	4.14

The Healing Process

     This is a brief psychological overview of the healing process. The image of
healing is best described by Gloria Vanderbilt in "A Mother's Story" when she
talks of breaking the invisible unbreakable glass bubble which enclosed her that
kept her always anticipating loss with echoes of all past losses. She wrote, for
example (Page 3),"Some of us are born with a sense of loss there from the
beginning, and it pervades us throughout our lives. Loss, as defined, as
deprivation, can be interpreted as being born into a world that does not include
a nurturing mother and father. We are captured in an unbreakable glass bubble,
undetected by others, and are forever seeking ways to break out, for if we can,
surely we will find and touch that which we are missing".

     This concept of healing was also described by Philip Berman in "If It Is
Not Good Make It So" as changing positively from the unhappy attitude of(Page
48) "we never got the habit of happiness as others know it. It was always as if
we were waiting for something better or worse to happen".

     Psychological theory of change suggest it is possible to heal, to break
out of the glass bubble, to develop the attitude of happiness. For example, in
"The Process of Change: Variations on a Theme by Virginia Satir says on Page 89
that "successful change-making turns out to involve struggle, necessitating
skill, tenacity and perspective". The struggle occurs when a foreign element
produces chaos until a new integration occurs which results in a new status quo.
Kurt Lewin echoed this view in saying that an old attitude has to unfreeze, the
person experiments, a new attitude develops and a refreezing occurs.

     Janis and Prochasky suggest a person starts in relative complacency, is
presented with challenging information, the person evaluates the new challenge
to habit or policy and reviews alternate policies to create a new policy or
return to the original one,

     The psychological theories focus on perspective and rational thought.
The significance of the therapist is in giving a new perspective and in aiding
self-esteem in order to break down resistance to change.  Otherwise, Satir
suggests people are likely to revert to their trance like state of automatic
thought and previous habits.

     Maslow (1991), on the other hand, theorized that inherent in each human
is a self-actualizing instinct. This was "not merely a matter of fulfilling
one's own particular talents; it also involves actualizing those potentialities
that one has as a human being" The key for Maslow in engaging in this process
was that of openness. People must be (Page 117) "receptive and responsive to
information from the world and from themselves. They do not repress or ignore
uncomfortable facts and problems and their view of these facts and problems is
not distorted by wishes, fears, past experiences or prejudices". This freshness
of perspective permits spontaneity, creativity which then promotes growth.
Growth is perceived as being open to one's self and to others which leads to
empathy.

     Maslow felt that the purpose of therapy with its "unconditional positive
regard" was to lead the person to such growth and that the result would be love,
courage, creativeness, kindness and altruism. Breaking the old habits was the
key. Page 127 "To...

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