By Hal Stone, Ph.D.. Reproduced with permission.
Hal and Sidra Stone: their work and the complete article library · Further Reading
by Hal Stone, Ph.D.
Introduction
There is one thing that is fairly sure in life andthat is that we are likely to become ill in thecourse of our lives and that we will all die atsome point. Illness and our feelings about deathaffect us in varying degrees and in varying ways.Catching a cold doesn’t tend to destabilize us toomuch. Developing cancer, however, is a majorevent and affects our life in major ways.
The medical model was historically designedto help us get rid of our illness and it still operatesin this way. It is what has come to be knownas the target approach to illness and to symptomsand it involves finding the correct drug orthe correct treatment procedure that is designedto eliminate the symptom.
Having been ill a number of times in my life,I have always appreciated this target approachand the help I have received from medical practitionersin helping to clear up both major andminor symptoms that have developed throughthe years. I have learned, however, that gettingrid of symptoms isn’t the whole story. Illness alsoprovides us with a most amazing opportunity tolook more deeply into ourselves. If approachedproperly, illness of all kinds can become a majorteacher to us as we move through life.
It seemed initially that alternative medicineor holistic medicine would shift away from thistarget approach but the reality is that the oppositeis the case. Most practitioners of alternativemedicine remain quite focused on the ideaof getting rid of illness. I have had an excellentnetwork of alternative practitioners working onmy behalf for well over 35 years, I have beenvery grateful to them and to the multitude ofhealing modalities that have developed throughtheir efforts. I most certainly have used boththe traditional and alternative systems on manyoccasions. Something major, however, is left outwith this target approach and that is what thisarticle is about.
Serious Illness
When we become ill with a serious illness somethingvery different happens to us and it tendsto be a very upsetting experience. We are facedwith the possibility of death. We are faced withthe reality of a loss of control of our bodies. Weare faced with the possibility of being crippled orhaving to deal with chronic pain.
Most people take an aspirin when they havea headache. I don’t blame them! When the headachesbecome chronic they may still want aspirinbecause their focus remains locked onto the ideaof getting rid of the symptom.
Other people however begin to ask questions.“Why do I get these headaches so often? Theyalways seem to come after intense bouts of workand focused activity! Am I pushing too hard? Mygirlfriend tells me I’m too intense.”
Such people take this opportunity to stepback from the symptom and begin to use theillness as something that has possible meaning.They may still be trying to get rid of the symptom.The two approaches are not at all mutuallyexclusive. More and more, however, their focusmoves towards the meaning of illness. Theybegin to look for the teaching and meaning ofthe symptoms.
Throughout the 1970s I was the founderand director of the Center for the Healing Artsin Los Angeles. We were an educational andresearch center in holistic medicine. Jeanne wasa 50 year old woman who came to the center forhelp. We insisted that all clients at the center beunder total medical care for their conditions andwe were available to work with them in diverseways if they wished to explore the meaning ofthe cancer experience in their lives. Her cancertook the form of a serious melanoma in the groinarea that was growing quite rapidly before shehad it surgically removed. She began to exploreher life in a very different way after the surgeryand though she continued all of her medical andalternative work to heal the cancer, the idea ofher illness as a teacher to her became increasinglyher primary focus.
After three or four months she had the followingdream:
“I’m climbing a very steep mountainwith other members of my cancer group. Wecome to a narrow ledge on which there is atree growing and the tree has a large unnaturalgrowth about a third of the way upits trunk. It reminds me of my cancer beforesurgery. I grab hold of the unnatural growthand use it to pull myself up to the ledge so Ican begin to climb again on the next phase ofour journey together.”
This is a remarkable dream that illustrates sowell the principle of illness as teacher. She is on ajourney with other people from her group at theCenter. She uses the “unnatural growth” to helpherself climb onto the ledge so that she can continueher journey. It was a few months later thatJeanne asked to talk with me privately. When wemet she thanked me for my efforts on her behalf.She also told me that she was glad that she haddeveloped cancer. “Nothing else could havebroken me out of my frozen life pattern but anillness of this magnitude. I’m not afraid of livingany longer and I’m not afraid of dying.” Jeannedid indeed die six months later, but her deathwas a thing of beauty as it became a natural partof her process.
When we turn towards the meaning of illnessthe dream process is often of great help to us aswe begin our psycho-spiritual exploration.
An Example of Working with Selves
Voice Dialogue is a remarkable way of approachingillness. In the early seventies I wasapproached by Sara, a woman in her forties, whohad suffered from stomach pains for over threeyears. She was quite wealthy and she been completelyevaluated by many medical groups, hospitalsand individuals but nothing had helped her.She led a very busy life and I suspected that shehad a strong Pusher energy operating in her. Soin the first session I worked with her Pusher andmade an initial separation so that an Aware Egoprocess had started and she had some beginningsense of how driven she was. In this voice herstomach pains were still present and intense.
After we talked for a few minutes in theAware Ego I asked Sara to move to the otherside to “being” energy. She moved over and satsilently for a few minutes. It was the first time inher life that she ever remembered just sitting andbeing with someone without words or planningor work. She began to talk about how she wasfeeling, which was different than anything shehad ever known. At a certain point I asked herhow her stomach was feeling and she reportedno pain at all. She really couldn’t quite believe it.I moved her back to the Pusher and the pain returned.I then moved her again to “being” energyand the pain disappeared. I’m not sure who wasmore shocked, the client or myself!
Within a few short minutes she had movedfrom a victim mentality in which “her body wasconstantly betraying her” to a totally new kindof exploration of a number of major disownedself systems that included her introversion andher “being” energy, ways of being that had beentotally negated growing up in her family system.
You Caused Your Illness
One of the more damaging ideas that came outof the holistic movement of the seventies andthat continues today to some extent goes somethinglike this: “You caused your illness! Sinceyou caused it and are responsible for it, you havethe power to make yourself well!”
The statement is generally well intentioned.We know that many illnesses are caused by thenegation of disowned selves. If you suffer fromheadaches and someone convinces you that youare causing those headaches and that if you candiscover the root cause then you have the powerto cure the headaches.
The damage of this way of thinking and thiskind of advice occurs in two ways. First of all,it is the Inner Critic that generally takes in thestatement. Inner Critics are giants in the psychesof most people. When the Inner Critic gets holdof this kind of idea it is really bad news and - notonly do you have a headache that hurts - but it isyour own fault!
The other consideration has to do with thefact that such thinking is also applied to catastrophicillnesses such as cancer. Imagine somefriend saying to you: “You caused your cancer.Since you are responsible for having developedcancer, you have the power to cure it.” Truly, withfriends like this who needs enemies? Yet I havewatched a multitude of patients die the mostdistressing deaths because they had been giventhis advice and their Inner Critics had taken itin and then their Pusher has gone crazy tryingto rectify the damage they have done by drivingthemselves harder and harder to heal theirwrongdoing.
Life and Illness as a Path
We don’t know what causes cancer. We knowpsycho-spiritual factors may be involved in certainpatients, but there are genetic and environmentalissues and a host of unknown factors thatare also involved. How much more healing, howmuch more elegant to say to someone: “Continueyour efforts to heal your cancer. However, whileyou are doing this, let’s consider the meaning ofthis illness in your life. Let’s think about yourcancer as a teacher. What has it opened up foryou? What are your dreams saying? Let’s talkabout your vulnerability and what you do withthis in your life and with your family. We can’tpromise to cure you. We don’t know how to dothat but we can join with you in the search formeaning that this illness can open up for you.”How much more elegant a way of being a friendthan feeding the Inner Critic streak and eggsand potatoes and toast with peanut butter andjelly every morning.
For Sidra and myself the paradigm of Illnessas Teacher can be applied to all life experiences.Life has many ways of destabilizing us. We canso easily fall victim to these ongoing events or wecan recognize that every destabilization is an opportunityfor new discovery or, as Sidra so aptlyexpresses it, to move out of the pot-bound mentalityof our primary self system. Illness gives us achance to allow the pot to crack gracefully ratherthan trying throughout our lives to constantly attemptto repair the natural cracks that inevitablyget bigger over time.
© 2005
Original source and copyright: Hal Stone, Ph.D.. Read the original at Voice Dialogue International.