A Repair Shop For Broken Souls

I have recently come to ask myself whether our wounds really heal. As a student of thoroughness psychology, the learning is never ending. The layers of the psyche are complicate, not only on an individual but a collective level. How do I differentiate my wounds from my partners? What belongs to my history, and what is cultural? When Im suddenly triggered by another, am I projecting the unfinished business of my soul onto the other, or is it an attempt to not be engulfed by the sea of their emotional drama?

Last week I wrote about the collective psyche and the challenge of separating our symptoms, both physical and psychological, from the ecosystem. Today Id like to present the following questions to consider:

What is healing? How do we know when a wound is healed? Do we ever truly heal?

There are numerous approaches to healing, based on culture, religion, geography, education and already gender. We in the West have traditionally used the medical form, where a procedure or pill will fix the symptoms and the patient can be healed. The pharmaceutical world is currently a multi-billion dollar industry. already psychology has embraced this method of diagnosis and treatment in working with the psyche.

The Eastern cultures tend to look at pathology as an imbalance of different energy centers in the body, in addition as a disconnection from the source. Yoga, the union of mind, body and spirit, has been used for thousands of years to bring forward this necessary balance. Mindfulness meditation quiets the mind and brings awareness to the present, and has been scientifically proven to lower heart rate, decline symptoms of anxiety and stress levels, and activate the parasympathetic nervous system to bring our bodies back into homeostasis.

Respectful of culture, tradition and belief system, thoroughness psychology is asking the deeper questions: what is the next level of consciousness that allows a person to sit with the pain, and persevere the insufferable? How do we shift from healing as a goal to one of a journey?

As stated by Ginette Paris in her book Wisdom of the Psyche, Psychological wisdom is the compass within each of us, pointing in what seems like the most fruitful direction. The attempt to fix a soul diminishes life, harms the psyche and dries up the seed of wisdom.

I believe that psychotherapy is an art of seeing by the symptoms and repairing the internal compass within all of us. Psychological wisdom is the goal and experiencing is part of the journey. Wounds may never completely heal and the leakage of old memories can come upon us when least expected.

Learning the skills to be with our pain instead of numbing emotions, grieving losses in place of seeking substitutions, empathizing instead of pathologizing; this is how we can repair our broken souls and stop the psychic leakage. Time may heal infectious wounds, but the scars will keep, forever a reminder of the peaceful warrior within that helped us gain control of our inner lives.

This is the goal of thoroughness psychology. What is your course of action of healing? How do you repair your inner compass?