Over the last few issues of Alaska Wellness, I've avoided the topic of the healing process by alluding to it in passing. Mostly, I've avoided it because the healing process is viewed differently between mainstream folks and alternative folks. I've avoided kicking sacred cows ever since I realized that the fun I had kicking those cows had a substantial price. As I feel either the mainstream nor the alternative views of the healing process are fully accurate, I will not risk kicking their respective sacred cows because my view is different.

However, let's begin with some common ground. If I get a cut on my arm and I don't attend to it, I will end up with an infected cut arm. Eventually, I'll be unable to use my arm without pain, and will probably begin self-medicating to deal with the pain, as well as compensating by using my other arm more.

The same basic pattern occurs with emotional, psychological or sexual trauma. If the trauma is not dealt with immediately, it becomes infected. There is a difference, however, when the injured person comes to a counselor. The counselor may remark, "Of course you're an addict and you're compensating the ways that you are. Your 'arm' is infected." The answer is, typically, "No it's not!" Denial is the added element in dealing with emotional trauma.

The process of healing the injured arm is to: 1) cut open the wounded area; 2) drain off the infection; 3) cleanse the wound; 4) stitch it up; 5) bandage it; and 6) let the natural healing process begin.

The corollary to this for emotional healing is to: 1) open up the topic of the wounding; 2) get out all the feelings associated to it; 3) have a safe person receive this information; 4) allow the safe person to stitch the wound closed by saying the words that need saying (it's not your fault, etc.); 5) allow the safe person to provide the "mothering" that makes it "all better;" and 6) let the natural healing process begin.

It should be obvious by now that there are sacred cows that get kicked by the pattern described above. Mainstream folks are denied their diagnostic categories, and the alternative folks are denied the label of "healer."

Bottom line: healing is a divine intervention. Our part is merely to make sure that the necessary preconditions to healing occur. True "healers" know this, whether they come from the mainstream or the alternative therapies.

All this is important for the spiritual warrior. Why? Because one cannot take the journey to enlightenment and fight the many battles necessary if one has a broken leg. One of the prerequisites to warriorship, therefore, is knowledge of the healing process and the skill to use it.

Emotional healing has three unique characteristics: awareness, process, and integration. These can be subdivided into three types of awarenesses, processes, and integration activities: body, emotion and mind. So, there are body memories (awareness), emotional memories, and picture memories; there are processes for "digesting" the body, emotional, and mental awarenesses; and there are integration strategies specific to each as well. Sorting all this out is what makes the healing process such a daunting endeavor – especially because these nine different activities tend to overlap and blend together.

For example, in sexual abuse recovery, the chronology tends to be this: dreams oftentimes announce that the unconscious is getting ready to release memory of the abuse for processing; panic attacks alert that the memory is now just below the surface; "meltdowns" (which are out-of-context emotional discharges) indicate that the emotional content is bleeding through into consciousness; "flashbacks" (a partial reliving of the traumatic event) bring the cognitive element; and the body goes into post-traumatic shock.

It is now time to lance the boil and cut through the protective coating surrounding the memory and release all its contents – body memories, emotional charges, and honor the pictures that tell the story. It is not time to "treat" each of the symptoms as discreet problems themselves. Medicating against panic attacks merely interrupts the natural flow of healing. Concentrating on the dreams by seeking their archetypal relevance is pointless. Damping down the flashbacks or meltdowns is a prescription for depression. And so on.

Again, what complicates this is that each of us has a unique "signature" in how we actually do our healing. The above pattern is a generality, and I've never worked with anyone that did it exactly that way. Additionally, men tend to do healing in a linear manner, putting the blinders on and going for it; whereas women tend to do it more as a gestational process that ends in gestalts or shifts. It is interesting that the mainstream folks are beginning to explore alternative therapies in search of a "cure" to post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD), the DSM IV definition for deep healing needs. Energy Psychology (Gallo, 1999) is an interesting survey of therapies that have successfully completed clinical trials. A variety of bodywork techniques have shown immediate and long-standing relief from the broad range of situations that can produce PTSD (e.g., rape, incest, battle fatigue, etc.)

The scientific method is now validating what many of us in the recovery industry have known to be true for years – humans are open systems. We must digest the life experiences we have had. If we don't because the experience is too much for us at the time, we end up wounded. When we are ready, that woundedness will surface for healing and the successful integration of that experience will occur. It is just that simple.

Bruce Bibee is a Master of Kung-Fu San Soo. He also holds a Master of Transpersonal Psychology and works as an abuse recovery counselor.