The Psychotherapy Supplement to A Course in Miracles (Part 3)

2. The Process of Psychotherapy
Introduction
1. Psychotherapy is a process that changes the view of the self. ²At best this “new” self is a more beneficent self-concept, but psychotherapy can hardly be expected to establish reality. ³That is not its function. ⁴If it can make way for reality, it has achieved its ultimate success. ⁵Its whole function, in the end, is to help the patient deal with one fundamental error; the belief that anger brings him something he really wants, and that by justifying attack he is protecting himself. ⁶To whatever extent he comes to realize that this is an error, to that extent is he truly saved.
2. Patients do not enter the therapeutic relationship with this goal in mind. ²On the contrary, such concepts mean little to them, or they would not need help. ³Their aim is to be able to retain their self-concept exactly as it is, but without the suffering that it entails. ⁴Their whole equilibrium rests on the insane belief that this is possible. ⁵And because to the sane mind it is so clearly impossible, what they seek is magic. ⁶In illusions the impossible is easily accomplished, but only at the cost of making illusions true. ⁷The patient has already paid this price. ⁸Now he wants a “better” illusion.
3. At the beginning, then, the patient’s goal and the therapist’s are at variance. ²The therapist as well as the patient may cherish false self-concepts, but their respective perceptions of “improvement” still must differ. ³The patient hopes to learn how to get the changes he wants without changing his self-concept to any significant extent. ⁴He hopes, in fact, to stabilize it sufficiently to include within it the magical powers he seeks in psychotherapy. ⁵He wants to make the vulnerable invulnerable and the finite limitless. ⁶The self he sees is his god, and he seeks only to serve it better.
4. Regardless of how sincere the therapist himself may be, he must want to change the patient’s self-concept in some way that he believes is real. ²The task of therapy is one of reconciling these differences. ³Hopefully, both will learn to give up their original goals, for it is only in relationships that salvation can be found. ⁴At the beginning, it is inevitable that patients and therapists alike accept unrealistic goals not completely free of magical overtones. ⁵They are finally given up in the minds of both. (acim.org/acim/en/s/904#1:1-4:5 | P-2.in.1:1-4:5)
For more: acim.org/acim/psychotherapy/t...

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