Transforming the ‘Inner Enemy’ through Self‐Empathy
A foundation paper for participatory medicine
The first condition for sustainable spiritual development is making the commitment to take personal responsibility for one’s own well being on the basis of one’s own intuition. Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of Higher Worlds (1)
To what extent are our mental‐emotional‐spiritual dynamics
a decisive factor in our well being, sickness and recovery?
To that extent awaking up to and taking charge of
our mental‐emotional‐ spiritual dynamics can prevent,
reverse and heal physical sickness,
potentially even in conditions as severe as auto immune disorders.
An autoimmune disorder occurs when the body’s immune system attacks and destroys healthy body tissue by mistake. There are more than 80 types of autoimmune disorders...No‐one is sure what causes autoimmune diseases. US National Library of Medicine (2)
These are some of the most common diseases:
Multiple sclerosis–the nerve system is being attacked;
Spondylitis– the bones are attacked;
Rheumatoid arthritis–the joints are attacked;
Irritable bowel syndrome and Colitis–the colon is being attacked;
Lupus–the blood vessels are attacked;
Crone disease– the digestive system is being attacked.
It appears as though our inner guardian turns into our worst internal enemy,
and there is no escape ‐
the body’s immune system is attacking the body’s own tissues and organs,
and progressive irreparable damage is afflicted on the physical body.
There is no obvious cause. It is a mystery.
There is enormous suffering and loss, combined with a debilitating powerlessness results from this
inability to protect oneself from this ‘internal enemy’.
The inner guard becomes the enemy and
there is no guard against this inner guard.
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Could it be that the sufferer is making
a contribution to this condition unconsciously,
and by becoming conscious about it and stopping it,
could the sufferer reverse the destructive dynamics
and make a practical contribution towards their own healing?
This article suggests sufferers of multiple sclerosis and
other autoimmune conditions potentially contribute to both:
the process of sickness and the process of recovery.
The immediate impact of internal moods, reactions and
extreme distressing emotions on the bodily processes and
the states of its vitality and function is well documented and is available
to self‐observation:
we all know anxiety changes the rate of the heart beat and
tightens the whole body;
hearing bad news could deplete the vitality of the body.
However, a moment of feeling understood, accepted and loved
brings down the blood pressure, muscle tension, heart rate,
deepens the breathing and the circulation of warmth;
while a meeting with someone you love uplifts the vitality of the body.
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These experiences are common.
But it is also a fact that a methodical process could be applied
for awareness and change of how emotional dynamics affect
the life and well-being of the body in a radical way.
This is not common knowledge in medical circles.
The internal self‐intervention suggested here can only take place consciously, methodically and by the client’s own free will.
The ongoing continuum of body‐psyche‐body‐psyche
cannot change itself by itself.
An act of self awareness and self care is required.
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Psychophonetics is a methodology of training people for
self observation, transformation and care.
It has evolved out of collaboration between
a psychotherapist and integrative medical doctors
in medical clinics in Melbourne and Cape Town
over 20 years of its development.
It is a pioneering form of ‘Participatory Medicine’,
engaging the client as an active team member of the therapeutic process.
It operates across the boundaries of the physiological, energy dynamics, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual levels of the person’s existence.
It involves the deep‐intelligence of body awareness, movement, gesture, spontaneous visualisations and the powerful invisible vibrations of
the sounds of human speech.
It is being practiced and taught in Australia, Africa, UK and Central Europe.
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Early in the beginning of clinical work as a psychotherapist
in the Melbourne Therapy Centre I became aware of
the enormous potential impact of self‐hatred on one’s auto immune disorders.
I also became aware of the enormous healing potential of
consciously reversing self hatred into self care.
I realised that it increases the chances of recovery from
the presumably incurable auto immune conditions.
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It started in a meeting in 1993 in a Melbourne clinic
with a remarkable woman who healed herself from severe multiple sclerosis after 9 years of suffering, at the point of starting to lose her eyesight.
Her story became a turning point in my career as a psychotherapist.
She told me that one day she said goodbye to her teenage daughter,
feeling a wave of love towards her.
She reminded her very much of herself at that age,
and suddenly the thought occurred to her:
what would happen if she would direct towards her own body
the same love and appreciation she felt towards
her daughter’s growing womanhood?
That was a completely new thought for her.
At that moment she realised just how much hatred, resentment,
rejection and negativity she had been directing towards
her own body for decades since puberty.
It had started in response to invasive, aggressive, sexual attention towards her from boys at her school at the time.
It became hatred towards her body ‐ blaming it
for attracting such a destructive attention.
It became a habit. She started to consciously catch herself
directing negativity towards her own body, after realising how intense, persistent and regular such internal aggression had become for her,
and stopped it many times a day.
She replaced it with consciously directed love, appreciation, compassion, tenderness and care towards her suffering and scared body.
This continued to be inspired by her capacity
to love her growing daughter during that time.
After a while the MS disease stopped its relentless progression,
and slowly started to be reversed,
against all medical predictions, assumptions and prognosis.
She became completely free of MS condition within a few months.
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I took this insight into account in psychotherapeutic sessions with people who suffered from autoimmune conditions,
in cooperation with medical practitioner colleagues,
exploring the contribution that Psychophonetics could make
to the condition of multiple sclerosis.
The results were encouraging: people could catch themselves directing
self hatred, resentment, judgment and negativity towards themselves
for many years before the onslaught of MS.
In catching it and reversing it – there was a marked and self perceptible
positive change of the condition.
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I had worked as a psychotherapist in three medical clinics
in Melbourne and Cape Town over 18 years,
with collaboration and supervision by medical doctors.
I continued in clinical private practice in the UK and
in a coaching practice in Bratislava.
In these clinics I applied Psychophonetics with people suffering from
Multiple Sclerosis, Spondylitis and Rheumatoid arthritis.
The results were encouraging but unfortunately,
they were not scientifically validated, recorded and published.
I can say with certainty that in all of these cases we found
severe pre‐existing conditions of
self hatred, self‐resentment, self‐criticism and self‐rejection
formed through old biographical experiences.
A picture emerged from all of these discoveries indicating the possibility that the entrenched, mostly unconscious dynamics of self‐negativity has metamorphosed into a condition of self‐aggression of one’s immune system against one’s own tissues and organs.
On the basis of these observations I am convinced that
a case could be made for the possibility that
people’s self hatred, resentment, criticism, judgment and rejection
directed towards themselves and their bodies over many years results
in the immune system and its particles starting to behave
in a likewise manner by echo, resonance and imitation:
the immune system starts to treat its own physical body in the same way that one treats oneself on the emotional‐mental level:
self hatred becomes in time auto‐immune dynamics.
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In Psychophonetics, the client becomes a colleague of the therapeutic process. Using a range of Psychophonetics tools through
Exploration, Resourcefulness, Inner Child and Psychosomatic processes,
the client can mobilise positive, nurturing, caring, healing dynamics,
originating in their own inner resources, with which to care
for their afflicted bodies and biographical wounds.
These nurturing and healing processes can be taken home
as homework for independent self‐application,
and as an ongoing self administered process of recovery.
On the basis of these experiences, I believe a case can be made
for a methodical psychosomatic approach
in the condition of autoimmune diseases with a process of
coaching for self empathy and self care, such as Psychophonetics.
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Our own independent intuition, Heart‐Intelligence,
individual spirit and self compassion can enter the therapeutic process
as a new element by entering consciously into this disease and
making a decisive therapeutic change,
and by consciously stopping the dynamics of self hatred,
and engendering consciously the dynamics of self care.
I do not claim here that I have found a proved universal cure
for multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune syndromes.
For such a claim to be made,
an objective scientific research must be conducted.
However I suggest this is a promising direction for research.
Before such research is completed,
it is safe to try out these ideas – to catch any negative judgmental emotions towards our self, to stop it, and replace it with self respect and self care.
This is a good and a beneficial thing to do by anyone,
with or without a diagnosis of an auto‐immune disease.
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Hatred is a poison and love is a medicine,
whether they are directed at others or at oneself.
The transition from self hatred to self care can be made
consciously, practically and methodically.
Psychophonetics is one way of doing it.
Find your own way.
Only when you do it practically, you can see the results for yourself.
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1) Rudolf Steiner (1861‐1925) an Austrian philosopher, scientist and pedagogue, in his book ‘Knowledge of Higher Worlds’
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Published in Slovakia as:
PSYCHOFONETIKA A ROZTRÚSENÁ MOZGOMIEŠNA SKLERÓZA
Ako premeniť vnútorného nepriateľa prostredníctvom sebaempatie
Vitalita magazine. Bratislava Slovakia. Yehuda Tagar, June 2015
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Article in PDF-form here:
Psychophonetics and Multiple Sclerosis
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