THE INNER HEALERS INTRODUCTION

This is a continuation of some previously published articles on the praxis of psychotherapy. The first series was on the Faith Teachers. This series is on the Inner Healers.

The name Inner Healers, comes from their emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit to reveal and to heal, inner psychological traumas. In this as well as the prior series of articles, I am taking the approach historical psychology has used, by applying a set of questions that a psychotherapist theorist must ask. In my case I use Joseph Rychlak’s (1981) model as my guide.

A number of prominent spiritual healers doing praxis are the Sandfords (1985) the MacNutts (1974) and Stapleton (1978), who have acknowledged their debt to the early healing work of Agnes Sanford and her School of Pastoral Care.

My intellectual mentor was Joseph Rhylak PhD of Loyola University. To me his textbooks on personality were always the best in the field. Rhylak had taught me that those doing praxis needed to be able to answer the following seven questions: 1) How do I describe the essential structure of personality (Freud’s id, ego, and superego are examples.) 2) How do I describe what moves that structure? (Motivation). 3) Does the personality change over time, and if so, in what way? (Growth and Development.) 4) How does one account for the variety of differences among individuals? 5) What does it mean to be ill, and how does illness happen? 6) How does the personality get cured? 7) What unique procedures does the theorist utilize to create cures?