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Article by Michael Finn
Copyright Michael Finn

Alchemist's Crucible - Vessel of Change

Deep physics suggests the existence of quantum potentials, fields, and that matter is ultimately an alternation between particle and wave. A fragment of information, if you will, minute billboard, a primal signal, moving, then still - elusive. This fits like a glove into the Taoists, yin-yang paradigm - an interdependent shift, from stillness to motion, light to darkness, the enduring 'cyclic' phenomenon. At some (albeit invisible but imaginable) level, 'things' are manifestly alive. Our environment is flirting with our consciousness and information arises, in various modes or channels.

It's suggested that our receptors - the senses - have become dulled, dampened. This process is the result of local, cultural, inherited and environmental influences - e.g. on a 'need to experience' basis.

In this regard, people (in the western sphere especially) have become very distant to the signals emanating from within their own person(s); e.g. symptoms, signs and manifestations (of the body).

(Definition of 'Body': the entire continuum of experience, that is, Spirit/Mind/Emotion/Physicality)

One thing that a practitioner is always going to be vulnerable around, is her/his clients':-

• Awareness or lack of, in terms of body feedback
• Information editing
• Secrecy issues
• Intent, regarding informational disclosure
• Worse case scenario - malingering client

To create a valid healing process then, the practitioner needs to be, firstly and foremost, a close observer. His/her 'clinical gaze' is cast within an exacting environment which I call the 'therapeutic relationship'. This is an arena created by the presence of healer (agent), and client, usually in a clinical setting.

Both parties bring in a wide spectrum of signals:- e.g. postures, movements, looks, volume, roles, sounds, expressions, habits, symptoms, desires, dreams, disturbances, fears, beliefs, airs and graces etc., etc. Notably, one person discloses internal experiences and symptoms and displays observable stuff: - signs. The airwaves are awash with phenomena. The absolute richness and diversity of experiences and (usually) disturbing features with which any one client presents is formidable.

The aggregate amount and conformation of these signals, as expressed in any one moment is of manifest importance. This 'soup' of data holds deep in its background, the wisdom or key, required to solve the client's complaint(s). In every situation, there exists such a doorway, though it can at times appear strange, radical or demanding. The underlying pretext of this deeper wisdom usually pares back to self-affirmation.

The practitioner then, is required to be present, with the mind of 'a beginner' (in the words of Zen masters) in an attempt to be attentive, sensitive and empathic ('debris free') - in a word, undistracted.
The mind should be a 'clean slate'. A healer is not an island, nor an ivory tower. She is the designated healing agent.

This role creates a 'gradient', between the players which by virtue of its magnitude, rank and sphere of influence, demands a constant degree of responsibility, awareness and vigilance. A practitioner is at all times in a highly charged and privileged position of influence. This has to be truly 'owned'.

The healing potential of the therapeutic relationship is 'greater than the sum of its parts'. From my vantage point, it is a 'seedbed' of potential (for change to occur).

The practitioner is hopefully, a 'transformer', a modern day alchemist, endeavouring to re-energise her client's basic elements, to reinstitute order, homeostasis, to recover balance.

He/she doesn't 'take on the clients 'bad energy' or 'heavy issues'.
Yet, the practitioner's own personal processes are sure to be amplified or catalysed if they bear some resonance with the clients'.

This resonance is denoted as 'having wood to burn', by Dr. Arnold Mindell, in his book, 'The Leader as a Martial Artist'.

Here is one example of how a client's disease state process can activate certain elements of a healer's own learning curve in the moment.
The wood is the unfinished inner work around certain issues which lie dormant yet sensitized within us all and which are triggered in clinic sessions.

A 'shamanically styled healer' has the ability to recognise this phenomenon in herself. She then seeks the therapeutically opportune way in which to introduce it to the healing session. This material has the potential to be cathartic to both parties, as both have the wood to burn. (For an elaboration of this idea, see- 'The Leader As A Martial Artist', by Dr Arnold Mindell, Harper Collins 1992, P55)

This 'shared process' idea can be taken a step further, in that one could posit that people are, as it were, drawn inexorably towards certain healers at definite times, for specific reasons. It's a kind of quantum flirting.

Quote from Ted Kaptchuk: This refers to practically forgotten methods as used by ancestor practitioners in China of old. Here we see practitioner as model.

'.....the long forgotten Yuan Dynasty "living noose"; method that tried to induce different effective reactions in emotionally disturbed patients by having the practitioner embody different emotions .'

(Chen et al 1962, Hunan 1979, Liu 1981) taken from 'Fundamentals Of Chinese Medicine'.

The Therapeutic Relationship is the pot in which the soup of healing is cooking. It is effective in a long term sense, I maintain, when both the client and her practitioner are feeling the heat and warming to the alchemy of their respective processes, which are evoloving.

Healing Metaphysics Home > Archive> Therapeutic Relationship