The Therapist’s Job
by John Diamond, M.D.
Over the years I have made quite a number of psychological discoveries. Whether they are valid or important is not relevant for the moment, although I do believe that the system of testing that I have developed gives us the deepest and, at the same time, the most direct access to the unconscious. As a result of this method I have found a great many “problems” – specific meridian-related negativities that interfere with the flow of Life Energy. Some of these findings relate directly to the psychoanalytical literature, some seem to go beyond it, and a very few are at variance with it. I have accumulated quite a large storehouse of knowledge, or at least what I hope is knowledge. It now fills many filing cabinets and the sheer volume renders it almost impossible for it ever to be published.
There is so much, yet helpful as it may be in one sense, it is of but the most limited value. Therapists ask me for the information that I have not yet published and it is difficult for me to oblige them. I do not know which bits to give them and I cannot possibly give them all. Or they want me to teach them how to do the testing more accurately. The testing is deceptively simple and thus requires a great deal of training. Obviously, I try to give this when I can. But ultimately, the myriad research findings, the test procedures, the test patterns, the affirmations, and the muscle testing itself are not really essential except for research and for the most difficult cases.
I have come to the happy realization that the vast majority of my research findings are unnecessary, although I had to find every one of them in order to reach this conclusion. I had to find all of these problems to come to the ultimate answer, Cantillation, the belief in the constant, never-ending, never-changing love of the Mother, of God. All the research, all the testing comes to that. This is all we need to know.
The cantillatory state triumphs over all problems. I needed to find those problems in order to find the solution, but do you? I could not, or would not, accept the teachings of the great cantillators such as Shinran, Nagarjuna, and all the others. If you can, then you do not need my help. If you cannot, then perhaps I can help you to accept them openly and gratefully as I now try to do. And I hope you can do that without having to go through the long process that I went through to get this far. You only need to openly accept their teachings. It really is that simple.
Therapy is helping the students to find the pulse of life, the wellspring of Life Energy and love, the fountain of healing. To be able to help them do this, the therapist must himself feel the pulse and love it, and want them to welcome it as he does. The ultimate help that he can give is to assist the person in finding his Cantillation, to encourage him to experience it and then to generalize it into all aspects of his daily life. That is all and that is everything.
My old psychiatry teacher used to define psychotherapy in the following way: “We all stumble through life as best we can. The mark of a good therapist is that he stumbles a little less than others and can help those who stumble a little more.” I would like to take it farther than that and say that the truly healing therapist is he for whom the act of therapy is his Cantillation, and through it he encourages and inspires others to achieve their Cantillation.
