Facets of a Diamond - Blog

The word safety comes from the Latin salvus and it means to be healthy, whole, uninjured therefore without fear, without stress. When you feel safe, you have no fear and therefore no stress. This relates to meditation, in that it has been said that the feeling of meditation was like the feeling of going home: a home where there is no stress, no fear, a safe place, a sanctuary where you believe your mother loves you.

There is a paper I believe should be required reading for anyone in the healing arts. It was written by Louis Cholden, M.D., a psychiatrist who tragically died young in a car accident in 1956.  Here is what he wrote:

“There is a vital force within each patient that desires fulfillment, maturation and development … to the maximum utilization of his potential… All of nature points to the fact that there is a drive toward integration in each living organism, an inherent force which strives toward the organization of the being. It might be called an integration factor. It is the drive in the organism to attain its highest potentiality. It says that human nature contains a drive towards health.

“The therapist must constantly keep in mind – medicus curat, natura sanat, the doctor looks after, nature heals – that he is not curing a disease. Rather he is creating an environment of safety, trust in people and faith in living, which allows the natural forces of health within his patient to flourish. He is allowing hope to rise for future relationships, by comfort in the therapeutic relationship. The silent hour may accomplish this better than one filled with brilliant interpretations.”¹

He argued that there is a power within everyone, which he called an integration factor (and which I would call the Life Energy).  What is important is to create, in my words, a safe space, a sanctuary, for the patient to enables this integration factor to work. He believed that just being silent with the patient, with the right intention, can do more good than hours of sophisticated analysis.

When I read this paper it made a very deep impression on me.  And so the whole point is that he said you need to create a safe place, a sanctuary if you like. It’s got to be a place where there is no fear, if only for that short period of time the person can feel at least less fearful and get in touch with his Deep Unconscious is like. And you know that safe place will always be a place where you feel that your mother loves you.

Reference:
“Observations on Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia” in Progress in Psychotherapy 1956, ed. Frieda Fromm-Reichmann and J.L. Moreno. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1956, pp. 245-6.