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DOCTOR
LOVE |
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Paul
Taylor practices a new form of healing that touches the spirit through
simply listening with an open heart and a feeling of universal love Identify this tableau. The sitting room of an up market Delhi house in India. Evening. Mild clatter of teacups. People split in pairs. Soft murmur of speech. Silent nodding of heads. Polite coughs. Just another cozy tea party? Try again. Most of the people in the room have met each other for the first time in their lives. The soft murmur involves a pouring out of intensely personal troubles to an attentive stranger who provides no advice. Heads nod in rapt listening. This is not small talk over cake and cookies. This is healing. Attitudinal Healing.  In the middle of the tableau sits Paul Taylor, cofounder and director of the Attitudinal Healing Center in Bern, Switzerland, and facilitator of the present session. Taylor stresses the word 'facilitator'. "In Attitudinal Healing," he says, "there's no place for teachers. We are all students here. I'm here for my own healing. I'm not here for you. You will experience me because you want to." Attitudinal Healing may be a new term for India but it has had quite a successful run in the USA, Europe, South America, Ukraine and Russia. The creation of Dr Gerald Jampolsky, a noted psychiatrist, Attitudinal Healing was the result of his experiences with terminally ill children-and a book. During the '70s, Dr Jampolsky discovered a book called A Course in Miracles, channeled by Helen Schucman. This work gave a new direction to his psychiatric views and led directly to his founding the Center for Attitudinal Healing in California, an emotional support center opened for children with cancer and expanded to embrace all disturbed people. | ||||
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a period of time, every Attitudinal Healing volunteer and facilitator creates
his or her own style," says Kavita Kowshik, a social worker and executive director
of the Association for Attitudinal Healing in India. "I work with prison inmates.
Naturally, my way of doing Attitudinal Healing will be different from someone
working with corporate executives." Kowshik, the first person to bring Attitudinal
Healing to India, came across the concept through the Internet. The reaction of people being introduced to this unique form of healing is as varied as the process. The recent workshop in Delhi, held under the guidance of Taylor, was a case in point. While Kowshik, who invited Taylor to India, is herself excited by the possibilities of this system and has seen its beneficial effects on prisoners, other participants are yet to warm up to the process. "I would like to use Attitudinal Healing with disturbed youth," says Praveena Singhal, a teacher at the Indian School in Delhi. "But first, I'd rather settle my personal affairs." There is also a hint of disappointment in others. "Let's face it," says Shyama Sanghvi, one of the more involved workshop participants. "I have not been able to attend to the principles in my own life. I feel as though I'm running away from the situation. When it comes to empathic was listening, I might be speaking what the other person wants to hear." |
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So, does this fledgling concept face a premature death in India? Taylor would not think so. "There are already quite a few people that take Attitudinal Healing seriously in India and there will be more," he says. "Some of these interested individuals will be the beginning for centers. I believe that if these centers are intended for the service of others, they will be successful in the spiritual sense." Taylor also feels that the biggest strength of this healing lies in its benign nature. There is no couch-confined patient being cross-examined by a ponderous shrink, neither is there any attempt at dictating rules of conduct. The aim of this system is personal empowerment. "What I perceive is a mirror of what is in my own mind," he says. "But people are unconscious of this. Attitudinal Healing helps people become conscious that giving and receiving are one and the same." It may have diverse implementations, diverse modes and diverse results. But the essence of this simple form of healing is a universal four-letter word: love. As Taylor would put it: "Sit with someone who is dying. Listen with your heart. The unexplainable may happen. We call it Attitudinal Healing." | ||||
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the willingness to listen non-judgmentally and the desire to be unconditionally
loving and truthful. Of these, listening, or, as Attitudinal Healing
volunteers put it, 'empathic listening', is the most important. A write-up
on this concept from the California center describes empathic listening
as the process of "entering the private perceptual world of the other
and becoming thoroughly at home in it. It involves being sensitive,
moment by moment, to the changing meanings that flow in this other person".
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