Love as Therapy

By Steve Wells

“It is the physician’s love which heals the patient” — Sandor Ferenczi

Many people don’t realise that the term provocative as used in Provocative Energy Techniques actually means “to call forth”, that the focus of PET is on calling forth clients strengths and helping them to access their energy for change, to help them to get back in touch with their own power. But what blows them away even more is when they discover that approach is really grounded in a loving, warm energy and it is this which gives PET its true healing power.

What is really most provocative in a PET session, what is most difficult to handle for many clients is not the practitioners exaggeration of their negative belief systems, nor is it the practitioners ” seeming encouragement of” their own internal put-downs or their doom and gloom thinking. What is most provocative and often hardest to handle for clients is the warm-hearted accepting energy which is flowing to them through the practitioner.

What is this like from the client’s perspective?

Here is a beautiful description from Caroline from our last Brussels seminar:

“In May 2011, when Steve motioned me to come before the group for a PET demonstration, my heart was pounding. He then asked me what I wanted to work on. I replied that “I’m very talented for depression” and I felt the sadness beginning to overwhelm me and I started to feel the sobs rising and shaking me. While tapping, Steve in his inimitable style and with lots of love began to imitate the movements of my body shaken by sobs and says “Looks like a car that is misfiring to start”. The audience and I were quite sure rocked with laughter. What was not visible from the outside but very strong inside, was the sensation of pain mixed with laughter. With equal intensity.

I felt Steve was with me. I felt his look of love and his presence in this moment of most intense pain. He was there with me. Once in a while I was a little embarrassed to have an audience of 130 people on the side but I was trying to welcome something that was beginning to happen in myself. Steve kept looking at me in silence. We tapped continuously. In silence. And gradually as time passed, I felt Steve’s love into my heart I felt someone’s love for me for the first time in my life. Pure love. He looked at me as no one had ever looked at me. It was extremely beautiful and deliciously soothing. I left this demonstration rebuilt, touched in my heart, a place I did not know. I felt that my heart had opened to love and it is still open a year later much bigger. So I say thank you Steve and thank you PET.”

Many patterns used in PET owe their origin to Provocative Therapy, created by Frank Farrelly, including the humorous provocation and paradoxical language, but the main element, the one really key thing Frank taught us, is to keep your heart open.

It was this which so overwhelmed me way back in 1986 when I had my first session with Frank, the overwhelming feelings of love, warmth and acceptance such as I’d never experienced before. And that is what kept me coming back to this man and his approach to experience and to learn more. What I didn’t realise sometimes when I was so focused on learning the techniques and trying too hard sometimes to be funny, was that Frank was really teaching me to open up my heart. Bit by bit.

Over the years as my heart has been able to open more my results with clients have improved exponentially.

When we certify practitioners of PET it is this element which we cannot emphasise enough: Keep your heart open towards the client. Keep yourself in an open, connected,  warm-hearted state at all times.

Ultimately, far beyond any techniques you use, it is this love which does the healing.

What do you think? We would love to read your comments on this article.

Experience the power of PET at a live workshop.

4 Responses to “Love as Therapy”

  • Hello Steve,
    Yes I totally agree with you. In TAT, the presence is the more valuable tool… In EFT or REMAP, by example, it is the same… The presence, the empathy, the unconditional “Love” of the therapist… I think it is one of the more important aspect and skill necessary.
    Yesterday, during a workshop, I received in emergency a client with complex trauma and attachment disorder. During the session He stopped and said : I’m feeling your Love for me… and he said I thought that you’ll try to bring me to a reasonable part of me and I didn’t need it! But I realized that you were just flowing where I needed to be loved and “fixed”…

    It was not the first time but I was astonished because I really realized that it was the child inside that spoke … The client talked with a little voice joyfull

    For me, it was a beautiful moment of sharing and for the client a beautiful moment of acceptance to take the way of live. He is 62 years old and it did 60 years that he felt only as a survivor
    Definitively, Love is an important part of our marvelous job :-)
    see you soon in june !
    yves

  • admin says:

    Hi Yves,
    Yes, and as somebody who has been privileged to feel your love I know that your clients are indeed blessed.
    Cheers!
    Steve

  • Steve,
    I love adding open-hearted humor to my EFT work inspired by you and Carol Look, and it works best in situations where the client hasn’t been able to laugh about their situation ever. I had a client yesterday who tapped and cried and laughed for a solid 90 minutes about a severe trauma from adolescence that had been haunting her for 30 years. Her brief mood score (David Burns survey) dropped from 51 to 21 by the end of the session. Thanks for your provocative work.
    Let magic happen,
    Larry

  • Sejual Shah says:

    Love and compassion are what heal. Beautiful story. Thanks for sharing a deep truth regarding the work we do.

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