 |
Please use this link to connect to Amazon, as we will get a small commission for our Bursary Fund |
Visit the creative resources shop
|
WHY DEEP RELEASE? by
The term "deep release" has been coined by DeepRelease to describe a form of counselling ministry which aims to get to the root of emotional, spiritual, physical and psychological issues in our lives. This article tells the story of how we came to work this way and the biblical principles behind it.
THE BACKGROUND As a Christian doctor and psychiatrist I have always wanted to find an integrated way of working that combines the spiritual with the emotional and the physical. Before I went into psychiatry I had been exposed to Christian approaches to both physical and emotional healing and had experienced their power and also their apparent failure. Working within NHS psychiatry I learned a great deal but I was also aware that what seemed to be a largely chemical approach affected the symptoms but rarely touched the deeper emotional and spiritual issues. Furthering my desire to find genuine answers, I learned a great deal from Dr Frank Lake, a Christian psychiatrist who was exploring deep primal areas. He looked at the roots of problems which often originate as far back as the womb itself. I was also very impressed by Dr Arthur Janov's book, The Primal Scream. He was addressing the same issues and had converted from being a psychoanalyst to working in primal ways because he found them more effective. Although he is not a Christian, his approach made a great deal of sense to me because his therapeutic style seemed both profound and life-changing over the longer term. There was a particular move of the Holy Spirit in the late 1970s and people were experiencing what we called "resting in the Spirit". This seemed to be a way the Lord was using to help them not only get in touch with Him but also to connect with deeper unresolved issues. I found myself working towards an integration of all these approaches. Seeking to understand the implications more fully, I spent time training as a child psychiatrist with a Christian consultant in North Wales. In 1984 I established my own practice in the East End of London where I have been pursuing and developing an integrated approach. Pauline, my wife, and I began running Deep Release Weekends in Essex in 1993. These conference allow people, in the context of a small group, to work through deep and painful issues. Each weekend has times of worship and teaching, but most of the work goes on in the small group where there are two leaders to four clients. Every participant has at least two chances to 'work' individually on their own issues, with the rest of the group being present. Many have found these weekends life-changing and have come back time and again as they have found the safety to take off more and more defensive layers and find integration and wholeness. Our experience is that the Lord very rarely does instant personality transplants, and so we keep on working until the person finds their 'deep release'. We do see dramatic changes, but usually over the space of time. We are convinced of the effectiveness of Deep Release and its contribution to the field of counselling and therapy. Our heart is to see it developed in longer-term residential facilities offering the opportunity for the vision to be fully implemented. We also train counsellors in this therapeutic approach and our courses are recognised by the Association of Christian Counsellors. THE HISTORY Working in primal areas, that is, going back to very early childhood, birth and in-womb experiences, is not new. Freud's style of psychotherapy was very close to it; for example, he would put his hand on people's heads and found marked reactions in consequence. He later moved away from this understanding and tended to discount the work of Otto Rank, a disciple of his, who wrote The Trauma of Birth. At this stage therapy was largely done through the interpretations of dreams and transference. The patients did not 'relive' their experiences as such.
Select the various elements of this
diagram to view more...
The major focus of the diagram is the cross at the centre. This is surrounded by a heart, which is also very much like a womb, with the cervix at the bottom. Underneath are the ‘everlasting arms’ of God, supporting it all. Above the cross is a rainbow-like arch to indicate that we are under God’s covenanted protection. At the top left hand corner you will see the fallen state of the heart. It’s full of things such as sin, pain, wounds, bondages, emptiness and anger which we tend to hide from others by our defensive walls. We’ve walled ourselves off so that people don’t see our weaknesses, sins and failures. Our sense of shame may be such that we even want to hide them from ourselves!
Conversion When we come to Christ, we realise the fallen nature of our heart, recognise that we’re very needy, that we cannot help ourselves, that we cannot become ‘gods’. The top bar of the cross is removed and symbolically ‘split down the middle’, like the curtain in the Temple at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. We now have direct access to the Father. Only when we humble ourselves and confess our condition can we be brought right into God’s presence. This is an understanding of the process of Justification. I am justified by choosing to believe, by faith, that there is no other way to be saved but by owning Jesus as Lord, the one who has died in my place on the cross. I am now a ‘new creation’ positionally in Christ Jesus. This is my legal standing. I am saved, that is, protected and made whole by grace, which is God’s free gift of love, mercy and forgiveness. It’s not by our own virtue or apparent good works. Unfortunately, as we try to live out the Christian life, we often find ourselves unable to live up to its very exacting standards. We certainly have to call on God’s grace as we find ourselves slipping from this high moral calling. Help! This cry leads us on to the next stages of the Baptismal Model, where we have to go ‘under the surface’, beneath the false front, the facade and the different faces we wear, in order to uproot the deeper issues that are holding us back. We follow the same pattern as the Hebrew baptismal pools which had steps to walk down into and under the water, then more steps up the other side. This process of dealing with the deep issues in our lives is described as Sanctification,, the cleansing out of the very depths of our hearts to set us apart for special use by God. Some people say, "Oh, but it was all done at the cross at the time of conversion!" This is true in part - this is our standing in Christ, positionally and legally. But the reality is that until we flush out the deep elements we will never be able to realistically live the Christian life to the full.
So, we’ve cried ‘Help’ - now what?
A Safe Place We need to find a safe setting before we can risk exposing those embarrassing and painful areas of ourselves which, until now, we’ve successfully kept locked away from prying eyes! We need to know that we will not be judged or condemned, and that our needs will not be dismissed as unimportant or trivial. We need to know that we will be listened to and that our story will be met with kindness and empathic understanding. Some of us have vivid memories of trying to talk to harsh, critical parent, teachers or other ‘significant others’, who did not understand, who missed where we were at, leaving us vowing never to trust anyone ever again. Or maybe we were sworn to secrecy and told as a child that awful things would occur if ever we spoke about the difficult and painful things which happened. Even as adults, that fear can still haunt us. Sometimes there are strong feelings of disloyalty when we recognise that our main issues are with our parents, and it is almost as if they sit on our shoulder, defying us to utter a negative word. It sometimes takes a long time to feel safe enough, to trust enough, to expose our deepest fears.
Good Confession If the place and the counsellors are safe enough, people can begin to ‘make good confession’ and risk sharing the areas they have hidden. Sadly, it is often in church where people feel they must wear their mask. Perhaps without realising it, leaders and preachers can sometimes give the impression that everyone in the congregation should be living wonderfully victorious lives, and a culture develops where failure is perceived as unacceptable or ‘letting the side down’. Another burden often placed on people’s backs is the approach which says something like, ‘We prayed for you last week, why are you still going on about it? You’re not living in faith!’ This can be devastating, as the walls of shame go up, blocking off real relationships and fellowship. Some people have lived with their mask for so long they no longer feel it is possible to tell the truth about how they really feel, or the battles they struggle with. How can I possibly tell them after all this time? Coming to a place where nobody knows you, where you are accepted just as you are, is very releasing. At last we can tell it like it is and pour out the fear, failure and sin and find compassion, non-judgemental acceptance and a way forward.
Getting into the Fortress We all have our own ‘castles’, our unique personal defence systems, some more so than others. These are there for good reason and they deserve respect because without them we might not be able to cope. In this safe context we work by carefully getting behind the defences, looking for the reason for them being there in the first place. Once this is dealt with it is possible for the person gradually to ‘lower the drawbridge’. The group leaders are skilled in ways of helping people do this, and the teaching, worship and Bible meditations all contribute! We often find God finds some unusual ways to help people break through their defences. To change the image, it’s almost as if He lays ‘trip wires’ around the conference centre! One woman once came to a weekend terrified (a) of what might happen and (b) that nothing would happen! She rang Pauline every day of the week preceding the conference to try and find an excuse not to come! All through the Friday and Saturday morning she remained apparently unable to get in touch with any feelings at all. She felt nothing, no fear, no joy, no pain... Her despair increased as she felt the whole weekend would be a complete waste of time. Then on Saturday afternoon, during the free time, she went to visit a friend in a nearby town. Leaving in plenty of time to get back for the 4.30pm group session, she took what she thought was a short cut and became completely lost in a maze of winding country lanes! Her panic increased, her defences were ‘busted’, and by the time she eventually made it back to the group, she was in floods of tears with all her fears screaming to the surface - and very ready to work! All her fear of punishment had been triggered, the feeling that she would be a ‘bad girl’ and that the group would reject or punish her, had been released, and we were able to help her work on the very beginnings of these fears. Later we were able to laugh, imagining an angel had removed the signposts on her journey back!
Mourning A great deal of permission is given during the weekends to release feelings, and this often includes mourning. Maybe we need to grieve the loss of a loved one - a relative, a spouse, a child, a pet... Or perhaps the loss of something - freedom, health, purity, finance... The deeper and more intense the tears, the greater the cleansing. Catharsis - the profound release of intense emotion - is very healing in itself. There may be a number of areas where women, and perhaps especially men, have not been ‘allowed’ to fully grieve in the past. This is a chance to deal with them.
Exploding (See also DeepRelease Publications booklet "Anger: Who’s in Control?") It can be very hard in our British culture, especially for ‘nice’ Christians, to express anger in an appropriate manner. We’re often sitting on a whole mass of suppressed feelings waiting to be unleashed volcanically. We encourage participants to do this in a safe context, and many find this very hard at first. As with mourning, it can be a very releasing process. In the controlled safe environment of a group, with experienced leaders, no one gets hurt and the feelings can be expressed without fear of ‘going out of control’ - a commonly expressed anxiety. Many people have never had good anger-management modelled to them; they have never learnt what to do with their angry feelings, and it is very important to learn to do this. "It was a real breakthrough - I have learnt that I can get angry in a safe place and the release is very tangible. I’ve found I can now express my own needs more clearly..." (B)
Going to Court How often we hear the indignant cry, "It’s not fair!" Children in particular often have an acute sense of justice but are powerless to make things right. While we will gently steer people towards a place of forgiveness, we are very aware that this can be a long process, with many stages. Most of us will be able to think of times when we were rushed prematurely into praying a prayer of forgiveness when no one had really taken the time to listen fully to our story. There are situations in all our lives when we feel we’ve suffered injustice, but haven’t been allowed a voice, nor been heard. It can be enormously therapeutic to ‘take people to court’ in a group setting, and bring out before the Lord all the accusations against those who have hurt us. The ‘Prosecution’ needs to fully state their case, and the hurtful feelings acknowledged and validated. From time to time we find people need an ‘advocate’ to speak for them. Sometimes the pain, shame and fear is so intense, they cannot speak up for themselves, and we have seen some wonderful healings take place when participants have heard the leaders of the group defending their cause. When the person is ready and as it feels appropriate, we will help them move to the ‘Defence’ position, to find any possible ‘mitigating circumstances’ for the offence and gradually encouraging them to move towards forgiveness. As we have already stated, this can be a long process and we need the releasing power of the Holy Spirit.
Rock Bottom There are many different ways we will work with participants to take them deeper and deeper, exploring areas they have never visited before. For some people there is a sense of having a huge hole, a deep empty abyss, at the core of their being. There can be a great fear of falling into this bottomless pit. In the ‘safe arms’ of the group, with the Lord Himself underpinning the whole scene, we can risk exploring these rock bottom places safely and so flush out the deepest of issues.
Generational Sin The Bible says that the sins of the fathers are visited onto the children of the third and fourth generations of those who hate God! We can inherit things through our family line from before the time of our conception. This is a chance to pray back through these issues as they are illuminated under the hand of the Holy Spirit. Having gone to the very bottom of exploring and putting off the ‘old man’ we are now in a position to begin coming up the other side!
Repentance This is the process of changing our behaviour and adopting new patterns in the light of having exposed these deep heart issues to the light. Now we can make decisions to do things differently. As the roots are pulled out, so the new patterns are more likely to endure without us reverting to the same old ways time and time again.
Forgiveness It can indeed prove extremely hard to forgive someone truly ‘from the heart’ (Matthew 18:18) unless we have first fully explored the extent of their ‘crime’. Having fully accused through the process of ‘taking people to court’, we can be in a much better place to offer forgiveness. The ‘Defence’ argument can look at possible mitigating circumstances, sitting where the ‘accused’ sits to see things from their point of view. (In severe cases of abuse or rape, this may seem impossible, particularly at first, and the process of forgiveness can take a long time.) Forgiveness is not a function of saying ‘It’s ok, it didn’t matter, forget it’. It’s much more a matter of saying, ‘Yes, it really mattered a lot, it really hurt me; but I am making a choice not to avenge myself or exact retribution on you". Instead it’s about accepting that Jesus has chosen to take the death sentence in place of that person. Justice has been done and I can now ‘let them off the hook’ because the price has been paid. Even then, it’s still hard to do! Many people have to learn to forgive a little at a time.
Deliverance Though deliverance can also have a place much earlier in the process we’ve put it here because once the ‘house has been cleared’ the enemy has fewer places to hide in, so the deliverance process is easier and more complete.
Renewal of the Mind (See also DeepRelease Publications booklet on Journalling) Having unearthed the old patterns of thinking we are now in a much better place to renew the thought ‘tapes’ which run through our heads with appropriate, positive faith-filled truth. This again is a process, but a very important one. It can be hard work choosing to believe the truth instead of falling back into old ways of negative, fearful and self-destructive thinking. Journalling can be a very important way of capturing the old thoughts and translating them into new found truth.
Passionate Prayer This is a means of using our whole body expressively as a powerful prayer vehicle. Essentially the idea is to find a safe place to pace backwards and forwards, praying as strongly and intensely as we can, bringing ‘loud cries and petitions’ (Hebrews 5:7) before the Lord. It’s a very important way to pray, and an effective means of unloading your real feelings before the Lord. It helps to ‘clear the decks’ and ‘keep our house clean’, and is very important for our ongoing spiritual journey.
Relationships (See also DeepRelease Publications booklets on Relationships) Through this whole process we have found that people begin to relate more easily. They learn who they are and become more integrated, and this in turn enables them to relate more deeply and meaningfully to others. Often people have profound feelings of being somehow ‘disconnected’ from others, and it is wonderful to watch them gradually building trust and receiving from, and reaching out to other people. Caring confrontation teaching gives people the skills and confidence to work through specific issues with people who have hurt them badly. Where it is reasonable and possible to actually confront the ‘offender’, the temptation is to launch in at the beginning with tough, critical words because they are up front in our thinking. This causes instant defensiveness in the other person and resolution becomes more difficult. Instead, we encourage people to find an appropriate time and setting, and then to set the scene by first focusing on the relationship itself and the desire to resolve it. Having expressed a genuine desire to put things right, it’s then possible to raise the issues and hopefully be heard. It is often the case that both parties have claimed the ‘high ground’ and are reluctant to move their position. The more we are genuinely able to ‘climb down’, the more likely the other person is to do the same - although of course this cannot be guaranteed! This whole topic is covered in much more detail in the DeepRelease Publications booklet, From War to Peace.
True Church This, to my mind, is about right relationships between God’s children. This can only truly happen as people sort out their own ‘stuff’ so they are not unknowingly putting their unhealed agenda onto others. There is so much hurt in the church, and sadly the leaders are often the least open to resolving their own issues.
Going Round Again (from Glory to Glory) The Baptismal Model is an outline of the principles, and obviously we do not all neatly follow the order of events as described! The practice will vary, but should roughly follow the stages of the model. It would be wonderful if we could say you only have to go round the circuit once and all the problems are solved! In fact, we often need to revisit areas repeatedly, but hopefully at a deeper level as God’s Spirit gently takes us down into truth and reality. Each ‘circuit’ will help us to sort out some more layers of the onion. People’s traumas and defences vary enormously. Some people get sorted more quickly, while others take much longer. The earlier and deeper the problems, the longer it’s likely to take.
In Christ Jesus As a result of repeatedly going down and coming up the other side, like going through the waters of baptism, we are now much more genuinely sanctified and so more Christ-like. The Gospel now resides in our guts, and not just on the surface! We are more likely to sustain our positions as new men and women in Christ. The ability to understand and live in grace should now be easier because we have experienced it in the intimacy of a loving group.
Follow up Each person attending a Deep Release Weekend must be in ongoing
counselling with someone who supports their attendance on the course
and will commit to supporting them and following through on issues
which surface. Not everyone goes home with everything ‘tied
up with a pretty pink bow’! It is important to be able to integrate
the work of deep release in everyday life on returning back to home
and work. Many find that coming to several Deep Release Weekends
helps to take the work deeper and deeper and brings about the much
desired breakthrough.
PRINCIPLES OF DEEP RELEASE What are the deepest needs we have as human beings? To discover this, we need to go back to the point in our lives when we were at our most vulnerable: as new born babies. It could be said that the only place we ever feel true fulfilment of all our basic needs is in our mother’s womb, but even here some foetuses clearly experience distress and can feel pain: it is not a place of pure bliss. The new-born child has a number of clear needs: 1. The need to be fed, ideally from mother’s breast. The message we need is, ‘I will feed you, take care of you, so that you can grow up healthily’.
2. The need for bonding, including:
all integrated to form ‘love’. The message we need is, ‘You are deeply loved, and I am here to treasure and cherish you as a special gift.’
3. The need for pleasure. The message we need is, ‘I want your life to be full of joy, for you to discover through all your senses the richness of life, and live to your full potential.’
4. The need for closeness. The message we need is, ‘I will stay close to you and learn to understand and intuit your needs, to make your world safe and secure.’
5. The need to be validated. The message we need is, ‘Your feelings matter to me and I will make sure you always know how important you are, and as you grow up, that your thoughts and opinions count’.
6. The need for minimised risk of pain and trauma. The message we need is, ‘I am your carer, it is my job to protect you and make these early years full of safety, joy and peace.’
Bonding Many of the early primal needs relate to our need to be in relationship. Made in God’s image, we are created to respond and relate to others, to have warm, nurturing, strengthening bonds with other people. Most crucially we need to know these bonds exist with our mother and father... We learn who we are by gazing into their eyes and finding the love, intuitive understanding and unconditional positive regard which will give us the confidence to grow and be free to fulfil our potential. Sadly, for many this is not the case. There are many reasons why our basic primal needs may not have been met. For example: We need relationship, but maybe our arrival was greeted with disappointment - oh, it’s a girl.... - not a cry of delight, but frustration that we’re the ‘wrong sex’. Or perhaps the birth was protracted and complicated, leaving mother excessively exhausted or ill. Maybe she becomes depressed; perhaps there is no father around to give support and help. The mother may simply be unable to feel loving attachment to her new-born baby. Her distance, fear or distress communicates and our world becomes very unsafe.
Separation We need to be touched, but maybe for some reason our mother could not hold us. Perhaps as a tiny, sick infant we were taken away by a doctor and placed in an incubator. Separation, isolation and lack of intimacy with mother particularly can have devastating repercussions for a new-born child. Where has she gone? The very core of our being, our very survival, is threatened. Obviously every child experiences pain to some extent because no parent could ever fulfil all his or her needs. But the greater the lack of good parenting, the higher the chance that the vulnerable child will develop neuroses and emotional disorders. And where there is major lack of care, and/or physical or sexual abuse, the damage can be very severe indeed. A woman we once counselled, whom we’ll call Ellen, was sent away from home at the age of 18 months to live with an aunt and uncle while her mother gave birth to another child. Being so young Ellen could not understand where her mother had gone or why she had been removed from the family home. During the six weeks she was away (a lifetime to a tiny child) she was sexually abused. As we worked with her, it became clear that the issue which caused most trauma in her life was not the abuse, but the separation from her mother.
Splitting If a young child feels that somehow she is not loved, this creates a crisis. How will her needs be met? She will have to ‘become someone else’, someone loveable. It is the only solution to find relief from the pain of feeling unloved simply for being herself. This is called ‘splitting’, when we discard our real self for a false persona. For some people the split is so great they even feel disconnected from their own bodies. Many of the people who come on our weekends do not have any real sense of being. They struggle with low self-worth, cannot believe anyone could love them, and often feel disconnected from others, unable to form deep and satisfying relationships. As we explore with them their early history and, through prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit, seek to uncover deep underlying belief systems, we frequently find a ‘lost child’. Many people whose core needs as infants were not met, still carry the feeling that they are unlovable.
Deep Release As adults we can gain understanding of our past and make sense of our lives, once we put the pieces together. But just knowing what happened, although helpful, is only part of the process. Locked into our bodies are the pains and traumas of the past, and trapped in our minds are deeply rooted beliefs, which seem to be stronger than the encouraging words of the Bible and assurances of church leaders. So now, added to the pain of the past, we experience the guilt and failure of ‘not making it’ as Christians! Deep Release helps people relive the events of the past and experience the painful feelings which once we could not bear. In doing this we can be free to live in the present and take control of our lives. As Christians, we do this through the healing power of God who makes all things new. Jesus is the same ‘yesterday, today and forever’ and going back into the past is no problem to Him!
Breaking Down the Defences Defences are constructed for a good reason. If the walls come down, the original pain and vulnerability will have to be faced, and that can be terrifying. Fear of the unknown can cause deep anxiety. "I don’t want to look at it..." The blind man who is offered his sight by Jesus will see for the first time how many people despise him and pass by. Might it not have been safer to stay with his blindness and spare himself some hurt? It takes courage to face the pain of the past and acknowledge that our needs were not met; it takes tremendous courage to face the fact that we were not loved, or maybe that we were abused and rejected. Commitment is required to stay with the process, moving through the pain and on into life, and we try to be very sensitive to the pace of each person. What looks like a small step to us as counsellors, may have far-reaching implications for them. It is crucially important that he or she knows that they are loved and supported along the way. As a friend of mine once said, ‘Courage is not feeling brave: it’s feeling scared, and doing it...’ We have tremendous respect for the people who come on our weekends are prepared to work on deep and painful issues. It is such a joy when we see them coming through into freedom, learning to love themselves and able to receive love from others, and from God.
The Basic Primal Feelings In his booklet, An Eclectic Approach to Primal Integration, Michael Broder writes: "I believe there are only four pure primal feelings:
He maintains that the child needs ‘permission’ to express all these feelings. If he is forced to shut off the negative feelings, then the joy disappears too. We find the reverse of this happening when people begin to work in these deep areas. Often they are afraid to face their anger, for instance, or shy away from confronting their deepest fears. But they discover that releasing and expressing the feelings makes them feel truly ‘alive’, perhaps for the first time, and it is not uncommon for them also to experience the joy and exhilaration which was also buried along with the negative ‘unacceptable’ emotions. The issues which people present when they first go into counselling are rarely expressed as these key primal issues: they seldom say explicitly, "I need help with my rage/ terror/ longing..."! More likely they are struggling with what both Broder and Dr Roger Moss have identified as secondary feelings, such as resentment, guilt and depression. Primal therapy helps people get under the surface to the core issues.
Does Everyone have to Scream? Janov’s book, The Primal Scream, is one of the most well known works on Primal Therapy and nowadays ‘scream therapy’ has become quite popular! Certainly we encourage the release of feelings with a very unBritish abandonment, if we feel it appropriate! It is interesting how often there is deep, healing laughter at our weekends, particularly after someone has done a noisy piece of work! It is so releasing to ‘let go’ of our constraints and inhibitions. The answer is, no, screaming is not compulsory on our weekends! Nor do we deprive people of sleep, food, books, TV and telephone, as Janov did with his clients. We are much kinder! As far as we are concerned, at the centre of the therapeutic process is the work of Christ on the cross and we seek to minister in the power of the Holy Spirit. All our weekends are soaked in prayer and praise, and worship is central to each day’s activity. This is not a ‘super-spiritual veneer’ but a profound belief that the Gospel can reach down into every area of our lives... Isaiah 61 says we should
This is our aim, our experience and our joy.
DEEP RELEASE WEEKENDS We seek to provide a safe place away from it all where, over a long weekend, participants can do business with themselves and with the Lord. The three-day course consists of teaching sessions and demonstrations, but the major emphasis is on group work. Praise and worship is a focal part of each day.
Watching people ‘work’ in the small group, risking going more deeply into areas of pain which have been blocked out, prepares the way for those who are nervously attending for the first time. As each person feels safe enough, they can explore their own areas of need. No one is ever forced to do anything. It is their choice. No one has to work at all, although that would rather be a wasted opportunity; and even apparently small steps can have far-reaching implications in a person’s life. We frequently find that members of a small group can be ‘triggered’ by watching another person deal with issues which have echoes for their own lives.
Confidentiality in the small group, and the conference as a whole, is vital if people are to feel safe. It is wonderful to see the close and lasting relationships which often develop as a result of the power and intimacy of the small groups.
|
|
