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This book is intended as a guide for individuals who want to make changes in their personalities and for professionals who may want to use it in their practice. The purpose of this book is to provide you, the reader, with the understanding I have gained by developing, refining, and working with this treatment method over the past 12 years. Reports from Internet users, colleagues who are using it, and my own experience confirm the Process Healing Method as a respectful, effective, and safe way to treat self-destructive behaviors, beliefs, painful emotions and memories.

This book is both a step-by-step tutorial for how to use the Process Healing Method and a presentation of the theory behind the method. The first three chapters have been available on the Internet since 1998 and have been downloaded or read by several thousand people. These chapters describe the Process Healing Method in enough detail so that many readers have experienced the intervention just by reading the chapters. Many have gained a deeper understanding of themselves and realized positive changes in their lives by using this method.

Throughout this book, the aim is to provide you with enough information, in a “tutorial” style, to guide you in the process of speaking and responding to any barrier blocking treatment. This is an effort to make the book as easy to use as possible for both the nonprofessional and for the mental health professional willing to explore a new treatment approach. This approach is a useful adjunct not only in the mental health profession, but in the medical profession as well.

Some of the constructs in the theory are different from those in common use. It may be helpful to the mental health professional if I point out some of the underlying assumptions of this model of personality development and treatment.

1. The subconscious is a language process independent of conscious and unconscious activity and of all memories. It has capacities far beyond our expectations, such as being able to work independently of our personality to treat negative beliefs, memories and experiences. The subconscious will understand and learn as you read the book.

2. The conscious and unconscious constructs represent active memories and related neural activity. Memories are either dormant or active in the conscious or unconscious Active Experience. Dormant memories do not take part in creating behavior. Only memories in the conscious and unconscious Active Experience take part in creating behavior. Memories are not stored in the unconscious or subconscious, which include only active memories. Dormant memories are simply inactive memories in the brain and body.

3. Internal and external stimulation (including our behavior) triggers relevant dormant memories into Active Experience while other no longer relevant active memories become and remain dormant.

4. Dissociation is a natural process and is present in our everyday behavior; for instance, your awareness of your body when you move or get out of a chair is dissociated information, namely, the information is not available in the conscious experience. In addition, dissociation is a process used during times of trauma when we dissociate the information that would be too uncomfortable to bear. I further assume that amnesia caused by the dissociation process, namely dissociative parts and memories, is different from the amnesia caused by severe, novel trauma, which causes amnesic parts and memories. While any individual may have both amnesic and dissociative parts, two different processes cause them. Amnesic parts and memories naturally include dissociative parts and memories when adaptive.

5. Internal and external stimulation and active memories determine everyone’s behavior. There are two kinds of memories: Content Memories, which involve sensory experiences, and Emotion Memories. There are three state-dependent content-memory structures that contribute to running our behavior.

6. Memories have unique structures that associate with a collage of previously learned memories and emotions to create our behavior. The most helpful or fitting active Content and Emotion Memories assemble in a collage that associates with a unique memory structure. This memory structure represents our reaction to the current experience (i.e., it causes our current behavior). Memories are recycled repeatedly in different combinations to create new memories for new behaviors.

7. All brain and body activity is run and managed by memories. This means that it is possible to change memories in order to treat learned mental and physical issues.

I use many constructs in this model of the personality. The constructs, of course, are not real. They are metaphors for what is “real” in our minds and bodies. However, once the constructs and theory are absorbed, they provide a language with which to communicate with the subconscious in such a way as to cause change in a problematic issue. You may find the theory complex until you learn and become familiar with the concepts and the entire model. However, it is not necessary to understand the theory in order to begin your treatment process. The theory comes in handy for treating more complex structures. However, by communicating with the subconscious, you can simply work with it to identify the next appropriate intervention and the solutions to barriers. The more you use the Process Healing Method, the more skillful you will become and the more you will trust the model to simplify and treat complex problems or issues.

The constructs or metaphors used are powerful tools for communication. They effectively guide the subconscious to make changes in memory (i.e., to remove negative emotions from memories, which, in turn, will cause changes in behavior). For many mental health professionals, the constructs and terms used in this book are outside the box of common definitions. I have therefore included both an alphabetical glossary (see Appendix III) and a glossary of concepts (see Appendix IV) to help you organize and understand the definitions and constructs as useful tools. I encourage you to refer to the glossary whenever confusion arises with the concepts of Process Healing.

The memory structure is a key construct in this model. All memories have a unique memory structure and a collage of memories that associate with, or to, the memory structure. After using Process Healing for several years, I discovered that memory structures could form complex structures that could stop the treatment process. I had to treat these complex structures differently from the basic structures to successfully resolve an issue. The basic memory structure is a building block that explains most problematic memories that form under conditions ranging from mild (falling out of a tree) to severe traumatic experiences (systematic torture).

After using Process Healing for several years, I faced a barrier of even greater complexity. This was one that I could not treat with the subconscious and the usual treatment method. Now, when I have identified this new barrier in a patient, it is usually easy to treat. I call these barriers “fields,” which I talk about briefly in chapter 6. Flint (n.d.) presents a more detailed presentation of the theory and treatment of fields.

When you run into a barrier to treatment not addressed in this book, it is time to problem-solve. I give many examples of problem-solving throughout the book. But remember, the power of the treatment process is in the metaphor or construct used, so feel free to create as many metaphors or constructs as you need to be successful. I have often found that even if you suggest an inaccurate metaphor, the subconscious may use it correctly to resolve the barrier. The point is, do not be afraid to be creative with metaphors. The worst that can happen is that they will not work. When they don’t, just reassemble the constructs and create a new metaphor. Keep trying until you get the result you are looking for.

The definitions presented here of the conscious, unconscious, subconscious and dormant memories may also be new to the mental health professional. Rather than lump dormant memories in the unconscious or subconscious, I separate them. I consider the unconscious an active process because it influences our behavior, and the conscious mind is obviously an active process. Only active memories in the conscious and unconscious experience, not the dormant memories, are used to create our behavior. I call the active memories and associated neural activity in the conscious and unconscious the Active Experience.

Dormant memories are not active and are therefore not available for creating behavior. However, dormant memories may become active when triggered into the Active Experience. What separates the active conscious experience from active unconscious experience?

Well, because dissociation is a process that is generally believed to be used to hide memories, I decided a dissociation process would be an excellent adaptive process that would serve to move active conscious experience into active unconscious experience. Hypnotic suggestions, deliberate repression, and skills such as composing speech are examples of the use of dissociation to move a conscious active memory to an unconscious active memory.

In this model, the problematic memories and behavior take place as active memories in the conscious and unconscious experience. Consistent with other models, I use the subconscious as an innerself helper and have discovered that it has an enormous capacity to make changes in memories and behavior. Almost all of my patients have easily accepted this model using conscious, unconscious, subconscious and dormant memories as its basic constructs.

Process Healing is an effective treatment method that people without training can use to treat many issues. Many people have had success working on their own without professional help. I recommend that laypeople using the Process Healing Method have a therapist with whom they can consult. Anyone with a history of mental illness or severe symptoms should be in therapy before using the Process Healing Method. Laypersons should not try to use it with anyone who has a history of mental illness, who is taking medication, or who has diagnosed mental issues. The more professional training and experience that a therapist or layperson has, the more the Process Healing Method will be useful to treat complex personality and mental health problems.

This book is written to free you to be creative when using the constructs to solve a barrier that stops treatment. I have tried to teach the Process Healing Method by showing the way I use it in my successes and some of my failures. With practice, you may become skillful in using the Process Healing Method to quickly eliminate and gain freedom from problematic issues. Without further introduction, I leave you, the reader, to explore the Process Healing Method and to determine its usefulness in the treatment of your own painful memories, beliefs, or behaviors.

Garry A. Flint, Ph.D.

Vernon, British Columbia