Why We Can Self Heal

Let’s start with the meaning of the word heal.  There are 3 basic elements of healing: the elimination of toxins that make us sick, the mending of damage, and the easing of suffering. This is equally true for our physical health and personal health.  The meaning of self pertains to the non-physical person inside the physical body, and this includes one’s emotional heart, thinking mind, spiritual soul, and important relationships.

When it comes to the personal health of one’s self, there is no greater remedy than love.  The type of love that heals consists of understanding, empathy, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, acceptance, reassurance, and affirmation.  When these forms of love are offered to one’s self they have the power to eliminate toxic thoughts and feelings, repair damage, and ease suffering.

The reason we can self heal is because it’s possible to love ourselves in healing ways.  But because the offering of love is best done in the context of a relationship, there needs to be a way to develop a loving relationship within ourselves.  To create this loving relationship there must be a means of communication for love to be expressed and received, and this is actually quite easy to do.  

Many people are familiar with the animated Inside Out movies.  They depict a cast of characters inside the subconscious mind of a young girl who is undergoing the typical emotional and social crises of childhood and adolescence.  These different subconscious characters are common to all of us and are referred to by psychologists as subpersonalities.  These subpersonalities have different natures and purposes that each have a role in serving the self.  The problem is that this inner family can be just as conflicted and dysfunctional as real families, or worse.  One popular therapeutic model is called Internal Family Systems, and its aim is to heal the relationships between our subpersonalities, thereby bringing more harmony and wholeness to one’s self.  This is commonly done using dialogue with a therapist, but the same healing can be accomplished using internal dialogues that are loving.  

Once you learn how to have dialogues (not monologues) with your subpersonalities, you can become your own healer.  Self healing is ultimately focused on what is often referred to as the Inner Child, a symbol of one’s ageless heart and soul.  That means bringing healing love to the Inner Child and assisting its inner family members to become more harmonious and whole.  As with real families, the heart of a child cannot be healthy unless its family is healthy too.  

The woman who coined the term Inner Child in 1976 was a brilliant art therapist named Lucia Capacchioni, Ph.D.  But Capacchioni’s greatest gift to self healing was a pioneering method for communicating with subpersonalities by way of two-handed writing.  As strange as it sounds, two handed writing gives us the means to dialogue with our Inner Child and its family of subpersonalities with the love that heals.

With an understanding of the inner family and a method for communicating with them, the last piece that’s needed is some basic guidance for having loving dialogues.  The skills for having loving dialogues with different parts of your self will also help your relationships with others become more healthy too.  These are the elements that you’ll find on this website.

Self healing is easier, faster, and more rewarding than you can imagine.  I’ve been using this process in my personal and professional life since 1991, teaching clients how to heal themselves and maintaining my own personal health with it.  Because the method is so effective I decided it must be put in writing to be shared with others freely and widely.  And for people to be able to do this without the guidance of a therapist, I have made it a priority for the guidance to be as clear, simple, and brief as possible.  

Among the resources on this site are 3 short books and dozens of short readings on the subject of self healing and personal health.  You’ll find a listing of these materials and a description of their contents here.

That’s the short version of the big picture for how we all can self heal.  I hope you enjoy the process and the benefits.

Michael R. Kandle, Psy.D.