Healing and Hell: The Contradiction

There are apparent contradictions within New Testament texts concerning everlasting punishment for some, as opposed to the ultimate reconciliation of people in God. It is here argued that we should affirm the latter for theological reasons. Incidentally, there are major pastoral benefits from this affirmation. There are further social and criminal justice challenges which we may also welcome with thanksgiving.     

Healing and Psychotherapy: The Pentecostal Tradition

This paper explores the practice of healing in the Pentecostal movement. The practice of healing has a long tradition in Pentecostal practice. The meaning of divine healing and what could be components of a theology of healing are examined. It is important for pastoral counselors, pastors, and chaplains to be aware of the importance of divine healing for Pentecostal clients.     

The Huichol Offering: A Shamanic Healing Journey

An American transcultural psychiatrist, and a Mexican engineer deeply involved with the Huichol Indians, build a team that heals a decade-long epidemic caused by sorcery. Huichol children in boarding schools became possessed by demonic witchcraft that transformed them into aggressive animals. Many local shaman had been called in to treat the illness but had been unsuccessful. The team found a way to incorporate traditional belief and ritual, with modern psychological principles to weave a healing story. This article represents the ultimate integration of mind/body/spirit medicine to heal across cultures.

The Healing of Nations

Based on the apparent transgenerational traumas experienced by clients of two psychoanalysts working in the Balkans region over a four-year period, from 2012 to 2016, this article presents an understanding of recovery from war trauma at the national and cultural levels in terms of individual grief models. As examples of unresolved transgenerational grief, the experiences of the Jasenovac children in concentration camps in Croatia during the Second World War are cited. The presented models can be applied to promote healing, and the need for monuments to aid the mourning process is emphasized.     

Hebrew Healing: Jewish Authenticity and Religious Healing in Canada

This paper describes a Jewish healing group, referred to as ‘Yehi Ohr’, and discusses strategies for constructing religious authenticity employed by Yehi Ohr's leader and the rabbis who have assisted in leading Yehi Ohr's service. A discussion of the participants in the healing service follows, with an outline of their criteria for authenticity and a focus on the range of their healing experiences. By demonstrating the centrality of these strategies for achieving authenticity in the work of Yehi Ohr, the paper points to the importance of issues of authenticity to the success of this religious healing group and proposes that authenticity may well be central to the work of other healing groups in pluralistic, postmodern settings.     

Comadres: The Healing Power of a Female Bond

The author discusses the use of comadre therapy in feminist psychotherapy. Within the Latino culture a comadre is the relationship between the mother and her child's godmother. Literally meaning co-mother, a comadre is special bond between women who are intimate friends. A clinical case is provided to illustrate the use of comadre therapy.     

Reflexive Communities: The Non-Western Church as Healing Community

Many non-Western Christian communities have experienced terrible human rights violations at the hands of fellow citizens, civil authorities, or rebel groups, Christian or otherwise. This article presents a brief and practical model of healing that attempts to remain consistent with the general characteristics of non-Western social realities. It suggests that rather than relying on the paucity of professional therapies offered in those contexts, non-Western churches themselves can become harbingers of healing for the traumatized community. By blending social theory with biblical narratives, this article proffers an example of how healing can take place within sociocentric communities.     

Healing Their Wounds:

Guatemalan refugee women living in the camps of southern Mexico for the past decade have become a remarkable example of self-empowerment despite the severe psychological trauma of the experiences which led to their exile. The successful organization of these women (the majority of whom are of Mayan ethnic identity) into a productive force for social advancement raises interesting questions about the roles of physical, social, and cultural environment in post-traumatic recovery. This article seeks to explore these issues by looking at the activism of Guatemalan refugee women and examining it in the context of their refugee experience.     

Releasing the Self: The Healing Legacy of Heinz Kohut

Paradoxically, the more powerful the USA has become the more that paranoia seems to mark its relation to itself and to others. In this article we argue that there is a connection between its denial of its own destructiveness, self-idealization expressed in the belief that America represents the end point of the civilizing process towards which all other societies are drawn, and the paranoid conviction that an enemy Other (communism, Islam) aims to corrupt or destroy ‘God's chosen people’. First Vietnam and now September 11th inflicted grievous injuries upon this narcissism and we suggest that the invasion of Iraq can be considered as an indication that the USA has failed to ‘work through’ this trauma, instead it has sought to reassert an imaginary omniscience. Just as the destruction of the Twin Towers was the breaking through of the Real upon the Imaginary, so the ‘Real’ war in Iraq has begun after the ‘Imaginary’ war was declared ‘over’ by Bush.     

The Oshun Festival: An African Traditional Religious Healing Process

This article examines the Oshun Festival—an African traditional religious festival—from a healing perspective. In it, the value of religion in the African culture is highlighted and the various myths that abound therein are discussed. The article concludes with suggestions for counseling practice.     

The Healing Circle: An Alternative Path to Alcoholism Recovery

Recovery from alcoholism has typically involved the program of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). However, the values espoused by AA, especially those related to spirituality, can be in conflict with the values of traditional Native Americans. This article discusses healing methods founded in the traditions of Native American culture in general and the Oglala Lakota (also called Oglala Sioux) nation specifically. An understanding of these methods gives non-Native American counselors additional tools for guiding Native American clients to an effective program of recovery.     

The Gnostic Syndrome: Anorexia nervosa

‘The Gnostic Syndrome’ discusses anorexia nervosa in terms of its poetics and in the context of a developmental object-relations theory. One case is used to illustrate the problems of therapy and the antecedents of the anorexia in childhood and adolescence. The paper forms an investigation into pre-moral states and the interaction of anorexia with character structure.     

The Healing Power of the Imagination

In this conceptual article, the author demonstrates how fairy tales, folk tales and myths offer the child medicine for the unconscious. Through the power of the imagination children develop the ability to incorporate an image of God as eternal presence and limitless consciousness, a sense of object constancy, a sense of self to help battle the intrinsic hardships of childhood, and a map for the journey of oneness, separation, and reunification with oneness at a higher level of consciousness. The article also calls upon the power of a particular therapeutic fairy tale from a collection by this author and demonstrates its value as a teaching aid in the classroom, a tool for psychotherapists who work with children and adults who were traumatized as children, and a resource for parents in the development of their children's spirituality.