How to Help a Being

While it is conceivable that there could be beings whose lives are just the way they want them to be, it appears that most beings' lives are marred by various disabilities and undesired conditions. There are various ways of helping a being improve the conditions of his life. These divide into three basic approaches:

Viewing
Training
Externship

"Viewing" consists of a group of procedures used (usually) one-on-one to help a person increase awareness, arrive at insights, and reduce unwanted psychosomatic and emotional conditions. Viewing is completed on a given subject when the viewer has handled all available pain or emotional charge related to the subject, when he has handled as much aberration as possible on the subject. At the "end point", the viewer feels much better about the subject and will be found to be more able in that area.

However, to increase his ability still further, the viewer may do well to get some training or education in the area. After he has handled the charge in the area by viewing, he will be found to be more able to learn in that area, because he no longer experiences discomfort every time he tries to approach the area. It is no longer a particularly sensitive area for him. Nevertheless, not having confronted the area for a long time (usually), the viewer's skills in the area may be rather rusty. So training may be appropriate at this point.

Finally, when a person is trained in certain skills, the next step is to get the person to apply those skills in his life. We refer to this step as an "externship". It is like an internship, but since it is not done in an institution but out in the person's normal life situation, "externship" is a more appropriate term. The extern may run into various difficulties or discomforts in the course of practicing his abilities. If this occurs, he may have to do more viewing (if the trouble was emotional charge or discomfort) or training (if the trouble was an insufficiency of skill) or both, until the person is ready to extern again. This procedure continues until the person is satisfied that he is able to perform well in that area of life. At that point, another area of life may be selected for viewing, training, and externship.

A coach of a football team follows a procedure similar to the above when a player is injured. Say the player injures his knee. First comes the repair of the injury and the elimination of pain. The player may get a cast, physical therapy, cortisone shots -- whatever it takes, until the injured knee is physically OK. Next, the coach will get the player to begin working out to get back in shape and to regain the ability he lost by being disabled for a period of time. The player may have to change the patterns of action he developed while he had the injury. For instance, perhaps he has been used to not bending his knee because it was painful, so that he runs more stiffly than he should. Now that the pain is gone, he may have to relearn some of his skill in running properly. Finally, when the player is adequately trained, he is sent out to play in a few games, and the coach keeps an eye on him. If he starts having trouble with his knee again, he goes back for more treatment, more training, and then goes back in the game, until he can play well stably. Then the coach can put his attention on something else.

Similarly, if a person has a fear of communicating, he first does viewing, to handle the effects of painful past experiences he has had in the area and to remove various delusions, repressions, and aberrations. After a person has eliminated, say, a fear of communicating, he may still be a poor communicator because of lack of practice. If he goes out and tries to communicate without training or practicing, he may build up a series of failures on the subject and end up again being afraid to communicate. It is unreasonable to expect someone who has been chronically out of communication with others to suddenly become loquacious, even if he has handled his aberrations in the area. He simply may not know how to make conversation. So the next step is to train him in basic communication skills, using various drills. Once he feels he has acquired sufficient skill in the area of communication, he can go on to the externship step, which consists of going out into life with certain definite communication tasks to perform. If he was especially afraid of communicating with middle-aged men, he could, after appropriate drilling, be assigned the task of going out and talking to some middle aged men. If he falls flat, he then does more viewing or training, as appropriate, until he eventually succeeds, at which point he is done with handling the area of fear of communication and he has demonstrated to himself his competence in the area.

Viewing, training, and externship each has its own methodology. Viewing is generally done one-on-one, in a safe space. It follows certain definite rules. Training is generally done in a classroom setting, or, sometimes, in an individual tutorial. Externship is done in life; the extern plans how he is going to exercise his new-found abilities and then goes out and implements his plans in real-life situations, with help from his tutor, as needed.

Frank A. Gerbode, M.D.
Director, IRM