1. Strictly speaking the answer is no. 2How could a separate profession be one in which everyone is engaged? 3And how could any limits be laid on an interaction in which everyone is both patient and therapist in every relationship in which he enters? 4Yet practically speaking, it can still be said that there are those who devote themselves primarily to healing of one sort or another as their chief function. 5And it is to them that a large number of others turn for help. 6That, in effect, is the practice of therapy. 7These are therefore “officially” helpers. 8They are devoted to certain kinds of needs in their professional activities, although they may be far more able teachers outside of them. 9These people need no special rules, of course, but they may be called upon to use special applications of the general principles of healing.
2. First, the professional therapist is in an excellent position to demonstrate that there is no order of difficulty in healing. 2For this, however, he needs special training, because the curriculum by which he became a therapist probably taught him little or nothing about the real principles of healing. 3In fact, it probably taught him how to make healing impossible. 4Most of the world’s teaching follows a curriculum in judgment, with the aim of making the therapist a judge.
3. Even this the Holy Spirit can use, and will use, given the slightest invitation. 2The unhealed healer may be arrogant, selfish, unconcerned, and actually dishonest. 3He may be uninterested in healing as his major goal. 4Yet something happened to him, however slight it may have been, when he chose to be a healer, however misguided the direction he may have chosen. 5That “something” is enough. 6Sooner or later that something will rise and grow; a patient will touch his heart, and the therapist will silently ask him for help. 7He has himself found a therapist. 8He has asked the Holy Spirit to enter the relationship and heal it. 9He has accepted the Atonement for himself.
4. God is said to have looked on all He created and pronounced it good. 2No, He declared it perfect, and so it was. 3And since His creations do not change and last forever, so it is now. 4Yet neither a perfect therapist nor a perfect patient can possibly exist. 5Both must have denied their perfection, for their very need for each other implies a sense of lack. 6A one-to-one relationship is not One Relationship. 7Yet it is the means of return; the way God chose for the return of His Son. 8In that strange dream a strange correction must enter, for only that is the call to awake. 9And what else should therapy be? 10Awake and be glad, for all your sins have been forgiven you. 11This is the only message that any two should ever give each other.
5. Something good must come from every meeting of patient and therapist. 2And that good is saved for both, against the day when they can recognize that only that was real in their relationship. 3At that moment the good is returned to them, blessed by the Holy Spirit as a gift from their Creator as a sign of His Love. 4For the therapeutic relationship must become like the relationship of the Father and the Son. 5There is no other, for there is nothing else. 6The therapists of this world do not expect this outcome, and many of their patients would not be able to accept help from them if they did. 7Yet no therapist really sets the goal for the relationships of which he is a part. 8His understanding begins with recognizing this, and then goes on from there.
6. It is in the instant that the therapist forgets to judge the patient that healing occurs. 2In some relationships this point is never reached, although both patient and therapist may change their dreams in the process. 3Yet it will not be the same dream for both of them, and so it is not the dream of forgiveness in which both will someday wake. 4The good is saved; indeed is cherished. 5But only little time is saved. 6The new dreams will lose their temporary appeal and turn to dreams of fear, which is the content of all dreams. 7Yet no patient can accept more than he is ready to receive, and no therapist can offer more than he believes he has. 8And so there is a place for all relationships in this world, and they will bring as much good as each can accept and use.
7. Yet it is when judgment ceases that healing occurs, because only then it can be understood that there is no order of difficulty in healing. 2This is a necessary understanding for the healed healer. 3He has learned that it is no harder to wake a brother from one dream than from another. 4No professional therapist can hold this understanding consistently in his mind, offering it to all who come to him. 5There are some in this world who have come very close, but they have not accepted the gift entirely in order to stay and let their understanding remain on earth until the closing of time. 6They could hardly be called professional therapists. 7They are the Saints of God. 8They are the Saviors of the world. 9Their image remains, because they have chosen that it be so. 10They take the place of other images, and help with kindly dreams.
8. Once the professional therapist has realized that minds are joined, he can also recognize that order of difficulty in healing is meaningless. 2Yet well before he reaches this in time he can go towards it. 3Many holy instants can be his along the way. 4A goal marks the end of a journey, not the beginning, and as each goal is reached another can be dimly seen ahead. 5Most professional therapists are still at the very start of the beginning stage of the first journey. 6Even those who have begun to understand what they must do may still oppose the setting-out. 7Yet all the laws of healing can be theirs in just an instant. 8The journey is not long except in dreams.
9. The professional therapist has one advantage that can save enormous time if it is properly used. 2He has chosen a road in which there is great temptation to misuse his role. 3This enables him to pass by many obstacles to peace quite quickly, if he escapes the temptation to assume a function that has not been given him. 4To understand there is no order of difficulty in healing, he must also recognize the equality of himself and the patient. 5There is no halfway point in this. 6Either they are equal or not. 7The attempts of therapists to compromise in this respect are strange indeed. 8Some utilize the relationship merely to collect bodies to worship at their shrine, and this they regard as healing. 9Many patients, too, consider this strange procedure as salvation. 10Yet at each meeting there is One Who says, “My brother, choose again.”
10. Do not forget that any form of specialness must be defended, and will be. 2The defenseless therapist has the strength of God with him, but the defensive therapist has lost sight of the Source of his salvation. 3He does not see and he does not hear. 4How, then, can he teach? 5Because it is the Will of God that he take his place in the plan for salvation. 6Because it is the Will of God that his patient be helped to join with him there. 7Because his inability to see and hear does not limit the Holy Spirit in any way. 8Except in time. 9In time there can be a great lag between the offering and the acceptance of healing. 10This is the veil across the face of Christ. 11Yet it can be but an illusion, because time does not exist and the Will of God has always been exactly as it is.