Testimonial
A Healing Presence
by Ian Watson[1]
It’s a wonderful thing to observe someone who has mastered their craft so thoroughly that it seems extraordinarily easy and natural for them to do what they are doing. Only when you try and do the same thing yourself do you realize how much effort it has taken to achieve such a consistent state of effortlessness.
Ron Kurtz, a master therapist whom I was fortunate to meet in Ireland recently, said that it has taken him forty years to get his work to be as simple as it is. Experiencing Ron’s work first-hand, I was reminded of Picasso’s description of art as ‘the elimination of the unnecessary’. By gradually refining his method, known simply as Hakomi, Ron has stripped away everything that obstructs the natural flow of healing in a therapeutic relationship. He doesn’t lead the process, he follows it, allowing room for the self-healing capacity of the body-mind to take care of things by itself.
It was encouraging for me to note some parallels in the evolution of Ron’s work and the direction my own work has taken over the years. We both started out in different branches of the healing field learning specific techniques. Then, having worked with them for a while, we both observed that the techniques were useful but limited, and it was helpful to have a range of tools available and a methodology for choosing between them. The publication of A Guide to the Methodologies of Homeopathy reflected this stage in my own understanding.
Further experience led both Ron and myself to conclude that there is something else that is important, that has to do with the healing relationship between practitioner and client. At this level, healing has more to do with who the practitioner is and what we bring of ourselves to each encounter. The tools we use may still be helpful, but they are no longer the all-important factor in the equation. The Tao of Homeopathy was my own attempt to bring a greater awareness to these subtle, internal aspects of the healing process.
During the workshop I attended, Ron told one of his favourite stories of how he was fooling around one time with his wife and daughter, who was then two years old. When Ron pretended to be upset and put on a sad face, his daughter instinctively reached out and put her hand on his shoulder to comfort him. This and many other experiences led him to conclude that touch, compassion and human contact were essential components of any deep healing work, and that loving presence is the basic healing attitude upon which everything else ultimately depends.
This is so obvious and so simple that we are extremely liable to forget it and over-complicate things. We get caught in our need to know and understand, or we find the impulse to intervene and to direct or control what is happening just too strong to resist. I was grateful to Ron for reminding me of what is most important in this work we call healing, and for demonstrating so elegantly how it is only that rare combination of attentive loving presence and non-intrusiveness that creates the safe space in which our deepest wounds can gently surface to the light of consciousness.
I volunteered to work with Ron in front of the group, and when I thanked him for the healing that took place, he just smiled and said he hadn’t really done anything. In a way it was true — what made his work so gentle and yet so powerful was his ability to keep himself out of the way and yet, at the same time, to be so fully present. Recognizing the Taoist principle of non-interference, I told him that he did nothing extremely well!
[1] Ian Watson Seminars Newsletter, 5th November 2009