Last weekend I went to a seminar run by the very impressive Dr John Demartini. He has a method for collapsing our lop-sided perceptions so that we can see ‘what is’ rather than some infatuated or resentful view of the world.
Amongst many other things, he told us how bipolar, depression, schizophrenia and addiction come about and how to solve them. It would take me a long time to explain, but basically these states are caused by false perceptions and are resolved by changing those perceptions.
For example, John treated a young woman who had been addicted to heroin for six years. He found out that the addiction started when her parents divorced. This caused her deep grief. Let’s say this was a negative experience with a magnitude of -8. So in her attempt to to regain balance she sought a massively positive experience of +8, which she could only find with heroin.
John uncovered that she had a perception of how life should be. Deep down she clung to an image of a happy home with a white picket fence etc. When life challenged that ideal she felt a deep sense of loss resulting in grief. The feeling of loss continued as long as the perception was maintained.
She was infatuated with the ideal family home and could only see the positive attributes and no negatives. So John took her through a process of changing her perceptions. He asked to to come up with negatives/drawbacks about the family home. Of course, she was totally brainwashed into thinking it was all perfect and struggled to find any drawbacks, but eventually she comes up with a few: it would take a lot of time and effort and money to maintain, it would make other people jealous, the neighbours might be gang members, etc.
This process of examination caused her to link new associations in her brain to her fairy-tale image. She realized the real-world situation about her ideal family home – that it was not a purely positive scenario, but a balance of positive and negatives. Consequently, she no longer felt the same sense of loss and the magnitude -8 grief left her. She no longer had a need for a +8 high; so no more craving heroin, despite the suggestion that addiction is a physiological issue.
Schizophrenia would be +16 and -16. John told a story about a man who had a serious accident and got brain injury and subsequent schizophrenia. He found that the delusions of being Jesus, Atilla the Hun and Alexander the Great were in fact the only way he could deal with the overwhelming emotions that came with what he perceived he had lost from the accident.
His -16 shame was countered by the +16 compassion of Jesus, feeling trapped in a mental hospital was countered by the breakout-power of Atilla, weakness by the strength of Alexander. John worked with this man and balanced his perceptions and he was re-diagnosed with bipolar. After some more work he was re-diagnosed without bipolar disorder and was released from the institution and now has a regular job. So his schizophrenia was not a result of brain injury as shown on the MRI, but an inability to manage powerful emotions.
An other example, John pointed out how the Tibetan culture was infatuated with peacefulness etc and became disempowered and very yin. They attracted to themselves the very yang Chinese to restore balance and teach them about self-empowerment. I see this in a meteorological sense – a low pressure system draws into itself a high pressure system.
So when John’s method is understood and applied correctly, then the Tibetans will be deeply grateful to the Chinese for coming to them and restoring balance. When we reject some part within ourselves, like the Tibetans rejected aggressiveness, then the universe will bring it into our experience for us to love it and integrate it and be whole again.
The examples go on and on. And they’re really inspiring and they make a whole lot of sense to me. Not only that, but I saw it in action and had my own experience of it too. At the end of the process you’re left feeling a deep sense of gratitude and love for whatever happened, to those that did it and its consequences.
John says that when you recognize the perfection of whatever ‘bad’ thing happened to you and are so grateful for it and all the benefits it brought you, then you’d wish it upon your children. If you don’t feel this way, then you still resent it and you’re perceptions are still lop-sided.
For more information about this process read any of John Demartini’s books, particularly The Breakthrough Experience.
SunYogi Blog 
Fascinating. If what happens in my piece of life has any meaning, it’s all about gratitude for everything, whatever seems to be happening now and whatever seems to have happened. It’s all a gift, even the trauma and abuse I seem to have gone through before. It made my story one of redemption, and it wouldn’t matter even if that was not the case; we never can know what the unfolding will be; the worst event may turn into the best lesson. Dr. Demartini sounds a lot like my old shrink. Also, how could he do anything but work with recovering addicts and alcoholics with a name like “De-Martini”?
Yes, it is fascinating. But The Demartini Method is also a lot of hard work – changing old habits and brainwashing myself into something new.
I’ve met a number of yogis who say that psychology is a complete waste of time – like trying to fix the waves on the ocean. Nevertheless it does seem to benefit some people and it is interesting.
Yes, it sure did seem like a lot of hard work, courageous work at that, looking at the past nakedly and re-programming some of the old conditioning.
A lot of psychology is a waste of time – the wave has to really want to be fixed! But a wave is H2O and the brain is a very different, complex, part of samsara. The wave, and the wave/ocean analogy, is of the brain. To fix the wave you’d have to fix gravity, and other cosmic forces; to fix the brain, you have at least a fighting chance. And all of this is just a fascinating story anyway. One that “I’m” loving.
Dr Demartini suggested an interesting thing about healing. He said that 33% is placebo, 33% is the consciousness of the healer and 33% is the technique applied.
I’ve found this breakdown very helpful because there are some techniques that are plainly useless but still get results – apparently from the other 66%.
Hmmm, again extremely interesting. I had EMDR (look it up in Wiki) and about half of psychiatrists think it’s a lot of hooey, and the other half swear by it, especially for reprogramming post traumatic stress disorder flashbacks. It certainly seemed to get results for “me”! And pave the way to make “me” less necessary, the part of me that’s fear-based ego anyway.
I’ve heard of EMDR and it seems to be a good technique. It reminds me of neuro-linguistic programming and their use of eye movements and ‘scrambling’ mental patterns and associations.
Yes, this is lovely.
Why on earth would I want to wish a bad thing which happened to me on my children??? It is a load of balony (Dr Demartini’s methods) quite frankly. I understand what happened, I certainly did not attract it as an innocent youngster and no matter how hard I try to find something perfect in the event I cannot. I would not wish a bad thing on anyone and there is no need for me to be grateful because I have racked my brains for years and cannot find any benefits whatsoever. Dr Demartini simply has clever marketing methods and repeats phrases over and over to effect one’s brain and confuse. My advice would be to be positive and make the most of every day.