Heartletter - Relationship & Wellness Newsletter
- Issued Twice Yearly -

Spring 2003 Heartletter
by Joyce and Barry Vissell

“Soul Therapy ”

People who have never come to one of our workshops commonly ask Joyce and me, “I see how enthusiastic you both are about your workshops, but what do you actually do with those groups?” If those same people then attend a workshop, they often say, “I see now why it's so hard to put what you do into words. It's an experience of the heart that can't be translated into the language of the mind.”

I like the term “soultherapy.” By soul, I am referring to who each one of is, deeper than our body, mind, roles, or personality. Soul is the unique expression of spirit that is our individual identity.

In our workshops, as well as in our practice with individuals and couples, our highest goal is to see each person as vastly more than their personalities, or psychopathologies, or problems. We try, and usually succeed, to see each person from a higher perspective, a being of pure love temporarily stuck in a limited vision of themselves. The stuckness is deeper in the emotions than in the mind. The mind can even sometimes clearly see the problem, but healing cannot happen until the energy is freed in the emotions .

Experiencing emotions while being aware of the soul is the real challenge in healing. Soultherapy is ineffective if the emotions are not felt, but equally ineffective if the soul is not experienced. Everything we do in our workshops is dedicated to awareness of soul as well as emotions. We set a sacred environment, often with the help of a relevent song or music, or with a guided visualization. Then we give each person an opportunity for emotional awareness of something keeping them from complete peace. We use music because it helps participants access emotional material, and at the same time, allows them to touch the soul perspective. Soultherapy is effective when we accept our emotions while at the same time accepting that we are more than our emotions. By doing so, we become acceptable and even loveable in our whole selves.

Joyce and I make time to work with individuals or couples in the whole group setting. This is perhaps where experience and sensitivity are most crucial, and may be our most exciting challenge. It requires just the right amount of direction, letting go of our own agenda, pointing out lessons for the whole group, and last but not least, humor, which can sometimes be the ingredient most helpful for healing.

What is perhaps impossible to put into words is the joy and gratitude Joyce and I feel when we experience healing on a soul level. Many people our age are looking forward to retiring. We hope to be able to do our work of soultherapy for decades more.

I remember how difficult it was for my parents to understand what Joyce and I were doing with groups. Sometimes I had to endure a comment like, “For this you went to medical school?”. Then, when John-Nuri was an infant, my mother agreed to watch him at our summer family retreat. She found herself getting more and more pulled into the energy and healing of the workshop. On the last day she stood up in front of the group and said, “I thought my son and daughter-in-law had given up being a doctor and nurse, but now I see they are more of a doctor and nurse than ever.”