Example Case Studies
Destroying Everything that Grows
A man with obsessive-compulsive disorder came to me because he felt his disorder
was overwhelming his life, even with medication and therapy, and he wished to free
himself from the constraints of his obsessive thinking. He told me that he always wore gray,
the color of emotional numbness, and even his skin had a grayish cast. Sadness oozed out of him
as though he were on the verge of tears, but he kept his face impassive and would never allow
them to fall. We worked through numerous layers of fear and accompanying rigidity, and finally
came to a definitive image he carried in his heart chakra. He was standing in the midst of the
garden of his soul, wearing a gas mask and carrying a blow torch. All around him were the scorched
and blackened remains of the plants of abundance that had tried to grow within his life, but each time
a new shoot came up, he spotted it quickly and fried it to blackness before it had a chance to flower.
We did work to plant abundance and allow it to grow within his energy field. About two years later, he
told me that he was attempting to nourish a relationship, something that had never been possible before,
and that he no longer felt the need to wear gray or to act out his obsessive behaviors.
The Friend who Betrays
A young man came to me because of chronic headaches on the left side of his head only.
Almost instantly I saw a past life image of both himself and another man, young Celtic
warriors, crossing as wide and shallow river on foot. The young man who had come in
search of healing turned to look at his companion and said, “We have escaped our enemies
and fought off everyone who could harm us. Now where should we go?” At that point the companion,
while still looking him in the eye, took out a short thick dagger and drove it straight into the left
side of his friend’s head. We discussed the feelings of frustration, astonishment, pain and betrayal
he had experienced at that moment. Then I asked him, who in your life now carries the energy of your
ancient enemy disguised as a friend? He thought for only a moment and then shouted, “It’s my roommate!”
We then talked about ways to help heal this old rift, facing the truth but also showing respect for the needs
of both men. When I next saw him he told me that the headaches that had been plaguing him for months had
stopped on that day and never recurred.
She Who Tells Histories
I was working with a woman struggling to overcome alcoholism.
In the course of our session, it emerged that several centuries previously, she had been
an African elder who carried a carved wooden staff and traveled from village to village, t
elling the history of the people to the children of each village. Her stories were so
compelling that the children would gather and listen to her, even hour after hour, and
forget their promises to their mothers to return home for their midday meals. In frustration,
the mothers would come to retrieve their children but often find the stories so interesting
that they too would sit down to listen. As a carrier of the people’s native history, she was a
tall thin woman with long legs and a patient smile. She wore a leopard skin over one shoulder and
kept a special necklace with a small leather pouch on it around her neck, which held ancient
talismans given to her when she was younger by a tribal elder. As I was struggling to describe
the intricate carvings on her walking staff, the client took the pencil out of my hand and finished
the drawings herself. She explained that as a girl of eleven, she had set to work carving an identical
staff which she had kept throughout her life. In her present life, she reproduces art created by ancient
societies, including jewelry, rock art, and paintings.
A Soldier at Little Bighorn:
A suicidal man came to me, because although he wanted to live,
he found himself trapped in many self-destructive patterns, especially in his relationships.
We worked through many layers of emotional pain and distress which had plagued him all through his lifetime.
I asked him about his friendships, and he told me that most of his friends were native American.
Suddenly I saw him as a red-haired cavalry officer with long side whiskers, leaning off the side of
his horse with a cutlass, yelling and slicing into native women and children who were trying to run
from the man on horseback. When I told him what I was seeing, he could not restrain his tears. He
told me that each year he re-enacts Custer’s Last Stand at Little Bighorn, as a US soldier. All at
once many of the elements we had been discussing for an hour fell into place. His destructive
relationships with women now made sense in terms of his lifetime guilt and unconscious wish for punishment.
Most of his lifelong friends were Native American people; his work and personal situations constantly unraveled
into chaos and frustration. His life was controlled by his constant self-destructive habits and pervasive belief
that he owed something to everyone he came into contact with. These pervasive, instinctive behaviors arose from a
sense of guilt whose origin he could never pinpoint until the day of our session.. We talked about ways for him to
heal his guilt by dedicating his life to helping heal the wounds inflicted on Indian people by the whites who settled the Americas.
He told me that even so, the temptation for him to take his own life remained very strong. I reminded him that
he was free to choose this path and that no one could prevent him, but that it had taken a long time and
concentrated effort to reach the point where he now stood. If he took his life, he would have to cover
the same ground once again, and then make the choice to heal instead of self-destruct. I told him to
call me if the feeling became overpowering again, and he did, continuing to work through his concerns at a deeper level still.
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