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THE CARE OF SOULS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS
aware of one’s own inner atmosphere, where for a moment all
struggle and strain disappear because the idea of repose fills
the consciousness. It is very difficult to help an anxious,
agitated human being to relax. The task demands technical
knowledge, clear intuition and, not least, patience. Without
mental relaxation associative thinking is almost impossible. The
free impulses of thought and feeling necessary for dream
interpretation occur best in an atmosphere of quietness and repose.
Anything that makes relaxation difficult for the confidant
reduces the power of the pastoral psychologist to help him.
Muscular relaxation has a positive value apart from its
usefulness as an aid to analysis. Dr. Richard Eeg-Olofsson? of
Sweden concludes an article on Relaxation with the following
notable words: ‘I hope I have made it clear that relaxation,
freedom from physical tension, is an important means of
forestalling ill health and curing illness.’ Relaxation is a means
of health.
When unconscious motives and repressed memories of
unpleasant experiences become conscious, and constructive,
even dramatically liberating changes occur in the personality
as a consequence, it is not necessary to suppose that anything
mystical has occurred. What has happened probably means
that a persistent but dimly perceived condition of fear has
been replaced by courage and confidence. During the course of
spiritual treatment the will for truth has been strengthened.
The self has become willing to get to the bottom of its personal
problems at all costs. This willingness alone can lead to a
breaking down of the barriers that hitherto have blocked the
way to knowledge of a realm of being hitherto considered
dangerous. With the removal of these barriers new
associationpaths are opened; a part of the innermost personality
hitherto cut off and hidden in darkness is accepted and
illumined, and its potentialities and energies are made available
to consciousness.
1 Avspänningens varför och huru; Själens Likarebok, Stockholm, 1943.
63
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