Do painful or traumatic memories need to be “healed?”

Detailed Answer:

from the Chapter 5 (part 1), 14 (part 2), and 21 (part 2 & 3) 

TPM is Not Inner Healing or the Healing of Memories

The Process of TPM is sometimes misunderstood to be associated with the “healing of memories.” However, we do not believe that memories need to be healed of anything. They are not sick, damaged, wounded, or broken. Our memories are simply what we remember, but they are not a source of any emotional pain. Memories serve an important role in the TPM Process, and examining what we remember from past experiences can help us better understand how we came to believe what we currently believe, but our memories are not the focus and “healing” them is never the goal. In fact, it is not the goal of TPM to have anything “healed.”

TPM is a means by which we may actively cooperate with God as He refines our faith, renews our minds, and transforms how we live. Those who have tried to fit TPM into the inner healing ministry, healing of memories, or other related categories have misunderstood TPM. The goal of TPM is not to heal anything but to experience renewal within the “spirit of the mind” (Ephesians 4:23, Romans 12:2) by having the Spirit convince our hearts of the truth. Not all people would say that they need to be “healed” of something, but we all need the Spirit to convince our hearts of the truth by renewing our minds “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (see Ephesians 4:13).

To “heal” something means to take that which is sick, damaged, deformed, or broken, and restore it to its former or correct state of wholeness and health. True healing is valid in its proper context but that context is not TPM. Without question, physical healing is a valid gifting of the church, but healing of any kind is not the purpose of TPM. When God persuades our hearts of the truth, He is not restoring us to a former place or a position that we previously lost. He is not straightening out our “withered hand.” He is renewing the “spirit of our minds” (see Ephesians 4:23). Mind-renewal is not the restoration or “healing” of what we believe, it is replacing what we believe with His perspective.

Even though physical healing is not a goal of TPM, people have reported that they have experienced spontaneous physical “healing” during a TPM session. How do we explain this? In comparison, if you were to cut your finger while peeling a potato and then after a few days the wound closes and a scar forms, would you say that you were healed? You would probably say that this is what the body does naturally. We believe that there is a natural mind and body relationship that can bring about “healing” when the lie-based beliefs are replaced with truth and the peace of Christ. Medical science has long known that there is an unmistakable connection between the mind and body. If the physical issues with which a person suffers are related to any lie-based belief they hold and the belief changes, they should expect that the body will adjust itself accordingly. Some of the physical problems we suffer can be traced back to our mental state. As we gain God’s perspective and experience the peace of Christ, the body can be expected to naturally restore itself.

Our Heavenly Father is more concerned with our spiritual health than He is with our physical health. It is better to have a crippled body and a heavenly perspective than it is to be deceived in a well-built “tent” (see 2 Corinthians 5:1-17). God may allow and even orchestrate physical issues so that we may move in His direction and be persuaded of the truth. We are not saying that God cannot or will not heal a true physical ailment because He can and sometimes does. But we would also like to suggest that He uses physical ailments to accomplish good in our lives.

If, however, the physical symptoms we experience are due to the lies we believe, and God was to heal our bodies of the symptoms, this could potentially work against the mind-renewing work He seeks to accomplish.

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TPM is Not for Authenticating Memories

In TPM we do not try to determine whether or not a Mentee’s memory is accurate or complete. This may be important in other contexts but not in a TPM session. The reality is that rightly determining the accuracy of what a person reports in the context of a ministry session is not achievable. There is no way to determine if what the person reports is accurate or not in the context of a ministry setting. The Mentor should never assume that what the mentee reports is true no matter how convincing the mentee may be. The accuracy of what the Mentee remembers and reports is irrelevant when applying the TPM Process. The goal of the Process is to identify what the Mentee believes, not to determine whether or not their memory of past experiences is accurate. Anything reported is only what the mentee remembers and should be handled loosely until verified. The appropriate context for doing this is outside of a TPM session.

This authentication should be left with those who are professionally trained and in the proper context. The Mentor should view what the Mentee reports as what he or she remembers; never assume its accuracy. Memory is never the focus in a TPM session. In fact, the Mentor does not need to know the content of a memory in order to follow the Mentee, ask appropriate questions, and offer orientation.

There is NEVER any reason for the Mentor to ask for additional memory content or EVER offer suggestions regarding what may or may not have happened in the context of the remembered experience. If this occurs in any form, it should not be considered TPM. Again, when TPM protocol is followed as it is taught, these types of behaviors are not even possible.

NOTE: If a Mentee is a minor or elderly and reports some manner of abuse, then the Mentor should follow the legal guidelines as set by the laws of his local authorities. Doing this is not based upon whether the Mentor believes what has been reported but rather upon what the law requires. Every Mentor should know what is legally required of him concerning this.

TPM is Not Recovered Memory Therapy

Prior to the early 1970s, there was little discussion of child sexual abuse. Students preparing to work in the mental health professions had limited training in dealing with this issue and were led to believe it was a rarity. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, several new therapy techniques emerged, including what is now referred to as Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT). RMT appeared to have both beneficial and harmful results.

RMT helped expose the ugly reality of widespread sexual abuse in our society, pulling down the wall of denial that had kept it hidden for so long. Society was forced to acknowledge that child abuse and child sexual abuse were occurring in homes more than was ever suspected and had been occurring all along.

Today a common statistic reported by many different sources suggests that around 25% of all females have been sexually abused in some form. And the statistics for males being abused is nearly as high. Most victims report being abused by someone they know and should have been able to trust. These statistics are based upon reported cases and do not include all those who kept their abuse hidden. If the unreported cases could be added to the reported 25%, the number could be unimaginable.

But as often happens in such sensitive areas, the new information led to overreactions. This included a frenzy of assumptions and careless practices in therapy that resulted in innocent people being falsely accused, arraigned, and even jailed. And while allegations of abuse can undoubtedly be false, it is wrong to conclude that all memories of such abuses are invalid or false. There have been occasions when outside witnesses verified the truth of the abuse memories, the perpetrator confessed to the remembered abuse, or physical evidence was found to support the account. People should act responsibly by neither assuming that someone’s report is absolute fact nor dismissing its authenticity simply because it cannot be corroborated by outside witnesses.

Again, when properly applying the protocols involved in TPM, a Mentor will NEVER make any suggestion regarding what might or might not have happened in someone else’s past. The Mentor is not expected to believe or not believe anything that is shared in a TPM session. The Mentor’s role is to equip the Mentee with the Three Elements of TPM. A Mentee’s perspective or opinion of their past should only ever be their own.

Recovered memory therapists generally believe that dysfunctional symptoms are rooted in a repressed traumatic memory, which they propose can be uncovered using such techniques as symptom checklists, group dynamics, visualization, hypnosis, trance writing, dream interpretation, body massage, drugs, relaxation therapy, and spirit guides. Some therapists who use RMT believe that uncovering their client’s repressed memories using these techniques will help resolve the symptoms. None of these concepts or techniques are practiced in TPM.

Another clear distinction between TPM and RMT is in the way people’s memories are accessed. In RMT people are sent looking for memories that the therapist believes are the cause of the person’s troubles. Memory is important in TPM, but unlike RMT, it is not thought to be the reason people are in emotional pain. The focus of TPM is not on exploring the memory itself but rather on discovering the belief that was established in a life experience. Memory plays a role in TPM, but it has no bearing on the direction or outcome of the ministry session. The Mentee can even choose not to disclose any portion of what he or she remembers to the Mentor. The Mentor does not need memory content to fulfill his or her role in a TPM session.

In TPM, exposing lie-based beliefs, rather than memory content, is the focus. Again, validating memory content is occasionally needed for reasons outside of a ministry session, but it is not something that can or should be accomplished in a TPM session. For these reasons (and many more), TPM differs sharply from RMT.

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We do not feel what we remember.

Some have suggested that our “troubled past” or “painful memories” are the reason for why we feel what we feel. They claim that our emotions flow from what we remember or are stored in our memories themselves. But these theories are based on a misunderstanding of the relationship between what we feel and what we remember.

For a moment, imagine that you are flipping through an old family photo album. It contains page after page of pictures that memorialize your life up to this point. Some of the images seem to make you smile while others leave you feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable. Why is that? The photo album obviously does not make you feel what you feel. Your mind is associating what you are seeing with past experiences and interpreting it through what you learned from those experiences. Your feelings are a result of this interpretation; you feel what you believe.

In the same way that these photographs do not make us feel anything when we look at them, our memories of life experiences are not to blame for the pain we currently feel. We do not have “painful” memories anymore than we have “painful” photo albums. We may feel pain while flipping through the album, just as we might feel badly when we remember past experiences, but neither “makes us feel” anything. Rather, we interpret what we remember from our past through what we believe in the present. This belief-based interpretation is the source of what we feel.

The photographs are not to blame for the emotion you feel when you look at them. In the same way, your memories are not the source of your emotional pain. Like a photo album, your memories are simply the mental documentation of your journey so far. You feel what you feel as a result of how you are interpreting what you remember. We do not feel what we remember; we feel what we believe.

This principle not only applies to the perception you have of your past and present, but it also applies to your thoughts on the future. For instance, do you feel anxious or worried while thinking about your uncertain future? If so, this emotional response is not determined by what might happen; rather, it reflects what you believe about what might happen. Your perception of your potential future is the outcome of what you believe to be true. And your emotional status corresponds with those beliefs.

We do not feel what we feel because of what has happened to us in the past, what is happening to us in the present, or what might happen to us in the future. We interpret all three through what we currently believe and respond emotionally based upon this interpretation.

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We feel what we believe.

Imagine that you are asleep in your bed when you are abruptly woken up by the sound of broken glass hitting the floor in the room next to you. No one in your household is typically up this late at night. You believe that someone has broken into your home! As soon as this thought crosses your mind, what do you feel? Scared? Nervous? Worried? Helpless? Vulnerable? You push through what you feel and muster up the nerve to investigate the sound. As you peer around the corner, you notice a shadowy figure moving in the center of the room. The unidentified looter is rustling through something on the floor. You turn on the lights to identify the culprit and make a discouraging but welcome discovery. There is no burglar! The sound you heard came from your clumsy dog rummaging through the kitchen trash. The glass of a broken bottle lay on the floor. Although you now must deal with the dog and the mess that it made, you know you are safe. Upon making this discovery, what do you feel? Relieved? Safe? Thankful? Angry at the dog? The vulnerable emotions that were present just moments ago now seem to evaporate and are replaced with feelings of relief. You felt one way when you were woken up by the sound but felt something completely different when you saw your dog. Why did this shift in emotion take place? You did not decide to feel afraid, nor did you decide to feel relieved, you simply felt the emotional consequences of your belief. We refer to this important concept as the “Belief and Emotion” Principle.

As we previously discussed, our minds act as interpreters that examine our surroundings, refer to what we’ve learned from past experiences, and offer us explanations for what seems to be happening. Our minds also use our beliefs to determine how we will emotionally respond to this interpretation. In the previous illustration your emotionally charged reaction was not to the sound itself; you were reacting to what you believed that sound potentially meant.

Your mind assessed the situation (“I heard something.”), used what you have learned from past experiences to interpret and explain what might be happening (“It sounded just like glass hitting the floor. It might be from a broken door or window. Someone might be breaking into my home!”), and determined how you will respond emotionally (“I might be in danger and I am afraid.”). You felt what you felt as a result of your interpretation of what you heard. This mental process of association and interpretation is what created your perception and produced your emotional response.

When you saw your dog digging through the opened trash bag, your interpretation and perception of the situation changed (the sound I heard was probably that bottle breaking, and it broke because of what my dog is doing). Since you believed you were safe (your dog, not a burglar, was responsible for the noise you heard), you no longer felt afraid, but rather secure, relieved, and, perhaps, a bit frustrated. Throughout the scenario your emotions reflected what you believed. This is why we say, “We feel whatever we believe.”

Our emotions are the result of our mind’s interpretation which is based upon what we believe to be true. We are not emotionally reacting to what is actually happening, we feel what we feel because of what we believe is happening and what we believe that means.

For instance, in the previous illustration, your initial belief may have caused you to feel nervous and on alert, but it did not indicate the truth. Was your home actually being broken into? Maybe, maybe not. You believed that it was, so you reacted accordingly. Likewise, when you discovered your dog rummaging through the trash, your emotions shifted to reflect what you believed this discovery meant. Was your dog actually responsible for the noise you heard? Probably. But it is also possible that a criminal was hiding in the shadows of the adjacent room as you cleaned up the mess! In either case, your emotions are simply an expression of your belief regarding who woke you from your sleep.

This distinction may seem minor, but it has far-reaching implications. Many people assume that they feel what they feel because of what is happening to them at that moment. They blame their emotional reactions on what others do or say or on their plight in life. They say things like, “she makes me happy,” “he makes me so mad,” “my work stresses me out,” “that really scared me,” or “I am having a really bad day.” They mistakenly assume that their emotional status is determined by others or their situation, as though someone or something can “make” you feel something.

Even though you have an emotional reaction immediately after someone does or says something to you, it is not a result of what that person did or said; you are reacting to your interpretation of what you believe just happened. This is why it is possible for a group of people to have different emotional reactions to the same situation. Think about it; why does flying in an airplane seem enjoyable for some but terrifying for others? Why does the thought of a family reunion evoke positive emotions in some but feelings of panic, anxiety, and anger in others? It all boils down to belief and interpretation!

Imagine that two people board a roller coaster together and sit next to each other. As their safety harnesses lock into place, they both hear an audible “click.” One of them believes the sound indicates that the locking mechanism is now engaged while the other believes it was the sound of something breaking. As they ascend the first of many drops, one of them is excited while the other begins to panic. Even though they are on the same ride and heard the same sound, their emotional reactions are drastically different! Their emotional state is determined by what they believed to be true when they heard the “click.”

The reality is they are either safe, or they are in danger. In either case, one of them is right, and the other one is wrong. But each person’s current perspective will feel and seem true to them regardless of what the truth actually is. If the ride truly was perfectly safe, this truth will have no impact on the panicked rider who continues to believe that he is in danger. On the other hand, if their safety harnesses genuinely were faulty, and they were risking serious injury or even death, this would not dampen the enjoyment of the rider who fully believes that he is safe. Ignorance is bliss after all! But, if the rider who currently has the flawed perspective comes to believe the truth of the situation, then his emotions will change to reflect this shift in belief.

Since they each feel what they feel as a result of their interpretation of the sound they both heard, it would be a mistake for either of them to blame their emotions on the roller coaster. Neither the ride nor the sounds it makes is causing them to feel anything. If the sound didn’t mean anything to them, they wouldn’t feel anything in response. But because it did mean something (from their perspectives), they had an emotional reaction to it.

In the same way, our emotions are not the result of what happens to us, they are the result of what we believe those things mean. When we encounter something that means something “bad” (from our perspective), we have a negative emotional response to it. If it seems to mean something “good” (again, from our perspective), we will feel some measure of positive emotion in response. We will feel whatever we believe.

All of this takes me back to the abuse victims I tried to help before the development of TPM. Their emotional pain was not a result of their abuse nor was it caused by their memory of the genuine hardship that they had to endure. Their emotional pain was coming from what they believed. Their present perception of themselves and their perceived state of being was the source of their pain. They felt trapped, out of control, dirty, and worthless because they believed in their hearts this was true. When the Holy Spirit convinced their hearts of the truth, their emotions immediately changed to reflect the truth.

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Memory’s Purpose in the TPM Process

As a reminder, the purpose of remembering past events in the context of a TPM session is not to determine the validity, authenticity, or accuracy of what may have happened in the past. We are focused on very specific tasks throughout the Process of TPM, but it is never our goal to determine what happened to us, why it happened, who was involved, what their motives were, when it occurred, how often it occurred, etc. This type of information may be helpful in other contexts, but it is never the focus or priority in a TPM session.

When applying the TPM Process, you are essentially focused on acknowledging what you believe and inviting the Holy Spirit to persuade you of the truth. While in the MEMORY Box, you are simply trying to determine what you believe and why you believe it. That’s it! You can accomplish these basic tasks regardless of the “accuracy” or “thoroughness” of your memory. Again, you are focused on identifying what you believe, not on determining the “facts” regarding what may or may not have happened. Because of this, it is never necessary or appropriate to try to determine the “truth” of what may or may not have happened in the past while in a TPM session. You are free to do what you want in other contexts, but while applying the Process of TPM, follow protocol.