PSYCHOSYNTHESIS IN SERVICE
By Ewa Danuta Bialek
PSYCHOSYNTHESIS IN THE SERVICE OF HARMONY AND PEACE WITHIN ONESELF AND IN THE WORLD
The essence of the human body’s functioning is homeostasis. Experts consider it the balance of physiological processes occurring within the body. These processes lead to a harmonious balance of bodily fluids and, as a reflection of this, appropriate biochemical parameters. However, upon closer examination of these functions, it becomes apparent that beneath them lie a multitude of diverse functions of organs and systems, as well as higher centers governing information and vital energy.
All these processes are responsible for the body’s vital functions—and thus its vitality.
Roberto Assagioli asserted that human beings do not exist in isolation but participate in the functioning of all life around them. Life, as a whole, has an overarching purpose—and thus there is someone or something—some higher intelligence, that governs the whole.
This raises the question of universal ideas—the purpose and meaning of life, both individual and collective. Universal ideas include: goodness, beauty, brotherhood, sisterhood, harmony, peace, etc.
Looking at the process of psychosynthesis, it is like finding balance in the eye of a storm. Harmony within the organism organizes processes, arranging them according to a pre-established order. The organized matter becomes a manifestation of balanced energy, from which emerges the essence of a process composed of individual elements—psychosynthesis—quanta of energy. Each of them is of equal value. However, harmony—and thus balance—becomes the foundation, for it is what arranges everything into a peaceful whole.
Peace within you is the beginning of peace in the world. The United Nations’ message—“if we do not end the wars within ourselves, the wars in the world will not end”—is, in fact, a basic principle of psychosynthesis. We must take care of this ourselves. If we do not address what wages war within us and attacks others, we contribute our own energy to interpersonal conflicts, violence against others, trauma, and the secondary victimization of people already scarred by their environment or childhood dramas. For this reason, too, we must take partial responsibility for conflicts in the world, because we do not realize that we have caused them.
Assagioli’s statements about synthesis, beginning from within, are in fact a reflection of the order in nature and biology, from the micro-scale to the macro-scale. And harmony and peace are manifestations of this order, encoded like a program embedded in the finest detail.
If we do not maintain balance, chaos, disharmony, and imbalance arise, causing both disease and pathology as well as wars in the world.
Autoimmune diseases are a clear example of a disruption of harmony within the body. I have studied them for nearly 30 years with the goal of helping myself and my clients, first as a physical immunologist and later as a spiritual immunologist. Here we are dealing with the concept of disturbed psycho-energetics, which Roberto Assagioli identified as the fifth force in psychology.
Emotions are energy in motion (e-motion), and like all energy, they circulate through the body. If it is a negative emotion (anger, rage, or even just chronic frustration), it accumulates in the body—in the interstitial spaces—causing tension that, as a feedback mechanism, affects the biochemical metabolism, altering it.
To maintain the balance of energy and matter, the body forms a new equilibrium that significantly deviates from the normal order. One change triggers another and another, and the body, remembering the “original energy pattern,” begins to react by becoming ill.
This occurs at all levels of the body and in all its spaces. For healing, it is essential to restore the original pattern; otherwise, physical pathology occurs, as observed in biology, and essentially within the body.
It is common knowledge that a family’s health suffers when one of its members is unwell. However, we rarely realize that this also applies to a broader context. The accumulation of aggression and hatred across generations leads to the escalation of conflicts between social groups, societies, and nations. It is a chain reaction that fuels and multiplies aggression and violence. It also fosters the creation of communities based on nationalism and other “-isms.”
The intergenerational repetition of both unresolved personal traumas and national traumas may trigger secondary and repeated victimization in interpersonal relationships, that are rooted in a hatred of difference. Examples abound in many countries and communities.
Psychosynthesis grew out of the process of uniting and integrating, while simultaneously maintaining inner order.
Practiced primarily on oneself, psychosynthesis fosters order and harmony within oneself and in the world. It is both universal and essential in today’s world, which is fraught with chaos and conflict in various parts of the globe. Upbringing and education, including self-education, are particularly needed. it allows one to maintain inner balance and thus keep one’s mental energy at peace.
This is what believers pass on to one another as a sign of peace in religious ceremonies. It is not merely a ceremony, but an experience of inner harmony and forgiveness. When we reach this level of ourselves, we discover the depth and vastness of the inner world of information and energy. It is both personal and universal. The more we care for our inner harmony, the more we reach the essence of ourselves, and from there we enter the realm of universality and care for the higher order of the world.
Psychosynthesis also involves health promotion and disease prevention. Maintaining inner harmony prevents dysfunction at the cellular level—and thus at the psychoenergetic level—and consequently, autoimmune diseases. This harmony, or peace, is part of both individual and collective order.
Because of its practical nature, and that it is not just a theory, psychosynthesis has allowed me to gain a deep understanding of the body’s functioning and regulatory mechanisms, including auto-aggression (including autoimmune aggression), and homeostasis at levels deeper than biochemical metabolism, incorporating the psychospiritual dimension. Thanks to psychosynthesis, as the “science of the Self,” I have realized the significance of the principle: “when something comes in time—it is education; when it is too late—it is therapy.” We must always hold both in one hand to teach and simultaneously aid in healing.
By SYNTHESIZING these two meanings, whose underlying purpose is healing, we can support, throughout life, everything that emerges in human development from childhood, to help a person express themselves and what they feel at all stages of education by everyone present in their life, both in health and in illness (parents, teachers, doctors, and people of other professions involved in the service of LIFE).
Solutions to the current problems—including escalating social pathologies, diseases of civilization, and, ultimately, wars around the world—exist in a realm that has not yet been taken into account or taught at any level of education. Medicine and psychology have also overlooked it.
Roberto Assagioli warned of the consequences of such an approach. He believed that the suppression of the immanent part of existence, namely the spiritual realm, leads to many societal and civilizational pathologies, as well as global problems. I believe this pertained to psycho-energetics, a concept he formulated somewhat later.
