Assuming you’re familiar with what I discussed in PT1, onto the most recent of the high strangeness occurring in Therapy Outside the Box two weeks ago.
And I’m writing this on Sunday 8/7, in fits and spurts, between walking around the lake with a friend, talking to my daughter about dating, dump runs, meditating, helping my other daughter write a biography, and attending an online Meetup on mircodosing. So this might not be the most cohesive post! But if I don’t get it done today it won’t happen. And I’ll be seeing this client again this week, so I’m as eager to finish this and follow up with him as I know he is to revisit what occurred and see what happens next.
Here goes…
RECAP—Days prior to the session I’m about to describe, completed a web-based training on Shamanism and Psychotherapy (IFS), hosted by two lead trainers in the IFS model. One of those, Robert Falconer, discussed his accidental ascent into the weird offshoot of what in IFS we are unattached burdens. These are not parts of us in the conventional IFS sense, but something other. Entities, if you will, that can become attached to us (in my view on the etheric level) as a result of our susceptibility during times of extreme trauma, or any circumstance or event that leaves us feeling utterly powerless. Of course indigenous cultures practicing various forms of shamanism have understood this for an eon. In any case, Falconer became convinced of the reality of this phenomenon after a profound experience encountering and ultimately helping to release someone from one of these unattached burdens that, by the persons own description, changed the entire course of her life. Because he was the first therapist in a long line to both 1) take the idea of an attachment seriously and 2) actually help release it.
Despite much guff, some ridicule and ostracization by those in the psychotherapy and the mainstream IFS community, he felt compelled to forge ahead into this area. He continues to help others do the same, and is soon to release a book about this phenomenon titled ‘The Other Ones.’ I can’t wait.
So anyway here I am, fresh off some of my own increasingly weird but beautiful clinical happenings (detailed in PT1), fresh off this training that made me aware of the neo-shamanic spirit release method called ‘compassionate depossession’ that Falconer has borrowed from, and my deciding to apply for training in it by one of its founders, Betsy Bergstrom.
Then, the following happened:
RELEVANT BACKGROUND—My client is a male in his 40’s. I’ve been seeing him for a few months and for this session we agreed to go further into my transpersonal approach to Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS). We did one introductory IFS session some weeks back. Our work before and since have been largely Integrative Counseling, and one or two Energy Psychology (Subconscious Heal and Release®) sessions, all aimed at helping him navigate and ultimately accept the likely end of a gut wrenching on/off romantic relationship. One that commenced not very long after a 15 or so year highly dramatic and toxic marriage ending in divorce. That was with someone who, by this individual’s account, would regularly decompensate into horrifying, rage-induced dissociative breakdowns marked aggressive, frightening mood/affect changes, deep, seemingly unnatural guttural vocal sounds, occasional exclamations of being something other than who she is/non-human, and odd/unusual physical behavior. All of which no intervention could control or bring to a halt until it ran its course.
You can probably see where this is going.
The ending of the current relationship, one overlaid with much of the unprocessed pain and rescuer-based dynamics of the former, was coffin nailed so to speak the week before by an unexpected final communication following a painfully long silence. Whatever the contents of it by the now official ex, it left the client in a state of acute despairing about his own unforeseen psychological dynamics, relational patterns, and family of origin traumas/attachment wounds that have co-created the downfall of his romantic endeavors to date. A bitter pill to be sure. But one that led him to commit to bringing the focus back to himself—to accessing, understanding and bringing compassionate healing and relief to his own wounded and hyper-protective parts.
THE SESSION—After some revisiting of the impact of the death knell communication from the now official ex, with eyes wide open as to the depth of his own pain, and his ability to distance from it via romantic rescuing and ‘achievement bypassing,’ we settled in. Establishing an intention for this IFS session, we agreed to hold it loosely, allowing for whatever may arise (foreshadowing if there ever was). We called in and called upon ancestors, guides, masters, angels, archangels, spirt and totem animals, helping spirits and elementals to join, support, assist, guide, and direct. Off we went.
Right away the client became aware of tightness in the heart area, accompanied by a stabbing sensation, and a ‘funnel imagery’. My intuition/guidance seemed to suggest this was a protector part, although it wasn’t entirely clear. (Meaningful, as it turns out). Then there was a part the client felt was suspicious of this part. ‘Suspicious, but okay.’ This part seemed to respond to a request to make space. Thus far, more or less standard IFS.
As the client returned his focus to what he noticed in the heart, he said he got that it was ‘hurting, and scared.’ Then something about ‘rejection, not being wanted,’ and that it had ‘been here for too long.’ At this point I’m still intuiting that this is what in IFS we would consider a protector part.
It’s gets stranger then when I suggest asking this part its age. “2 years old,” he says. That’s awfully young for a protector part, in my experience. Two would most certainly be a younger, or ‘exile’ part, as its called in IFS. When I suggest the client ask the part how old it thinks you are he gets “I don’t even know who you are,’ …but then, strnagely, the part seemed to warm up, the client said.
Now that’s unusual. Because a part saying it doesn’t even know (the person) it usually results in the part receding, or it becomes less clear, or goes silent. It doesn’t warm up or come closer. I asked the client to just stay with the part, and then (as I probably should have done sooner) asked the client the magic, penultimate IFS question, which is:
“How do feel toward this part right now?”
[In IFS, this is the Self-Energy detecting question. It’s what tells us how much Self is present, as opposed to other parts being in the way of the connection we hope to establish between the Self and the part we’re endeavoring to help. If the response is anything other than things like “I feel curious about it, open to it, sorry for it, or like I want to help it, then we assume it’s another part describing how it feels toward the (target) part. We then acknowledge that part, tell it we get that, and ask it to step out and make space. And that’s usually what happens].
Not this time…
HOLY F*&#K—In response to the magic question, I begin to get a sense of why things weren’t quite adding up. The client, fortunately a highly spiritually aware and adept seeker, super well-read and studied in various schools of philosophical and spiritual traditions of east and west including deep esoteric and ceremonial magic practices, suddenly looks some combination of surprised, scared, and yet, poised.
Amazing, considering what came out of his mouth next.
“Um, there’s this…a dark being…an overlord…right here. It’s…demonic. (My intuitive guidance via up/down head nod confirms the entirely of the statement. I breathe, and doublecheck: affirmative.). I literally hear myself think Holy F@*k. I ask that alarmed part of me to step back, and remind myself to hold steady, trust, have faith, and stay with it.
To my amazement, the client then confidently says: “Wait, I know what this is…I invited him in.”
I intuitively knew he didn’t mean intentionally.
He goes on to describe that he knows this things came in during his marriage to his highly unstable ex. Specifically as result of the many, many attempts at containing and preventing his ex from harming herself or him during the aforementioned ragefully dissociative breakdowns.
In these, he’s stating now, while he thought he was essentially safe playing the role of rescuer/therapist/shaman/exorcist, so to speak, he was…and the entity apparently gleefully confirmed this…that he was being manipulated, tricked, controlled, essentially possessed to some degree.
The client then says: “His name is [something like] Ackanoizan”(sp?).
As I’m observing, attempting to remain focused and in Self, as if for comedic, dramatic effect on the part of Mother Nature, it literally begins storming outside (?!?!?!).
Having no idea what’s next, I start reaffirming the presence of the Highest and Holiest, calling in by name the biggest guns I can think of—The Christ, Holy Spirit, Mother Mary, Archangel Michael, Elohim, my Ascended Master guide Saint Germain, Babaji, and The Great White Brotherhood.
Not that I’m surprised, but I tell you, the already palpable white light energy in the room ramped up.
The call was clearly being answered.
COMPASSIONATE (SELF) DEPOSSESSION—As mentioned prior, I had just recently completed a training in shamanism and IFS, and decided to train in ‘compassionate depossession.’ Before I get the chance, here I am facing a Mack Daddy of a dark, apparently demonic unattached burden :>
It’s at this point that we get to the meat and potatoes. Yet I cannot even provide a descriptive accounting of what transpired next. Because honestly, it was all the client.
Drawing upon his own resources, intuition, intelligence, spiritual knowledge and wisdom, and without a doubt the assistance of the Highest and Holiest Emissaries of The Divine, the client initiated his own compassionate depossession process. Maybe a little lighter on the compassion than I would have led with, but effective nonetheless. The outcome is what matters.
All I can really say is that for the last 15-20 minutes or so, lightning and thunder crashing outside, as I prayed and held space, I simply observed while the client silently engaged his full strength of energy, power, faith and conviction in his own ability and/or will to release the entity.
At what appeared to be the finale, I see the client’s head slowly rise, his chest puff up and out slightly, and his countenance begin to shift. Once his face was upright and in line with mine, I shit you not, I half expected to see him open his eyes to reveal sheer, empty blackness and the expression of a man demonically possessed. Fully incorporated, as they say.
At this very moment, I noticed a palpable wave of intense fear pass me by. Not wash over me. Not as if attempting to enter me. And not from within. Rather, as if something was moving through the room, exiting, and I was just privy to the felt sense of its negative energetic nature on the way out.
The client then looked up at me with clear eyes, a surprisingly relaxed smile, an unspoken “whoa,” and simply said:
“It’s gone.”
Long exhales.
CONCLUSION—Already far over time, we marveled and took stock of what occurred. The client said there just came a point where he knew what to do, or what he must attempt to do. He drew on the classical wisdom that suggests when dealing with such phenomenon—especially something identifying as demonic—that you must get their name. Keep demanding it. Once he got it, it gave him confidence to attempt to release it by any means necessary. His description was such that he simply gathered his power, harnessed all the energy he had, and essentially mind-forced the thing out.
I believe this is exactly what he did. And that this entity was the fearful energy I felt pass me by prior to his eyes opening, at the end of this seemingly accidental, though synchronistic compassionate depossession process we found ourselves in on this day.
When I asked about the 2 year old part, the client felt that this was actually a decoy—a ruse on the part of the entity to lure him in, and to get his attention. Which would make sense given the anomalies I was experiencing in the lead up to the fireworks. (To date, I’ve never met a 2 yr old protective part of anyone. Protectors are usually at least a few years older than that).
My sense is that my guidance chose not to prematurely alert me to the fact that this was a decoy (if in fact it was) or that there was an entity/other situation at play. It was likely for the client to realize it himself. In other words, I trust that there was a rhyme and reason to it unfolding as it did. The outcome is probably the best evidence for this.
Perhaps also, the entity, whatever the hell it was, may have underestimated the power of the individual he attached to to be fearless, confront, and ultimately kick it out. Either that, or it sorely underestimated the power of the Highest and Holiest forces, or didn’t think we’d have the sense to call in the big guns. Perhaps all of this. Who knows.
Before wrapping up, we agreed to keep in touch over the next few days by email or otherwise if needed.
He beat me to the punch the following morning:
“Yesterday evening and this morning I am feeling more clear headed and focused than I have in a long time.”
I followed with:
“Fantastic _______. I've just begun documenting the experience. Only as far as definition of terms: IFS, unattached burdens, compassionate depossession. Checked in with my guidance about it early this morning and got confirmation that all is well, that what we believed happened actually did, and what we thought that entity to be is exactly correct. As well as your take on from where, when, why and how it came into your system. More power to you for staying fearless, grounded, and intuitively knowing exactly what to do. You did the heavy lifting. If you can do that, what can't you do? Best is yet to come.”
He responded:
“Thank you for your feedback and encouragement. I too checked-in this morning to verify. I got a strong confirmation. I believe this type of internalized exogenous part is more common than I think people realize. I can see how IFS dovetails into the intersection of what parts are of the primary constellation and what entities, deamons, intended or unintended homunculus' have docked inside our non-primary constellation unaware. Humans are always doing magic. Whether they are asleep at the wheel or not matters not. I feel open, light, clear, positive and grounded. I feel strength, motivation, courage and compassion. I can feel a part of me has been restored and the channel to my higher-self has been unclogged. Indeed. Best is yet to come.”
“There’s an Outside the Box Solution for Every Problem.”
Godspeed.
Chris Hancock, LCSW, ACMHP
www.therapyoutsidethebox.com
chris@therapyoutsidethebox.com
Franklin, TN
615.430.2778