What is Attitudinal Healing?
Thursday, April 23, 2009

Is it possible to choose to let go of fear and conflict? 

Is it possible to heal painful thoughts and attitudes about the past and to bring peace to ourselves and others?

Is it possible to forgive those who we think have hurt us, and to forgive ourselves for our mistakes and for the shame we may feel about the past?

While challenge, conflict and crisis may be inevitable in life, what matters most are the attitudes, beliefs and values we adopt; the decision-making and communication skills we utilize; and the ability and willingness to make healthful, positive choices when such challenges arise. 

Emotionally resilient people have a specific set of attitudes concerning themselves and their role within the world that enables them to deal with life challenges more efficiently and effectively than their non-resilient peers.

Attitudinal Healing offers a way to enable us to consciously choose to let go of fearful attitudes and embrace a loving and forgiving path.  The goal is not simply to change behavior, but to re-train the most powerful instrument of change we possess, our own mind.  Thus, Attitudinal Healing occurs when we realize that our own thoughts, feelings and attitudes about people and events are what cause us conflict and distress.

Developed by renowned psychiatrist and author, Jerry Jampolsky, M.D., over 30 years ago, Attitudinal Healing has been successfully applied by individuals, communities and organizations in over 50 countries, ranging from cancer patients in Russia and Ukraine, to inner city orphans in Mexico City, to life-threatened individuals in the US, and war refugees in Croatia and Bosnia.

Dr. Jampolsky outlined a core framework or set of Attitudinal Healing principles to help people to let go of fear, discard negative and hurtful thoughts from the past, and remove inner obstacles to peace. These are as follows:

  1. The essence of being is love.
  2. Health is inner peace.
  3. Giving and receiving are the same.
  4. We can let go of the past and the future.
  5. Now is the only time there is.
  6. We learn to love ourselves and others by forgiving rather than judging.
  7. We can become love-finders rather than faultfinders.
  8. We can be peaceful inside regardless of what is happening outside.
  9. We are students and teachers to each other.
  10. We can focus on the whole of our lives rather than on the fragments.
  11. Because love is eternal, death need not be viewed as fearful.
  12. We can always see ourselves and others as extending love or giving a call for help.

The above information was taken from The Corstone Center (formerly The Center for Attitudinal Healing), 33 Buchanan St., Sausalito, CA 94965, Phone 415.331.6161