The profession of psychology seems embarrassed, even apprehensive, about love being part of the therapeutic process. Yet the essence of treatment comes down to a single precept: Love is the healing principle. When people speak of recovery in clinical practice, that which is recovered is best thought of as love. Unfortunately, love is poorly understood. People tend to align with either of its two main forms, autistic love or empathetic love, where each vies for dominion as the respective pole of a seemingly inexorable paradox. Consequently, the developmental task of treatment is to integrate these two poles into their most mature and auspicious form: integral love. Only when all forms of love are taken together can clinical practice operate within a shared framework of understanding, ever working toward a deeper and more profound embrace of the whole person.
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