How likely would it be in a conventional psychiatric institution for someone to undergo the kind of inner transformation that a severely depressed woman experienced in an AUSWEGE/WAYS OUT therapy camp within a week?
Since her youth, 40-year-old Carmen* has suffered from depression; she feels “powerless, weary of life, exhausted, resigned, empty, overwhelmed by everything.” At 17, she was diagnosed with “schizoaffective disorder.” Its history is largely unknown – “I can only remember from the age of 11
earlier therapists suspected that her severely psychotic mother played a key role in this.
Carmen was treated with lithium. She was admitted to a psychosomatic clinic twice, each time for ten weeks. Having become a case for psychiatry, the sensitive woman had traumatic experiences that exacerbated her suffering. She was “restrained” around 20 times.
In a total of four violent attacks by fellow patients, but also by police officers, she was “partly seriously injured. In 2008, a psychotic fellow patient tried to strangle me, causing me
serious internal injuries that still severely affect my life today.
Another broke my cheekbone in 2020. Both attacks happened out of the blue, without any prior
contact or incident.“ Police officers are said to have “beaten her up very violently twice, at least six of them,“ ”locking her in a cell overnight.”
Over the course of 23 years of suffering, Carmen experienced six relapses. She arrived at the AUSWEGE/WAYS OUT camp house feeling correspondingly depressed. On the evening of the opening day, she confided in her diary: “The deep despair about my health situation—constant exhaustion, constant severe pain throughout my body, which makes even simple everyday tasks overwhelming—has already become very apparent today, as if it were about to burst forth, combined with even more pain, especially in my head, my entire back, and my shoulder.”
On the second day of camp, Carmen’s condition worsened. “I am even more tired and exhausted than I already was at home. When I lie down – because I can’t stand anything else – I fall into a deep comatose state, as if fainting, without sleeping. I have constant severe headaches. I feel knocked out, exhausted, and can hardly concentrate. I only feel comfortable and safe in bed.”
“Experienced something wonderful.”
The turning point came on the third day of the camp. During a treatment by a spiritual healer, “I experienced something wonderful. Since then, I have been largely pain-free. It feels like
a miracle cure to me.”
From the next day on, Carmen felt “carried and nourished by all the people here, by the atmosphere, the love and appreciation, the naturalness, the unconditional
acceptance. The energy field here alone is healing. The energy healing circle in the evening“ – all participants sit in a circle of chairs, with healers laying their hands on their backs – ”was a magical, gigantic experience.” It felt to Carmen “as if a fog, a veil, was lifting from my head.” She could literally feel “how much was healing within me.”
On the evening of the following day, she wrote in her diary: “I am balanced, almost blissful, content, in
complete trust, grateful, enjoying myself. I feel very comfortable and accepted in the group. I am deeply touched and moved by what is made possible for us here.”
The turning point came on the third day of the camp. During a treatment by a spiritual healer, “I experienced something wonderful. Since then, I have been largely pain-free. It feels like
a miracle cure to me.”
From the next day on, Carmen felt “carried and nourished by all the people here, by the atmosphere, the love and appreciation, the naturalness, the unconditional acceptance. The energy field here alone is healing. The energy healing circle in the evening“ – all participants sit in a circle of chairs, with healers laying their hands on their backs – ”was a magical, gigantic experience.” It felt to Carmen “as if a fog, a veil, was lifting from my head.” She could literally feel “how much was healing within me.”
On the evening of the following day, she wrote in her diary: “I am balanced, almost blissful, content, in
complete trust, grateful, enjoying myself. I feel very comfortable and accepted in the group. I am deeply touched and moved by what is made possible for us here.”
Richly rewarded
What is Carmen’s personal assessment of the camp? On the final day, she writes in a patient questionnaire: “My weariness of life and hopelessness have completely disappeared. Old belief patterns have been erased and rewritten, and parts of my soul have been recovered. My energy has changed significantly; much within me has become ‘whole’. I am much more at peace with myself. I feel filled to the brim with love and appreciation. (…) I rate this camp as excellent, not to be topped. For me, a deficit of the last 25 years, from which I suffered greatly, has been miraculously compensated for .” Contributing factors: “the holistic approach”; “the warm, supportive, loving atmosphere” in which “I am seen and appreciated in everything I bring with me “; ”the very special, profound, loving way in which all the therapists and participants approached me. To have been so richly blessed is simply an incredible, almost unreal miracle for me. I am infinitely touched and filled with deep gratitude and love for this special week and for everyone who made it possible.”
“Very often,” Carmen continues, “I suffered from the fact that I could never afford alternative healing methods. From this I concluded: ‘Then I’ll just have to do it on my own, no matter how and no matter how
long it takes.’ But that often overwhelmed me. This camp has now given me all the treatments I often longed for. I have received an indescribable amount of love and appreciation from the therapists here. It seems like a miracle to me what the AUSWEGE Foundation is bringing into the world. Finally, I see a way out again. What a blessing, what a light you bring into the world!”
In the end, even the camp’s senior doctor, a psychiatrist, was amazed by Carmen’s transformation: “She has gained so much here.” You can find 42 more case studies in which the AUSWEGE Foundation was able to help people with severe depression. »
(* : pseudonym)
(Harald Wiesendanger)