Daniel

Daniel was on heavy doses of psychiatric medication. Regardless, Daniel was still too frightened to leave his apartment.
 
After being home-bound for 6 months, Daniel wandered out on a Wednesday night and heard a lecture by Rabbi Shalom Arush. Soon afterwards he contacted me expressing an interest in receiving psychotherapy based on Torah and emuna.
 
When I first met Daniel his eyes suspiciously darted and scanned the room. He didn’t smile.  He didn’t dare trust me.
 
Since what seemed to be bothering him most were auditory hallucinations (internal voices that yelled at him and commanded him to do things) I decided to start by seeing if we could alter the way that he experienced these voices.
 
We found out that there were many persecuting voices speaking to Daniel. The voices varied from parental voices to teachers and other relatives and most recently the voice of a particular Rabbi. We noticed that oftentimes when he was hearing voices he was simultaneously seeing a cruel and persecuting image of the Rabbi’s face.
 
With practice Daniel also learned that his soul could form equally vivid pictures of the true desires of his heart. He was able to see himself living the passionate and empowered life that he wished to have in the future; and he came to believe that this “future self” was a message that was being sent to him by G-d.
 
Of course, at first, the picture of the Rabbi was much bigger, brighter, and closer to Daniel that was his image of his real “future” self – but he quickly learned that with G-d’s help he could expand the desired picture of himself and move it over the picture of the Rabbi which eventually shrunk down and all but disappeared. With practice Daniel became confident that he could dissipate frightening images from his mind whenever he wanted to.
 
This is just a small sample of only one of the many techniques that I used with Daniel. In short, after two weeks he came out of his psychotic state (state of unreality) and returned to his job. In addition we continued to help Daniel to reclaim whatever gave him joy and self-esteem from the past that had he had felt forced to severe himself from. For example, he started to listen to music that he had enjoyed before becoming religious; he started playing sports and working out again; he started reactivating the social skills that had been buried within him.
 
In consultation with Daniel’s psychiatrist and with guidance from Rabbi Arush, we began to cut back on Daniel’s medications.  By the time I left for my speaking tour in June of 2014, Daniel had tapered down to a small amount of medicine. His communication and intimacy with his wife had reached an all-time high and he appeared much more energetic and happy. My wife commented to me that Daniel looked like a completely different person.
 
The plan was for Daniel to stay on that low dose of medication, and if he functioned well while I was gone for three and a half weeks, then he would go off the meds for good – but G-d had another idea…
 
On the first day of my trip, Daniel went into a panic. He felt all of his old symptoms returning and made an emergency visit to his M.D. psychiatrist. When he got to his appointment, Daniel’s doctor told him that this was to be their last appointment because he was retiring. Taken back by the news, Daniel experienced a miracle which he attributes to the many hours of personal prayer he had done over the past 6 months. Daniel told his psychiatrist that if he only had one more session then it made no sense to even have it.
 
Then Daniel got on a bus and headed to Bnei Brak to speak with the great Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky shlit’a. Daniel waited a long time to see the Rabbi, and when his turn came he told the Rabbi that he was taking medicine and following a form of psychotherapy that was endorsed by Rabbi Arush. Immediately Rabbi Kanievsky waved his hand in the air and said, “You don’t need any medication…you don’t need it!”
 
When Daniel heard that Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky didn’t think he needed medicine anymore he immediately felt better. He went home and told his wife what the great Rabbi had told him and he stopped taking his medicine from that day on. That was 4 weeks ago.
 
My first visit with Daniel upon my return was an utter delight. I saw with my own eyes what treatment based on Torah and the blessings of our great Rabbis could do. Now that he is off medication, Daniel’s energy level and joy from his life are off the charts. He has a new lease on life which includes a desire to help others in the same way that he himself was helped.