The power of transformation

Abstract

The answer to the question, how is man empowered to change? can be given in this form: We are empowered to change when we experience trust and acceptance coming to us from another person or group. Change occurs when our power of being is affirmed by other centers of power. This affirmation of our power of being overcomes the anxiety of nonbeing implied in every change. It supplies us with the courage to accept our acceptance and to exist in spite of threats to our existence. The content of trust in our experiencing that has taken the place of the prior anxiety in our experiencing reduces the disturbances that distorted our perception of reality. This enables us to receive reality more accurately and to symbolize it more exactly. Change then is an internal metamorphosis that is the result of a courage educed in us by external forces. The transformation of our internal experiencing is the prior condition and ground for the transformation of our symbolizations. © 1971 Academy of Religion and Mental Health.