Like most people who choose to become a therapist, I wanted to help people change their lives, and realize their full potential. I’d had a good experience myself with mainstream psychotherapy, and I wanted to help others experience the same, so I enthusiastically began graduate school in the fall of 1984, at one of the best and biggest mainstream therapy programs in the country. I loved what I was learning, and I especially enjoyed the faculty who were such terrific mentors and models in my mainstream discipline of Marriage and Family Therapy. It was an exciting period of time in my life, as I gained skills and knowledge to assist others in becoming their truest and best selves, and in creating the marriages and families they dreamed of having.

Beginning Practice as a Psychotherapist

Once out of school, and into the real-world therapy environment, I had several exciting and challenging years, as I put to use the tools I had learned, and consolidated my skills. I noticed, however, how different the model of personal and relationship change I had benefited from and learned in graduate school, and worked from with my own clients, was compared to the mainstream psychotherapy environment of the late 80’s and 1990’s. I had whole-heartedly embraced and learned a holistic, systemic model of personal and relationship growth, one that held the possibility that deep, transformative change is both possible and accessible, recognized and respected the spiritual element, and the inter-relatedness of the spirit, mind and body. But in the early 90’s, mainstream therapy was moving more and more toward a medically oriented viewpoint.

This medical model of psychotherapy was leaping managed care, dividing people and family relationships up into parts, and attempting to fix their broken parts with diminishing recognition and respect for the holism of the living person, and living relationships, as if what was being fixed was a broken carburetor on a car. Mainstream medicalized psychotherapy, and the managed care environment that has so much control over it, was mandating fewer and fewer sessions, more and more control from an outside management entity over the ownership and process of therapy, and diminishing recognition for the internal timing and natural development of the person, let alone respect for the spiritual dimension, or impact of the deeper issues that keep people stuck.

It doesn’t take long for a therapist with any insight or skill at all, to realize that it is the deeper issues that people need help with. If they can solve their problems and issues on their own, they do. It’s the deeper and/or core issues that keep people repeating patterns that contribute to their on-going frustrations, fears, and relationship problems. It is the spiritual dimension that gives people the power to access the transformative level of change. In these areas, mainstream therapy does not offer much in the way of answers or solutions, certainly not answers or solutions that enable a client to gracefully make profound changes in their lives in a relatively short period of time.

So, while I finished graduate school with unbounded enthusiasm and excitement for what I was embarking upon, over the years I became more and more disillusioned, fatigued and finally burned out. I came to a point where I was ready to leave the field entirely, and began a period of deep personal reflection, pondering, and prayer about my profession, and my larger life purpose. I felt prompted to retool my practice, leave the managed care arena entirely, and refocus on those tools and principles I had begun with in the beginning. In this quest for professional rejuvenation, I felt prompted to seek out alternative models of personal and professional growth, those that recognized the spiritual dimension, and embraced a holistic framework. As I continued on my own journey, I was led to several holistic, transformative models, from which I benefited greatly. I was invited to study several of these models and incorporate them into my own practice. While I studied one, none of these early models felt completely right to me. In various ways they seemed incomplete, or not consonant in some key way with my own refining model of transformative change.

Discovering Rapid Eye Technology

One day, a client came in and excitedly told me that he was going to another state for a week-end for therapy called "Rapid Eye something". As we talked about it, I felt prompted that this was something new that was not in my area yet, and that I should look into it. This is how I discovered the field of Energy Therapy and began expanding my work into depth healing. The client returned, after having a great experience, even though he had not been able to complete a full program. Meanwhile, I had found the Rapid Eye Institute website, and other resources about Rapid Eye. The more I read, the more excited I became. Here is a model of change that is spiritually grounded, that recognizes the holistic nature and interconnection of the spirit, mind and body, and that actively views all people, no matter how many issues or problems they have, as whole and complete beings at their essence. Also within this model is a means to do proxy work on behalf of others, similar to prayer. This component is missing or incomplete in other alternative models of healing. This in itself makes Rapid Eye a unique and powerful resource for relationship change.

After my first contact with Dr. Ranae Johnson, founder and director of the Rapid Eye Institute, I had a very strong recognition and confirmation that I had found what I was searching for, to complete those tools and resources I had returned to from my beginning days as a transformational therapist. I have personally benefited from Rapid Eye, the Rapid Eye community, and literally experienced miracles of profound change personally, in my family members and our relationships, and continue to witness transformative changes for my loved ones and the clients with whom I have the privilege to work.

I feel professionally rejuvenated, and the same excitement I felt many years ago, at the beginning of my journey as a healer. I am so grateful to have come from the mainstream, into the light of Rapid Eye.

Rapid Eye Technology and Healing Your Painful Childhood

Rapid Eye is a crucial component of my flagship Heroine’s Journey program, Freeing the Heroine Within, where clients are guided through healing their childhood wounds. It is gentle, safe, and does not require clients to re-experience trauma. It is also the most powerful, comprehensive resource I know of for healing childhood wounds. If this speaks to your heart, reach out today to learn more.

© 2003 Debra Brown Gordy. All Rights Reserved. Originally published as “From the Mainstream into the Light”, in Blink Magazine.

Debra Brown Gordy, MS MRET is a women’s trauma healing therapist, spiritual mentor, inspiring speaker and teacher, whose work sits at the interface of depth healing, women’s spirituality, and Western wisdom traditions. 

From her professional beginning as a marriage and family therapist over 3 decades ago to the present, Debra has found that a woman’s Heroine’s Journey to her True Self to be the path of greatest joy, fulfillment, soul-satisfying love, and highest-level contribution. She is passionate about guiding ambitious, high-achieving women through their Heroine’s Journeys of the inner healing of trauma and the Patriarchy Core Wound, blocking them from the fulfillment they hunger for, to transformation and reclaiming their Sovereign Feminine Souls. Women become free to create the deeply joyful, rich, and meaningful lives and marriages they Desire, while making the highest, Soul-level contributions they are uniquely meant to give the world.   

Debra is the founder of The Sophia Women’s Institute and works with clients worldwide.

To learn more, visit The Sophia Women’s Institute.