Transformation is a therapeutic approach to change that focuses on the importance of a person’s thinking and the power of an individual’s thoughts and beliefs to transform their experiences and life. Fundamental to a transformational philosophy or approach to psychology, psychotherapy, and addictive behavior and dependency treatment is the idea that the essential and most important thought or belief that anyone, especially an addict or alcoholic or anyone suffering from addictive behavior, has in his mind is the one that he has about himself, his thoughts or beliefs about his perceived value and worth as a human being, what Dr. Maxwell Maltz referred to as a person’s self-image.

The intention or goal of a transformational approach to counseling and the treatment of substance use disorders and even mental health issues is to assist an individual in learning how to change and transform his negative thoughts and beliefs about himself into positive ones so that he can genuinely care about and love himself authentically. It is a basic tenet of a transformational approach to counseling and the treatment that all dis-ease and problems that an individual experiences in his life are the result of a person’s belief that he is not good enough, not enough, worthless, inadequate, defective, broken in some way, does not measure up, does not matter, is inferior or some other negative thought or belief that the individual has created about himself.

The process of transformational counseling and treatment is to assist the individual in learning how to transform his negative thinking about himself to that which is authentically positive and, as a result, to come to think, believe, and know that he is perfect, whole, and complete, that he matters and as a result of such a cognitive or conceptual shift, come to respect, approve, acknowledge, accept and authentically love himself just as he is in the present moment. When an individual comes to love himself authentically, all the various problems he has been experiencing will be resolved, including his abuse and dependency upon drugs and alcohol or any other form of addictive behavior, as well as any mental health issues that are also being experienced.

The treatment process will be distinguished or perceived as creating a new inner dialogue in the client, a conversation of transformation. The conversation of transformation is a new inner thought process that an addict or alcoholic will learn to create, generate, and enter with himself and others. This conversation is about transformation, the change of a person’s way of thinking, speaking, and being, from how they were in the past to the creation of possibility for the future, to something new, miraculous, and extraordinary. The conversation of transformation is about the creation of a new self-image. This conversation is about the wisdom of the Principles of Transformation.

We are responsible for all our experiences and everything we think, believe, say, feel, and do. We are responsible for all our experiences and lives because of the ideas and thoughts we have been exposed to early in life, accepted, and chosen to think repetitiously and eventually come to believe about ourselves and life. As a result of these thoughts and beliefs, a person is entirely responsible for all his experiences, including his addictive behavior concerning drugs and alcohol. A person is entirely responsible for the creation of all addictive behaviors.

A person is also responsible for his mental health problems like depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem because of the negative thoughts and beliefs that he has chosen to accept, think repetitiously, and come to believe about himself, precisely the negative thoughts and beliefs that tell him that he is not good enough, not enough, inadequate or less than. A person is and always has been responsible for all his experiences, substance use, and mental health issues alike due to his negative thoughts and beliefs about his value and worth as a human being that he has created.

No one is nor ever has been a victim in their life. Victimization does not exist but is merely a thought or belief that the person creates, believes, and uses, simply as an attempt to avoid assuming and accepting his responsibility for creating his experiences and the trajectory of his life. An individual’s work in transformation is to take complete responsibility for everything he thinks, says, believes, feels, does, and experiences. Remember, it is our thoughts and beliefs that we generate that create all our experiences.

A person’s ability to change and transform his life is intricately connected to his complete acceptance of his responsibility for creating and generating all his experiences. This acceptance also and especially applies to all the experiences that do not turn out the way that he had initially expected them to, his thoughts, beliefs, and feelings about himself, especially as they relate to his value and worth as a human being and including all his addictive behavior toward drugs and alcohol and mental health problems. We are responsible for all our experiences in life as they occur, regardless of their content or context

We choose all our experiences and how our life is occurring. A person chooses all his experiences, including his addictive behavior towards drugs and alcohol and mental health problems like depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. A person always chooses all his thoughts and the experiences that are created from moment to moment. By completely accepting his ability and power of choice, an individual will discover his responsibility for his life and how to transform it.

A person constantly chooses what to think and believe, what to say, how to feel, and what to do. All his choices and decisions in life are made initially from the context of a thought or belief about the perceived value and worth that he has created and continues to generate in the present moment about himself as a human being. Our self-image determines our choices in all our life’s domains.  Everything in our life emanates from our self-image. We have always had the power to choose to think differently, to think positive feeling thoughts instead of negative ones.

The individual’s work in transformation is to practice consciously being aware of his thinking, mindful of his thoughts and beliefs from moment to moment, and conscious of all his choices due to his thought process and their consequences for himself and others. Becoming aware of his choices and their consequences, including, and especially, the thoughts that he chooses to think and believe about himself, allows the person to be wholly and consciously responsible and able to start to access his power to transform his life, to think differently.

Remember, practicing being conscious that we are creating all our experiences and life by our choice of thoughts that we make from moment to moment, in the present moment, empowers us to begin to change and transform our life and, in the process, give up the false thought, belief, and illusion of being a victim. We choose our lives from the ideas and thoughts we accept, reinforce and act upon. Choosing is how we are responsible for our power and use it to transform and create all our life experiences.

We have the power to transform our experiences and life. A person has always had the power to change and transform his life, including the ability to end his addictive behavior to drugs and alcohol forever and resolve his mental health problems. A person is the cause of his life, not the effect of it. A person is not and never has been a victim. We have always had the power to change and transform the trajectory of our lives.

An individual has always been doing the best he can in the present moment with the knowledge, understanding, and awareness he has had. When he learns and knows more, he will create the possibility of doing different and better for himself, to live life powerfully and not as a victim. Knowledge is power, and the key to an individual’s ability and power to change is to be found in his thinking, thoughts, and beliefs, especially thoughts about his value and worth as a human being.

A person can transform his life, end his addictive behavior toward drugs and alcohol forever, and find a permanent resolution to his mental health problems by learning how to change his negative thoughts and beliefs about his perceived value and worth as a human being to positive thoughts and beliefs. An individual can and has the power to learn to think differently, more adequately, and more positively, especially about his value and worth as a human being.

The individual’s negative thinking about his self-worth is merely a thought he created and came to believe and an idea or thought that can be changed to a thought or belief that reveals his actual and positive value and worth as a human being, his true nature. A person’s power to change his life is found only within the transformation of his thoughts and beliefs. The solution for anyone is always about learning how to use their mind to think positively about themselves and applying this knowledge to bring the wisdom of self-love into their life.

Our thoughts are very powerful. A person’s thoughts, beliefs, and thinking patterns are incredibly powerful and creative. A person’s thoughts, beliefs, and thinking patterns create all his experiences and life. A person is constantly shaping or creating how his life occurs from moment to moment.  A person creates all his experiences in the present moment through his thinking, thoughts, and beliefs.

A person creates his addictive behavior to drugs and alcohol and mental health problems initially by the very ideas, thoughts, and beliefs that he has chosen to accept early in life and continues to think and eventually come to believe. Once chosen and accepted, this individual is responsible for repeatedly generating negative thoughts and beliefs about his perceived value and worth as a human being, precisely the idea and belief that he is not good enough.

The actual cause of an individual’s addictive behavior is in his mind, not his body. The exact cause of a person’s addictive behavior and mental health problem is a thought he has about himself, an idea that he initially accepted and recreated in the past and continues to generate in the present, a negative thought or belief about his value and worth as a human being. This negative thought tells him that he is not good enough, not enough, inadequate, in the present moment.

The thought or belief that tells the individual that he is not good enough is his self-limiting belief, which dictates every aspect of his life, shaping and even determining what he can and cannot experience and achieve. A person is addicted not to drugs and alcohol but to negative thinking, to a negative thought and belief about himself. This way of thinking is created from the context of a fundamental negative thought or belief that he has about himself, a thought or belief that repeatedly tells him he is not good enough. This belief defines and determines the individual’s self-image and the experiences that flow from it.

Our point of power is always in the present moment. A person’s point of power to change and transform his life and way of being is always in the present moment, in the Now. A person’s ability to change and transform is not to be found in his past or the future, as neither exists nor has any existence or ontology. Only the present moment is real and powerful.

A person’s past and future experiences do not exist; only the present moment does. This present moment exists and is all that truly matters! What a person thinks and does in the present moment is so crucial that it is only in the present moment that an individual can and will create what he will come to experience and refer to as his life! Change and transformation only take place in the present moment.

Learning to be wholly and entirely in the present moment gives the individual the ability to access his true power, the power that comes from inside him, the power that resides in his thoughts and beliefs, in his thinking, in his mind, the power that emanates from his Source, Spirit, Higher Power or God. Part of the person’s work is to stay grounded in the present moment to access his natural power to transform his life and experience true happiness.

When the individual stays grounded in the present moment, he will create the possibility of gaining access and authentic connection to his Higher Power, Source, Spirit, and God. When a person can do this powerful work and stay in the present moment, he will also know who he truly is, from that from which he came, from Source, Spirit, Higher Power, and God. He will learn and experience the meaning of “I am God, Higher Power, Source, Spirit.”

Our thoughts and beliefs are very powerful.  They create and determine what we say, believe, feel, do, and experience in life. Our thoughts and beliefs also affect the functioning of our physical body. They are so powerful that they can influence and even alter the structure of our body’s organs.

Our psychology, what we think and believe, affects the fundamental nature of our physiology. Our thoughts and beliefs create what we experience and what happens in our physical body. Our thoughts and beliefs are very powerful and can, as a result, affect and alter the functioning and operations of our physical body, which can result in either illness or health.

Our thinking and thought patterns intimately affect the structure of our physiology as the mind and body are connected. There are not two worlds, the physical and mental; essentially, the mind and body are one.  What happens in our mind, our thinking and thoughts, and our beliefs manifests in our physical body.  What and how we think will show up in our physical body’s very nature and existence.

When we think positively, we simultaneously create a healthy physiology. When we think negatively, we simultaneously create an unhealthy body. Our physical health is dependent upon our mental health. To help ensure that our body is healthy, we must make sure that our mind is healthy as well. Positive thoughts lead to a positive and healthy body.

As we know, our psychology creates and determines everything we think, say, believe, feel, do, and experience. The power to change and transform our lives is found in the thoughts and beliefs that we create and generate from moment to moment. The outcome of our life process is dependent on the quality of our knowledge. Knowledge is power.

The nature of what we experience and the life that we lead depends initially upon what we think and believe, the foundation of which is knowledge.  As we also know, we are doing the best we can in the present moment with the knowledge, understanding, and awareness we possess. The truth or adequacy of our knowledge can change.

When we learn and come to know more, when our knowledge becomes more adequate and aligned with the truth, we will do differently and better. A positive outcome of our way of being and life depends on us gaining knowledge that reflects more of the truth.  When we learn more about the truth, we will be able to live a better and more healthy life.

As mentioned above, knowledge is power.  Our work in transformation is to gain knowledge, understanding, awareness, positive thoughts, and beliefs that are more adequate and reflect the truth.  Understanding gives us insight.  And awareness is the first step in healing and changing our life, of transformation.

Forgiveness is necessary for recovery and transformation. A person needs to let go of the negative experiences of his past, forgive everyone, and especially forgive himself for what he thinks happened in the past and the negative energy he created concerning his thoughts and beliefs about the past. Forgiving will allow a person to access his inner power to change and transform his life, end his addictive behavior to drugs and alcohol forever, and resolve his mental health problems.

When a person does not forgive, he will remain a slave to his past, attached to it, stuck in it, unable to move forward and remain a perceived victim of it. He will blame others, take no responsibility for his behavior, and possibly create a resentment. Remember, an individual’s past does not exist but appears to the person merely as a thought or belief, what we can refer to as memory, an idea or belief that can be changed or transformed.

A person can transform his thoughts and what he thinks about the past. The only real thing is the present moment, not your past. What happened in a person’s past, the events that took place in his past, do not have any real effect or power over the individual now; they never have. What matters is what the individual thinks and believes about what happened, not what occurred in the past. Letting go of the past through forgiveness allows the individual to be in the present moment.

The individual’s thinking and beliefs about his past are what matters, not the event that took place, as it no longer exists, passing out of existence immediately after it happened. A person can learn to let go of his past and move powerfully into the present moment, into the Now. To not forgive, to not let go, to stay stuck in the past denies us our power and access to that which is the only thing that will allow us to transform life and way of being, that is, our thinking, our thoughts, and beliefs, in the present moment, especially those about our perceived value and worth as a human being.

A person is not his thoughts or beliefs. A person’s thinking, thoughts, and beliefs are different from who he truly is. His thoughts and beliefs are not the same as his mind. The mind is merely a tool he uses to create his thoughts and beliefs. We are not our minds either. Most individuals do not know who they are in life. Most people believe their identity is to be discovered and developed from the external world of people, places, and things. Most people think and derive their identity from what they do, what they have, or other people’s opinions of their reputation.

However, people who define their identity this way will eventually experience emotional or psychic pain as the world of people, places, and things constantly changes, leaving them dissatisfied with the identity they created, chose, and attempted to live. This dissatisfaction comes from looking in the wrong place for who they are and trying to live and be who they are not. Believing that their worth and value are to be found in the external world will leave the individual experiencing an existential crisis, eventually devaluing themselves and creating a negative self-image.

However, suppose an individual goes inside rather than focusing on the outside or external world for his identity and his value and worth as a human being. When this happens, he will create the possibility of discovering who he truly is. Letting go of his attachments to the external world, which was believed to be his identity, the individual will embark on an inward journey, eventually discovering his identity, the Source, and the Power of his thoughts. It is through transforming his thoughts in this manner that he learns to love himself unconditionally.

A person can and does have the ability to create positive thoughts and feelings about himself and his life. A person can create positive thoughts of respect, acceptance, approval, and acknowledgment about himself that will eventually allow him to love himself as he is in the present moment authentically. In this authentic love of himself, as he is now, in the present moment, he will create the possibility of discovering who he is and, as a result, enable him to connect to his true identity simultaneously, what he is, that is Higher Power, Source, Spirit, or God. Loving oneself authentically, getting to know your identity, and getting connected to our Higher Power, Source, Spirit, or God is the same process. The authentic love that we experience of ourselves is God, as God is love.

As you genuinely love yourself, you are coming to know who you truly are in life and as a human being. As you experience your love for yourself, you restore your connection to your Power, Higher Power, Source, Spirit, and God. In creating the connection and restoration, you know and experience that you are Higher Power, Source, Spirit, God. As Dr. Wayne Dyer once said, saying that you are God is not blasphemy but rather your identity! In the conversation, you will eventually learn and experience that who you are, your identity, is from which you came, your Source.

We must be fully committed to our transformation. The level of a person’s commitment to his healing and transformation will make the difference in whether he returns to active addictive behavior, continues to experience mental health challenges, and possibly perishes or changes the negative trajectory of his current life to one where he is happy, joyous, and free. To change and transform his life and what he experiences requires a complete commitment on the individual’s part.

This commitment involves transforming his negative thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes, especially those related to his perceived value and worth as a human being, into entirely positive ones. Achieving this will require dedication, discipline, perseverance, and complete immersion in the conversation. The bottom line for the person, especially at the beginning of this work, is to follow his therapist’s suggestions completely, even without question.

There can be no picking and choosing from the suggestions given to the individual by his therapist. The individual must follow all suggestions given from the point of obedience. From the suggestions given to the person, the individual must also plan his work and work his plan with his therapist, staying accountable and responsible to the individual’s therapist and doing so as if his life depended upon his work because it does.

Following the suggestions and wisdom of those who came before the individual will allow the person to transform and eventually serve others similarly. The advice now given here is even more critical when one begins changing his negative perception of himself to a genuinely positive one. Eventually, there will be the urge to resist change, the suggestions and direction given, and stay the same or even return to active addictive behavior or the experience of mental health problems.

The actual cause of addictive behavior with drugs and alcohol, of all addictive behaviors, is a thought or belief. The exact cause of an individual’s addictive behavior to drugs and alcohol and many, if not most, mental health problems is that the individual thinks and believes that he is not good enough or less than others, and as a result, there is a lack of authentic self-love due to his negative thinking about his value and worth as a human being.

When a person thinks and believes that he is fundamentally not good enough, referred to here as his core or self-limiting belief, he will continually engage in self-destructive behaviors that will support, reinforce, and even validate his negative thoughts and beliefs about his perceived value and worth as a human being. What a person thinks and believes about himself will affect, if not determine, how he feels about himself and how he treats and behaves toward himself.

As a result of his negative thinking about himself, he will also source or attract specific dangerous experiences and substances into his life, including and especially drugs and alcohol, that will not only validate his negative perception of himself but will harm, if not eventually kill him if he continues with that type of behavior. The cause of a person’s addictive behavior to drugs and alcohol is in his mind, his mental health, his psychology, and his thinking, especially in his negative thoughts and beliefs about himself and not in his body!

Drugs and alcohol are not the real problems; they never have been. Drugs and alcohol are merely symptoms and instruments a person uses to inflict self-harm. More precisely, I believe that drugs and alcohol are simply the instruments that someone uses to self-execute. The actual cause of drug and alcohol addiction is the belief that I am not good enough, inadequate, and do not matter. This principle applies to all other addictive behaviors, including gambling, food, porn, and sex addiction, as well as many, if not most, mental health disorders.

Loving yourself is the only solution to addictive behavior and mental health issues. To change and transform the current trajectory of a person’s life, to end an individual’s addictive behavior and dependency upon drugs and alcohol forever, and to find an actual resolution to mental health problems will require that the individual learn how to authentically respect, approve, accept, acknowledge and eventually come to love himself just as he is now, in the present moment.

Learning what loving himself is all about and bringing the knowledge of self-love into his life will give him true Wisdom and genuine happiness. Experiencing authentic self-love is simple but requires commitment and dedication to transformation. The individual will need help from others and, as a result, must be open-minded and willing to accept and follow all the suggestions from others who know about and live the principles of transformation.

To transform himself, the individual will need to learn the knowledge necessary to transform and practice it daily to experience and bring the Wisdom of self-love into his life. An individual can transform his life only if he changes his negative thinking about himself, especially his perceived value and worth as a human being, into that which is authentically positive. Any negative ideas, thoughts, beliefs, or considerations about oneself must be given up absolutely and replaced with positive thoughts and beliefs.

When a person comes to think and believe positively about himself, he will come to think and believe that he is perfect, whole, and complete, that he genuinely matters, that he is good enough, that he is enough, just as he is in the present moment. When a person comes to think positively about himself, the individual will come to love himself authentically, he will no longer have a desire or need to use drugs or alcohol or feel depressed, anxious, and worthless, and he will be truly happy with who he is in the present moment, in the Now. As stated above, self-approval and self-acceptance are the keys to genuine self-love and transformation.

The wisdom phase of transformation is about operationalizing the principles of transformation, of the individual choosing to utilize them to help shape and even alter their life experiences to the possibilities they offer. To come to operationalize the principles of transformation is to act upon them repetitiously, practice them daily, and live them in all the person’s daily affairs. It is this act of creating a healthy habit for authentic change and living where individuals transform their experiences to have love in every domain of their lives. In wisdom, we learn how to play the game of life powerfully on the court!

Dr. Harry Henshaw