Ben Ralston

The reason why most alternative healing doesn’t work: Secondary Gain


 Secondary Gain is a medical term. If you ask a doctor what it means, they’ll know. If you ask a Reiki practitioner, they probably won’t. That’s because it’s a concept that the world of alternative healing has generally not woken up to yet. I believe it’s also one of the main reasons why: most alternative healing doesn’t work; and most personal development methods are inefficient. *
What is secondary gain exactly?
Secondary gain** may be defined as ‘a hidden benefit that is derived from the problem’.
The best example I can give is the one Simon Rose (founder of Reference Point Therapy) gave me when he taught me RPT. It is a true story.
There was an old lady who had cancer. Despite the fact that she had expert care her condition did not improve – against all expectation. When asked the simple (and seemingly ridiculous) question:
“What would you lose if the cancer was healed” she finally replied:
“I would be lonely again”.
Before the diagnosis of cancer, she had been very lonely. When they found out that she was ill, her grandchildren began to visit her daily. Faced with the simple choice between cancer and loneliness, she (subconsciously) chose cancer.



The hidden benefit to her problem – the secondary gain – was quite simply that the quality of her life was improved by her cancer. She was no longer lonely.
Other examples include:
“If my bad back was fixed, I’d have to go to work”…
and:
“If my headaches stopped, I’d have to start having sex with my husband again” (another real-life example!)
Why is this an important issue?
Let’s face it – we all have problems from time to time. Whether physical, emotional, or psychological, challenges are (a big) part of life.
It is many people’s experience that the initial hope and euphoria – so often experienced immediately after a healing session (or therapy, or personal development) – fades, and the symptoms return.
The most common reason for this is secondary gain.
You may well find the root cause of your problem. You may well effectively heal it. But if the secondary gain is not released you will probably not see any long term change in the symptoms – because subconsciously you are choosing to hold onto them.
Honestly, I have lost count of the number of clients (and even personal problems) whose healing has ultimately come down to secondary gain. Very often you need only heal the secondary gain of a problem in order to watch it just fall away – secondary gain is all that’s holding it in place.
I’ll leave you with another example. I’m working with a client at the moment who has advanced liver cancer. She’s 31 years old, has a 3 year old child, and the doctors have told her that there’s nothing they can do. Personally, I believe that there is almost always something we can do; if we know the cause of something, we can undo it.
When I began to explore the concept of secondary gain with her, she knew exactly what I meant: she had a list of things that were benefits of the cancer:
She makes friends more easily now that she’s sick; has a great excuse as to why her career is at a standstill; and she gets her husband’s undivided attention without having to ask for it.
In this case I worked on the trauma of these secondary gains: making friends (she’s an introvert), having a career at standstill (she wants to work), and being assertive / getting attention when needed (she had an issue with looking like an ‘attention seeker’ when expressing her needs and desires).
Of course, I’ve done much more than just work on secondary gain with her, but already there have been some dramatic changes. An chronic shoulder pain (interestingly, directly behind the breast that was the original source of the cancer) has disappeared; and an old breathing difficulty has cleared up.
Edit: since originally writing this, she had a blood test. Whereas before her blood was always weak, the doctors told her now that it is ‘perfect’. (This is after some very strong chemotherapy, which would normally weaken the blood further).
I’m confident that this is going to be another case of ‘miraculous’ healing. I’ll let you know.
However, the point of this article is this: every cloud has a silver lining. Even our greatest fears and worst nightmares can bring us some kind of benefit, especially when they are old problems that we become accustomed to.
Sometimes, we choose subconsciously to hold on to the benefit, even though consciously we don’t want to.
Do you have an old problem – physical or emotional – that you can’t seem to solve? Can you think of any benefit to it? If you solved the problem, what would you loose? Please feel free to leave a comment (even anonymously) and I’ll see if I can help.
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* – I realize this is a controversial, and somewhat incontrovertible point: however, I believe that most alternative healing modalities and practitioners are less effective than a placebo! A great deal of scientific research has shown that placebos are around 30-40% effective! I think that if we’re really honest about our experiences with alternative healing we can say that very few healers or therapists are able to guarantee successful results (by which I simply mean permanent healing) in over 40% of their clients.

** – For the purpose of simplicity I am rolling Primary gain, Secondary gain and Tertiary gain into one.

The ‘key’ to personal development

I will share with you now some things that are little known, yet highly important in personal development.
Many people are working on developing themselves in many ways. If you google ‘therapy’ (or ‘healing’, or ‘personal development’), you’ll find literally thousands of different kinds of modalities.
Almost all of them are either energy based (reiki, bio-energetic techniques), or emotional based (heart based healing, E.F.T), or psychologically based (NLP, psychotherapy).
A common reaction to healing (especially to the energy / heart based techniques) is a feeling of euphoria, often accompanied by tears of joy. People often believe that they’ve “really healed it this time” because the feeling is so intense.
However, the truth is that if you have this kind of tearful reaction to therapy, you’ve probably only healed yourself on the energy / emotional level. The symptoms are healed (hence the feeling of euphoria – it’s a relief!), but the relief is only temporary. Very likely the problem will persist, perhaps in a different form.
Similarly, with therapies that are based on psychological healing, it’s often slow going: I’ve met people that have had years and years of therapy and not really shifted anything significantly.
True healing works on the level of cause. When you heal the cause of the problem, the symptoms simply fall away: sometimes immediately, sometimes over time. There won’t be any ‘fireworks’ though – no tears, no euphoria. Just a slow unwinding, as every level of your being (physical, emotional, mental, energetic, and causal) shifts subtly back into alignment.
When this happens, what you’ll most likely feel is a slight tingling sensation. You’ll feel lighter and strong. You’ll feel more complete.
True healing is really letting go of something false – a blockage that was in between the present you (the one that has a problem), and the real you.
You want to be healthy and happy: we all do.
The thing that most people don’t realize is that they are already healthy and happy! Healthy and happy is our natural state of being – our default setting if you will!
Healing is about letting go of whatever is getting in the way.
Your body will heal itself very efficiently when it is allowed to.
Your state of mind will automatically shift towards joy if you relax (let go) deeply enough.
So here’s the secret: the cause of almost all of our problems is a subconscious blockage that relates to either survival / safety, or reproduction. It relates not to the head ; nor to the heart. It is connected primarily to our ‘gut’ – the area below the solar plexus and above the genitals.
The gut is the place where we feel our deepest feelings, which are always about safety and survival. Many people’s greatest fear for example is public speaking: surveys have shown that many people would rather die than have to speak in public! That kind of fear is always felt in the gut.
So, when I am healing someone, I am looking for the cause of the problem, and it’s always something that relates to a ‘gut feeling’.
When you are working on your own personal development, be aware that the most important centre of awareness that you have – important in terms of influence that it has over your life – is in your gut.
The reason I’m writing about this now is that I know from the many years of personal development work I’ve done that most people ignore their ‘lower centers’ and focus on the higher ones. There is a myth in spiritual and healing circles that we should focus almost exclusively on the heart or the third eye.
I learnt all this when I studied and became a Reference Point Therapist and teacher: my own personal development and my work with others shifted tremendously. I learnt how to very quickly and efficiently let go of ‘stuff’ that otherwise takes people years of struggling.
This is all very theoretical I know, so I’ve written up my latest client / therapist session, which was a great example of a truly amazing healing session, typical of the kind of results that you can get with RPT. It was a simple skype session, client in America, me in Slovenia, and he got much more than he bargained for! I’ll publish that immediately after publishing this… enjoy!
Before you go, please be aware that I would like to share this information with as many people as possible… you can help me with that by simply giving a facebook ‘like’; sharing with your friends; and / or leaving a comment below. Thank you!

HEALING the trauma of sexual abuse

It’s taboo. It makes us feel uncomfortable.
But the statistics are staggering: it is estimated that 25% of girls and 17% of boys are sexually abused before the age of 18*.
The reason I want to write about this is that if you were abused, or if you know someone who was abused, I CAN HELP.


I am also one of those statistics: I was sexually abused by a teacher who became a ‘family friend’. From the age of 10 until about 16 I was repeatedly molested…


Sexual abuse causes us to feel small, powerless, weak, lonely, isolated, ashamed, guilty, and depressed. When it happens to a child there is a loss of innocence, a loss of trust, and a loss of openness. The results can be devastating…

I lived with the abuse for about 6 years. I lived with the consequences of that abuse for about 15 years before I told anyone. And that is what almost always happens – the abused child keeps quiet about it.


So many adults; people you know, have been abused as children, and have never told anyone. They live with that secret shame, guilt, and depression hidden deep in their subconscious. In my case it was so deeply hidden I had almost forgotten that it even happened! One day I suddenly remembered – “oh my God, I was sexually abused as a child!”


HOW CAN I HELP?


Until now, people who wanted to help themselves get over the consequences of abuse usually went to see a counsellor or a psychotherapist. They often had to spend many sessions, a lot of money, and a lot of time and energy reliving the trauma of those events. Often, the therapy was slow and inefficient. Why? Because most it focused on the trauma. In some cases, it actually re-inforced the trauma!
Well guess what? The trauma itself is not the problem! The trauma itself is in the past. It is what we have left over from the trauma, in the present – with us still, that is the real problem.
Trauma causes pain. It is the pain that is the problem – when we suppress that pain (as a defensive or survival mechanism) into our subconscious, we create a blockage. That subconscious blockage is the problem – it is often the cause of mental and emotional anguish; inability to trust; difficulty in letting go / relaxing; blockages towards sex and relationships; and many other very serious problems. These problems often lock people into a very difficult and painful cycle of abuse which can seem hopeless. But it’s not!


The point is: the trauma itself: the actual abuse, IS NOT THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEMS – THE SUPPRESSED PAIN IS.


So, how can I help?
Well, I can help people to release that subconscious blockage – the suppressed pain – so that they can live their life FREE of the trauma of abuse. Not only that, but I can help them to strengthen their boundaries so that they no longer need to worry about being abused again. Because it’s a fact that people who are abused tend to get caught up in a cycle of abuse.


I met a woman who had 20 years of weekly psychotherapy sessions. She was constantly reliving the trauma of her childhood sexual abuse. Not only that – she had been abused in many ways, by many different people, throughout her adult life.
In one session of Reference Point Therapy (RPT), she freed herself from all of that. 


Now, I am not promising that one session is always enough. Nor am I saying that other therapies don’t work – please don’t misunderstand me. I know that there are other good therapists and healers out there!
However, there is a new way which is very fast, very simple, and very efficient. And it’s particularly useful for people who have been sexually abused – because they don’t have to talk about the abuse. The abuse – the trauma itself – is not the problem. And that’s great, because one of the reasons why people in the past didn’t even go to see a counselor is that it’s embarrassing and painful talking about what happened.


When a Reference Point Therapist heals trauma, s/he doesn’t need to know much about the trauma itself – it’s the feelings (pain) that came up at that time that are the real cause of the problem. All the information I need is:

  • what happened (abuse)
  • roughly when it happened (i.e. – about 10 years old)
And that’s it. With that information, I guide the client to the feelings that were suppressed, and we release them!

Please, if you or anyone you know was affected by abuse of any kind, let them know about Reference Point Therapy. You can help break the cycle of abuse.
It’s not necessary to live in the shadow of the past. It’s actually possible to easily, gently, and quickly release any blockage – and to begin to live fully in the present moment, free of the effects of trauma.

For more information:


As always I welcome your comments, thoughts, and ideas.
Were you abused? Do you know someone that has been affected by abuse? Do you know any other way in which trauma can be so easily treated? Do you have any questions about RPT?
Please feel free to contribute – you can always do so anonymously.
And if you think that this article is useful, share it.

(*Statistics taken from the Darkness to Light website)