Healing Metaphors A-Z - Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia, involving the loss of memory, speech and physical ability that is accompanied by the deterioration of intellectual function and disorientation. This is the result of a lifetime of unprocessed emotion and shattered dreams, combined with a loss of hope that comes from our feeling that time is running out. From shattered dreams we derive the feeling of missed opportunities; not living up to our potential, disappointment in ourselves, the desire to return to a better past, unwillingness to deal with the present, regression from purpose and from life, and retreat into the past. There is a great desire for us to forget and so we live in the past, no longer feeling strong enough to deal with the present, which has only been disappointing. Suffering from Alzheimer’s means that we have a lot of experiences that we have not understood or processed emotionally. Suffering from broken dreams, and having been overwhelmed with life’s losses and disillusionments, we withdraw into ourselves and into our own world.

Chuck Spezzano and Janie Ticehurst, Healing the Body Through Mind and Metaphor