Paraphrased from Core Energetics by John Pierrakos, M.D.:

Core Energetics centers on the person's innate health and aims to restore the functioning of the whole, so that the injured parts may also thrive.  The holistic orientation has radical implications for the process of healing, the suffering person, and the practitioner.  Core Energetics builds on releasing the right energy of the core rather than correcting specific distortions or aliments.  The sufferer marshals that energy and in actuality evolves the path of the work.  The practitioner casts a searchlight into the sufferer's core to illuminate that innermost truth, which the path will reach.  The process of clearing the way for the higher self...is an education in inner reality, helping the person perceive from and act through the core.  The course of learning leads the sufferer to open and invigorate the center of life, to stand aligned wth it, and to take his or her existential perspective from it... An educator knows that every person possesses unique gifts and will utilize a learning program in unique ways to further a unique life plan.  The educator offers neither the gifts, nor the plan.  These are the student's.  The same is true in Core Energetics.  The sufferer's own vital forces are what heals, not the practitioner's actions or antidotes.  These are important but only supportive.  The client is conducting the search for his or her own truth, his or her unique path.

Whenever, I read any of John's writing, I feel his love coming through the page.  I love that John called his clients, "sufferers".  It is indicative of the compassion he felt toward those with whom he worked.  John believed that as a practitioner you can only touch the core of your client when reaching  from your own core.  As a Core Energetics Practitioner, doing my own work is a critical element in my ability to reach from my own core.  I am eternally grateful to John for the beautiful work he created.