NOTES FOR POTENTIAL CLIENTS ON THE NATURE OF ENERGY PSYCHOTHERAPY
Although energy psychotherapy contains much that is found in other modalities, there are some important differences that are crucial to understand. Sometimes new clients are not fully aware of this, and the confusion can create temporary obstacles to the work.
First, the work involves all the normal features that can be found in psychoanalytically oriented therapies: careful listening at many different levels; guiding the client to speak free-associatively of whatever comes to mind; exploring unconscious conflicts; attention to dreams; identifying key formative experiences in childhood, etc.
Where energy psychotherapy differs is in four key areas:
- The focus of the work is not the relationship with the psychotherapist. Although it is important that this working alliance is adequate, it is not the main vehicle of the healing process. Instead, we are focused on facilitating a process of resolution within the client. This is in sharp contrast to the conventional psychoanalytic method of allowing the client’s inner difficulties to be played out in the theatre of the ‘transference’ to the therapist.
- We bring the body into the conversation, using kinesiology – also known as ‘muscle testing’ or ‘energy testing’. This is done either by manually pressing lightly on the client’s arm while he or she says or thinks a particular thought – or by the practitioner using self-testing on behalf (or proxy) for the client. Perhaps surprisingly, the latter works very well. Although energy testing in this way should not be regarded as an objective and fool-proof method, it does provide very helpful information to guide the work. Hypotheses can be quickly tested and then discarded if signalling false. The value of energy testing is shown when it does not confirm our expectation, when it gives a surprising result. This is when it is giving important information.
- We look for the most significant early experiences that have shaped the person’s development and have contributed to the presenting problems. Then we guide the client to tap on acupoints or work with other subtle energy centres to break up these old patterns – to introduce optimum entropy (or disorder) into the old pathologically ordered patterns. This releases the emotional and energetic charge of these traumatic memories. The memory remains, but it is emotionally and energetically inert. A client may say “I can still think of it, but it no longer bothers me” or “It feels further away” or “it is harder to bring it to mind”. Energy testing can reveal the precise sequence of acupoints to be tapped for optimum results.
- We look very specifically for the internal objections to resolving the presenting problem. These are almost always present and can be easily detected using energy testing. The two most common of these are “it is not safe to resolve the problem” or “I do not deserve to resolve the problem”. In energy psychotherapy, these are called psycho-energetic reversals, since they involve both psychological and energetic reversals of motivation. They are unconscious. Often a person will test ‘yes’ to wanting to resolve the problem, but ‘no’ if the statement is “all parts of me want to resolve this problem”. We can then track down the age and nature of this objecting part. In this and other ways, the work is very precise and deep.
Although this way of working can initially appear a little strange, it rapidly becomes familiar to clients – the natural rhythm of talking, energy testing, tapping acupoints and continuing to talk, energy testing for changes as we progress. Clients tend to feel the real work is done when we get to energy testing and acupoint tapping.
There are many modalities within the field of energy psychology. The work I do should not be confused with EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) – although that particular method can be very helpful. Thought Field Therapy (as developed originally by Dr Roger Callahan) is a significant influence but the work that I and my colleagues do has evolved far from this and is integrated with psychoanalytic perspectives.
Energy psychotherapy works at the interface of the mind, the body, and the subtle energy system. This appears to be where our emotional problems are encoded and provides the best portal to releasing them. Whereas psychoanalysis addresses the unconscious mind, energy psychotherapy goes beyond this, to the patterns encoded in the body’s subtle energy system.
Further information about the physics of all this, and the nature of subtle energy, can be found in my book The Physics of the Mind: New Perspectives for Psychotherapists, Healers, and Seekers: www.karnacbooks.com/product/the-physics-of-the-mind-new-perspectives-for-psychotherapists-healers-and-seekers/98264/?MATCH=1