Energy Psychology Techniques

Highly educated author and physician Andrew Weil, MD, said some years back that energy medicine will be the wave of the future.  These techniques are in use now, and they are actually moving more into the mainstream than ever before.  They can be used as an adjunct to the more standard therapies. EMDR is one such technique.  It involves stimulating right and left brain function with either light or eye movement, and it seems to help reduce intensity of traumatic memories.  Many psychiatrists and psychologists and emergency medicine practitioners are using this at scenes of trauma, such as disaster sites. Emotional Freedom Technique was originally formulated by psychologist, Roger Callahan, PhD.  Many others have contributed to this since his rather accidental discovery.  It is based on Chinese medicine, which has a five thousand year history, and seems to work off of the acupuncture system.  A person taps on acupressure points on the body, which are thought to be located at the endpoints of certain meridians, and where it is thought that chi energy is blocked.  Another possible explanation is that endorphins are released by tapping these points.  The idea is to talk about an issue or an emotion  while tapping on these…

Energy Psychology – Something Old, Something New

Several years ago, after having worked with a client for whom hypnosis was not as effective as we both had hoped, a consulting colleague introduced me to EFT, also known as Emotional Freedom technique. This is becoming more widely known now, as “Tapping”, and has even been featured on popular shows like Dr. Oz or Oprah, and is even on YouTube. At that time, I actually combined knowledge I gained from instructional techniques demonstrated on a DVD series with my own clinical background, and I was intrigued by often rapid relief clients had from some challenging and longstanding issues. EFT seems to be helpful a good percentage of the time. I wanted to learn more ways to be more effective in cases where the relief did not occur, or did not hold to the next session. I affiliated with and have completed training with an organization known as Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology, which is an organizational umbrella that fosters training, research, networking and humanitarian efforts for a number of techniques dealing with mind-body connections to healing. This venture has exploded my knowledge about ways to help people get past challenging roadblocks in life, from changing lifestyle habits to managing…