Energy psychology
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Energy psychology is the basis of energy psychotherapy, a method for treating phobias and other psychological problems.
Energy psychology focuses on the interrelationship of energy systems, emotion, behavior, psychopathology, and health. These systems include the electrical activity of the nervous system, acupuncture meridians, chakras, biofields, and morphogenetic fields.
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Background
Traumatic events and enduring stress can take a toll on a person’s physical and psychological well-being. The memory and accompanying negative emotions of a stressful incident or condition, at any point in life, can lay dormant for years. When triggered by some present stressful event, it can evoke negative beliefs, desires, fantasies, compulsions, obsessions, addictions or dissociation. It can block the development of positive qualities and spiritual connections, and fracture human wholeness.
An extreme example is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Stress releases information substances, such as epinephrine, B-endorphin and ACTH, creating an ideal environment for state-dependant memory, learning and behavior (SDMLB). SDMLB is the channel between mind and body. The physical effects generate information substances that are transduced to the mental levels of the brain. The reverse is also true through the process of neuroendocrinal information transduction where information substances can transform the mental experiences and be realized at the organic level.
The SDMLB Theory
According to SDMLB theory, events are encoded in a person’s physiology on a cellular/molecular level. These events include both the memory and the emotion attached to it. Good or bad, they can generate specific behaviors, pain and even illness. It is claimed that they reside in energy fields said to flow on unique major neural pathways, corresponding to what some people call meridians.
Acupuncture points are critical spots on the meridians. Proponents of SDMLB claim that a negative experience or a built-up condition causes the body's energy system to get out of balance. Some people use the analogy of an electrical short-circuit. The brain distinguishes between experiential memories and emotional memories and actually processes them differently. Based on the principal that by focusing on the issue and stimulating the major neural pathways, a memory process is initiated causing change by unblocking the emotional short-circuit. This process results in substituting positive emotions for the negative emotions that were previously learned and associated with the issue.
While research is still fairly sparse, formal and informal case studies are being offered by clinicians relating the successful application of energy psychology with depression, anxiety, phobias, PTSD, addictions, psychogenic illnesses, and other psychiatric disorders. Hundreds of case studies exist demonstrating that both self-applied and therapist-assisted uses of energy psychology have led to swift improvement, often in circumstances where conventional psychotherapy has had little effect.
Origins of Energy Psychology
For millennia, China, Korea and Japan have used meridian traditions such as Acupuncture, Feng Shui, and Shiatsu. India’s Chakra traditions, such as Yoga, pranic healing, etc. are just as old.
These oriental traditions have, over a period of time, melded with Western modalities, such as nursing, kinesiology, cell biology, theoretical physics, psychology, dowsing, chiropractic medicine and quantum physics to become what we know today as Energy Psychology.
This field is a collection of diverse techniques aimed at healing emotional distress such as trauma, phobias and anxiety; cognitive distress, such as limiting beliefs; physical distress, such as head injury, heart rhythm asynchrony, neurological imbalances, biochemical imbalances and structural imbalances; and spiritual distress, such as existential issues, fears and limiting spiritual beliefs. Although the procedures are different, believers assert that they all deal with the body’s energy system made up of meridians, chakras and auras.
Common Techniques
Some of the more widely-practiced techniques are:
- Touch for Health
- Total Body Modification
- Nambudripad Allergy Elimination Technique
- Emotional Freedon TechniqueTM (EFT)
- Radiant Energies Balancing (REB)
- Tapas Acupressure Technique
- Neuro-Emotional Technique
- Educational Kinesiology (and Brain Gym)
- Thought Energy Synchronization Therapy
- Energy Diagnostic and Treatment Methods
- Be Set Free Fast (BSFF)
- Energy Center
- Healing Touch
- Energy Medicine
Thought Field Therapy
Adding to years of research by David Walther and George Goodheart (Applied Kinesiology), psychologist Dr. Roger Callahan introduced the “Callahan Technique” in 1985.
Later enhanced through the influence of John Diamond’s Behavioral Kinesiology, it was revised to become Thought Field Therapy. The method was very effective in removing the emotional charge that triggered maladaptive behaviors, phobias and some physical pain.
Although highly effective, the method was generally considered by many to be cumbersome and complicated. It remained a tool for an elite few certified practitioners. Some of Callahan’s students developed simpler protocols in order to allow the methods to be easily learned by anyone. The most widely-used process is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) developed by Gary Craig in the mid 1990s.
Criticism
Most scientists, health professionals, skeptics and others consider energy psychology to be a pseudoscientific quack therapy, noting that there is no scientific evidence that healing can be achieved by it or that the claimed "energies" and their supposed pathways through the body even exist.
External Links
- Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (http://www.energypsych.org)
- Skepdic: Energy Healing: Looking in All the Wrong Places (http://www.skepdic.com/essays/energyhealing.htm)
Categories: Articles that need to be wikified | Biocrawler cleanup | Alternative medicine | Pseudoscience
