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Posts Tagged ‘psychotherapy’


Reiki and PTSD

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I have been told by many people over many years including intuitive clients that I should be using my hands in my healing work. Up until this past year I politely and firmly declined. Therapists consider touch to be taboo and risky. Most agencies make it clear that touch is not to happen between client and therapist – ever.

What happened to change my mind was Reiki. I started to do some research and found that many therapists (as well as nurses and doctors) across the United States use Reiki in their practice, including in the hallowed hospitals of the Harvard Medical system. Over 800 hospitals use Reiki, and it is an evidence-based practice for stress and chronic pain, two symptoms clearly related to PTSD.

As it turns out, one does not need to even touch a client in order to provide Reiki healing energy in a session. So last April I received my Reiki I and II attunements and started offering Reiki to my clients.

The results were astonishing:

– I’ve had several clients report a full night’s sleep after several months or years of sleep disruption, a common side effect of PTSD

– Clients are able to release emotions and cry on the treatment table in a way they usually do not in session. The beauty of Reiki is that they may not know why they are crying; they don’t have to have a reason or specific memory, but they always feel better afterwards and move forward in resolving previous traumas.

– Many report a feeling of a loving, warm and compassionate energy that they have not felt before or in a very long time.

– People report improved digestion and bowel function. On the table I hear people’s gut making bowel sounds, a sign of parasympathetic function being restored to the autonomic nervous system.

– Although I talk about grounding in sessions as do many trauma therapists I have found that Reiki helps clients inhabit their body more fully, and they can really notice the lack of grounding or energy in their lower body. This improves greatly over 2-3 sessions and instigates a firmer resolve to practice grounding exercises such as walking barefoot outside.

– Clients become deeply relaxed and often report the deepest states of peace in their body than they have felt in many months or weeks. Too often therapy is a very stressful experience; Reiki provides a corrective emotional experience for treatment!

– Sometimes people experience physical symptoms resolving. One patient who’d had a persistent red rash for many days reported the rash clearing up within hours of the session. Another experienced her feet becoming stronger and less prone to injury.

Often there is validation between what I as the Reiki practitioner am feeling and what the client is feeling in their body. I had one client that when I held my hands in the position around her face and temple I felt intense heat between the jaw and temple, almost as if my hands were held up next to a flame. My client felt this heat as well, and became very emotional. Later she connected that very spot to where she received electroshock therapy years before which, for her, was both validating and healing.

Although I had the intention that I would probably not touch my therapy clients, I found that people were more offended if I would not touch them. So now before sessions I get their permission and usually only touch around the head, neck and lower legs.

This past December I went back to become a Reiki Master, and have signed up for my next level of training in August. I hope very soon to be offering Reiki attunements, trainings and certifications for therapists. Stay tuned!

If you have received Reiki, I would love to hear about your experiences in the comments section!




Don’t Let Anyone Tell You That PTSD is Permanent

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matphotoviatka

I hear from a lot of clients and friends that they have been told by their therapists that they have to learn to live with PTSD.  “Walk beside it like a friend” is how one therapist put it.

 PTSD is not your friend.  You do not want its companionship for life.

 In the yogic model of the human being, there are multiple layers. We have a physical body, an energetic body made of prana or qi/ki, two layers of mind: one cognitive and one intuitive and a bliss body.  We cannot hope to heal PTSD unless we understand this important concept:

 All layers of our being are wounded by the injuries and abuse that result in PTSD.  PTSD is the manifestation of those wounds.

 In the Western model of medicine we treat only two of the five layers.  We treat the body and we treat the cognitive mind.  In other words we address less than half of the system that has been injured.  In many cases we don’t even treat both.

 Usually people with mental disorders are remanded to some variety of psychiatric care with little attention paid to the rest of the body.  Or the reverse. If the person expresses symptoms mostly through the body, it can take years for a physician to ask simple questions about a history of trauma. 

 Most therapists and counselors pay little to no attention to anything but the latest “evidence-based” treatment, even though “evidence-based” most often means showing an effect for only 3-6 months.  Mental health treatment has become highly politicized and regulated, and essentially a casualty of the free market capitalist system here in the USA. 

 But I digress.

 As a therapist and a survivor, I am here to tell you that  you can heal fully from PTSD. In order to do this you will have to assemble your own treatment team and techniques to heal each of the layers of your being that were injured by trauma. That is essentially the thesis of my book, The Trauma Tool Kit: Healing PTSD From the Inside Out.

 Please don’t give up.  There is an end to suffering.  The “peace that passeth all understanding” is real.  It may take a while, years perhaps, but life these days is long. Keep going. You can heal fully from PTSD. 




Jung on Freud, War, Death

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Too many people have forgotten the wisdom of psychotherapy’s Western fathers: Freud and Jung.  This interviews reveals the spirituality, the genius, the humanity and humility of Carl Jung towards the end of his life. He advocates greater awareness and psychology to avoid war. “We know nothing of man. Far too little. We are the origin of all coming evil.” Highly recommended viewing!




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