IJHC (The International Journal of Healing and Caring) - The Anthropological and Scientific Case for Psycho-Energetic Healing Part 2

Introduction

Part 2 details a pilot study I conducted to quantify subjective phenomena that practitioners of psycho-energetic psychotherapy frequently experience. From that study developed a larger study of the phenomenology of psycho-energetic psychotherapy.

The larger study, called the Psycho-Energetic Phenomenological Research Project, suggests a technical vocabulary of some psycho-energetic phenomena. Those findings are reported in this section. Anyone interested in the scientific and technical aspects of the study or in the instrumentation used is directed to the appendices.

Development of the research focus:

Interest in establishing how a psycho-energetic practitioner experiences psycho-energetic healing grew, in part, out of my attendance at a five-day workshop with Dr. Vazquezin 1994. During that period I interviewed Dr. Vazquez and several workshop participants who had gained competence in the psycho-energetic healing technique of Confluent Somatic Therapy. My interviews with these helping practitioners made it clear that those who practice psycho-energetic healing appear to have a number of common experiences, and this gave me the idea for a pilot study.

Part 1 of this dissertation was published in the January, 2003 issue of IJHC.

Pilot study method

First, from separate interviews, I got a sense from four randomly selected workshop participants what sorts of phenomena they experienced during psycho-energetic healing work. Second, I listened to the tape recorded interviews, and reviewed my notes. This review gave rise to six hypotheses:

When practicing psycho-energetic healing therapists:

Third, I organized my hypotheses into the items of the "Psycho-energetic Healing Questionnaire," and decided to ask participants to circle the amount of time they had such experiences on a frequency rating scale ranging from 0 to 100 percent of the time. Fourth, I calculated means and standard deviations for each item. I predicted that the mean score for each item would be above 50 percent and included the standard deviation for descriptive purposes. Fifth, I introduced the idea for the study to members of the workshop and guaranteed confidentiality by verbal contract. Ten self-selected individuals agreed to fill out the questionnaire - all were over thirty, all worked in helping professions, and men and women were equally represented. The results were interesting.

PILOT STUDY RESULTS

Discussion

Results supported my hypothesis that all six items would have mean scores of over 50 percent (see Table 1), in turn supporting my idea that these six experiences occurred often during the course of psycho-energetic healing. That item 5 had the highest mean and the lowest standard deviation intrigued me. Energy may have a consistent effect such that exposure to it gives rise to intrinsically spiritual and religious experience! However, all six of the items had a mean of 74 or above, showing that on average the therapists found that the experiences reflected in the items occur frequently. I wondered what other experiences were frequent and common across psycho-energetic therapists.

Another finding that emerged in the course of the study

Another finding that came out of my pilot study was that therapists have a great deal of difficulty discussing what happens to them during psycho-energetic healing. Several practitioners whom I interviewed commented that no technical vocabulary of psycho-energetic phenomena exists for therapists to use to adequately discuss the psychotherapeutic experience of energy. Without a developed vocabulary of energy related experience, difficulty arises in teaching psycho-energetic therapy, developing constructs, and testing those constructs. Imagine how difficult it would be for a psychoanalyst to understand the phenomenon of projective identification if she lacked the terms "projection" and "identification." Consider her difficulty clinically managing her identification with a client's projection, if terms representing the constructs were nonexistent. The same is true for psycho-energetic therapy. A formal vocabulary is needed to describe the psycho-energetic phenomena that psycho-energetic psychotherapists experience in the course of administering treatment.

In the hope of fulfilling this need I developed a highly structured phenomenological research protocol, designed to explore the phenomenology of energy therapy. The protocol has been adapted by researchers (see McGoldrick, 2002) interested in the phenomenology of energy medicine, and the reader is welcome to adapt my research protocol for their own purposes with citation. Appendix 1 describes the research protocol and the study in which I employed it. Appendix 2 offers the Psycho-Energetic Healing Questionnaire (Expanded). The questionnaire generates data regarding the phenomenology of psycho-energetic therapists' bodily, psychological, and spiritual experiences during treatment. Researchers will find the appendices a useful source of scientific information regarding the study of energy experience. Those less interested in research but still interested in a tentative vocabulary and definitions of psycho-energetic psychotherapy will find below, based on my study's findings, terms proposed to describe various psycho-energetic phenomena.

Terms to describe psycho-energetic phenomena

Altered Consciousness Effect: refers to the tendency for psycho-energetic healers to enter into altered states of consciousness during therapy. The quality of this consciousness may be ecstatic or expanded. In the course of treatment practitioners sometimes feel that they can take into awareness more information than normally.

Angelic Presence: the therapist's sense of angelic beings during healing. Various cultures and religious groups believe in angels as ministering spirits that assist in healing. Some psycho-energetic therapists experience their assistance.

Anomalous Motor State: the experience of an irregular motor state about half the time during energy work.

Bracketing: a term that refers to the requirement that psycho-energetic therapists bind or dissipate personal feelings that could contaminate or block the flow of healing energy. A therapist skilled at bracketing will have confidence that their psycholgical issues do not interfere with good treatment.

Breathing Response: the tendency to take involuntary, deep breaths during energy therapy. The response may reduce tension in the therapist, or automatically adjust the flow of healing energy. The response could also occur in sympathy with a client's sorrow. Chakra Work: the practice among psycho-energetic therapists of working with chakras. Therapists can sometimes feel these energy centers and glean therapeutic information from them.

Client Energy Movement Percept: the therapist's percept of the movement of energy within the client's energy system.

Energetic Intermingling Percept: that perception that therapist and client energy fields mix or blend. Physical or emotional cues may establish the percept. Prayer may precede the percept.

Energy Through-Flow: the sensation of energy flowing from beyond the person conducting it. Intentionality to conduct energy, prayer to a Higher Power, or even the experience of possession-like states may precede the through-flow sensation.

ESP Experience: therapists' sense that they receive information about a client through an organ of perception not primarily connected to the five senses. God Source: the psycho-energetic therapist's experience that the source of energy is found in God.

Fear: a rare feeling of impending trouble sometimes connected with dread of energetic treatment failure. A sympathetic feeling of impending trouble useful to direct treatment to the client's issues.

Flow Direction Sensation: the sensation that energy flows in a certain direction.

Hands Away from Body Technique: the technique of holding hands a distance from the client's body during the course of psycho-energetic healing.

Healing Heat: the term which refers to the sensation of heat on the hands of psycho-energetic therapists engaged in the activity of healing. The sensation of heat occurs during treatment and has been know to occur at the laying-on-of-hands during charismatic Christian healing prayer.

Intention Technique: the practice of sending energy to clients simply by intending to do so. As a phenomenon the Intention Technique can be thought of as a Will to Healing on the client's behalf by the psycho-energetic therapist.

Internal Electricity: a therapist's sensation of electricity within his or her body, electricity not flowing outward to the client, nor coming inward from the client, but residing within or flowing within the therapist's body.

Intuitive Knowledge: an increase in intuition during the course of psycho-energetic therapy. Well developed intuition can be useful for guiding treatment at the "gut level."

Joy Response: the emotion of joy experienced during the course of psycho-energetic healing.

Laying- on-of-Hands: the psycho-energetic healing technique whereby therapists lay their hands directly upon their client's body.

Love Effect: the tendency for energy work to evoke feelings of love, in part characterized by finding preciousness in and sympathy for the client. The Love Effect evokes the extrapersonal and spiritual.

Meridian Work: the practice of working with meridians during the course of psycho-energetic therapy. Meridian Work implies the phenomenon of feeling the flow of lines of energy over the surface of the client's body.

Movement Sensations: a therapist's sense that energy is moving in or around his or her body.

Paranormal Knowledge: the experience of having knowledge about a client's problems inserted into the mind in the form of words or images from a force beyond, possibly God.

Prayer Technique: the practice of praying for clients during the course of therapy to facilitate the effectiveness of energy work and related phenomena.

Pressure Energy Perception: the perception that energy presses against the skin.

Religious Insight Effect: the experience among energy therapists that exposure to energy helps them to gain insight into the meaning of religious traditions.

Sadness: a dysphoric affect felt by energy healers sometimes in sympathy with client issues. For some psycho-energetic therapists sadness is useful for guiding treatment. Importantly a dysphoric affect generated by the therapist can block divine healing energy if not treated by quiet prayer and meditation.

Somatic Heat: the sensation of heat in some area of the body during the course of energy work. Somatic heating may be experienced in sympathy with a client's issues.

Spiritual Dimension Response: refers to the positive response among therapists that psycho-energetic therapy has a spiritual dimension.

Sympathetic Body Perception: the percept of the therapist experiencing the client's body sensations within his or her own body. This percept help the therapist establish where to send energy.

Sympathy Effect: the common experience of therapists feeling their client's feelings during psycho-energetic healing. The Sympathy Effect may occur when therapists bracket their own feelings in order to understand client feelings while simultaneousy opening energy which can address those feelings.

Tactile Energy Perception: the perception of energy in a recognizably tactile manner. Tactile Energy Perception is characterized by feelings of movement, pressure, temperature, tingling, and the like.

Transcendent Source Belief: the belief that healing energy comes from a source that transcends the therapist. Sources might be universal energy or God.

Universal Source: the psycho-energetic therapist's experience that the source of energy is from the universe.

Unruffling: the practice of smoothing disturbed parts of the client's energy field associated with psycho-somatic distress. This term has also be proposed by Macrae (1987).

Vibration Response: a bodily response to energy characterized by shaking or vibrating.

Conclusion

Ongoing research in the natural sciences continues to establish healing energy as a valid construct. Data mounts that people emit and even employ energy while healing (Sidorov, 2002) and that the energy of healing import is quite objective and real (Oschman, 2000). As objective appreciation of energy increases, the need for the study of the subjective experience of psycho-energetic phenomena continues. By developing a phenomenology of psycho-energetic psychotherapy, the possibility exists for a technical appreciation of the subjectively experienced subtleties across persons. A formal phenomenology of psycho-energetic psychotherapy offers hope of a deep comprehension of the phenomena with implications for advancement in technique, training, and understanding.

STUDY DISCUSSION

Introduction

While each item above contains a "Discussion" section in Appendix 1, further discussion is warranted. To gain an integrated picture of the phenomena that occur during psycho-energetic therapy, an overview of phenomenological experiences appears below. A discussion of especially surprising and interesting item results follows. The final section presents limitations of the study and possible directions of future research.

Overview of phenomenological findings

From responses to the perception items, items concerned with awareness of external stimuli, the following picture of therapists' perceptions emerges: therapists perceive their client's energy on or through their skin as a material density and in the form of tingling or a magnetic force. The sensation is tactile. They additionally perceive their energy field intermingle with the client's field. At times the client's energy will register as a pressure on the skin, and therapists perceive energy flowing within the client's energy system. Some but not all therapists may experience the client's sensations within their own bodies.

From responses to the sensation items, items concerning awareness of internal stimuli, the following picture of therapists' sensations emerges: therapists sense energy flowing through their bodies (rather than from their bodies). The trough-flow of energy occurs in addition to the heating of the hands while other somatic areas also warm. Therapists sense energy moving in and around their bodies. Some but not all therapists sense energy flowing in the direction of the client and experience internal electrical sensations.

From responses to the emotion items, items concerning feeling states, the following picture of therapists' affect emerges: therapists feel love for their clients in addition to feeling what the client feels. Love and sympathy are especially common emotional experiences of psycho-energetic therapists. Some but not all therapists feel joy, sadness, or fear. Some therapists put aside negative feelings which could block the flow of healing energy. Therapists rarely feel sexual excitement or anger.

From responses to the motor items, items concerning movement, the following picture of therapists' motor experiences emerges: therapists vibrate and shake and take involuntary deep breaths. Some but not all therapists experience additional, unusual motor events, like moving more smoothly or slower than usual.

From responses to states of consciousness items, items referring to mental states, the following picture of therapists' consciousness emerges: therapists enter altered states of consciousness described as "higher" and "expanded." Therapists rarely experience normal consciousness. Consciousness during energy therapy tends very much to alter.

From responses to extrapersonal items, items referring to paranormal experiences, the following picture of therapists' extrapersonal experiences emerges: therapists gain knowledge of a client's problem as though the knowledge as an external force inserts it into their minds. Intuitive knowledge of the client's problem increases. Some but not all therapists experience ESP. Some therapists experience angels. Fewer experience demons and miscellaneous spirits.

From responses to spiritual items, items referring to God and the universe, the following picture of therapists' spiritual experiences emerges: therapists experience psycho-energetic therapy as containing a spiritual dimension and find that encountering energy is in itself a spiritual experience. Therapists experience energy as coming from God, and sometimes experience energy as coming from the universe. The effect of exposure to energy is such that therapists experience greater insight into religious traditions.

From responses to technique items, referring to how psycho-energetic therapy is conducted, the following picture of therapists' techniques emerges: therapists lay hands on the client's body, pray for the client, and send energy to the client by intending to do so. Some therapists keep their hands at a distance from the client's body, work with chakras, unruffle disturbed areas of the energy field, and work with meridians.

All three subjects answered "Yes" to the Sixth Sense Question. They believe that emotions and cognitions can be transmitted from one person to another through a route other than the five senses.

Surprises and especially interesting findings

Even for a study this unique, some findings were surprising and/or especially intriguing. That item three under Perception was Tentative and not Significant was surprising. At the workshop I attended with Vazquez, most of the students did experience subtle pressure on their skin that possessed such tangibility and consistency across persons that it could be discussed as a shared perception. However, subject B in my study reported never experiencing this percept. Based on my anecdotal experience, her response may be anomalous. Another surprise in this section was the Insignificance of item six. Neither B nor C reported experiencing their client's energy like a subtle mass around their body much of the time. Again, the negative response contradicted the positive anecdotal evidence I assembled at Vazquez's workshop. There may be something unique about CST that tends to cause energy to be perceived as a subtle pressure and a subtle mass more than in other psycho-energetic paradigms.

Under Sensation, the combined responses to items one and two were intriguing. Item one was Significant; all therapists agreed that they feel energy flow through their bodies 30 or more percent of the time. Item two was Insignificant, however; B and C responded that they never experience energy flowing from their bodies. As B notes, energy "energy does not emanate from me but through me." A reported experiencing energy flow from him 90% of the time, however, his qualification was similar to B's: "Energy flowing from my body to the client is an aspect of it flowing through my body." Together, these facts show that therapists sense energy flow from a source beyond them, with the therapists as vessels through which the energy travels.

Under Sensation, item three was interesting. All therapists reported feeling heat on their hands 80% or more of the time during psycho-energetic therapy. Why this should occur is uncertain, but it is exciting to speculate. Perhaps, upon exposure to the flow of healing energy, therapists undergo physical changes like increased blood flow to the part of the body which focuses the energy and channels it into the client. We know from item two under Technique that all therapists lay their hands on their client 40% or more of the time. Since the hands frequently are the point of contact at which the flow of energy leaves the therapist and enters the client, it follows that energy may especially concentrate in therapists' hands during the course of its flowing. The sensation of heat may represent a sensory registration of high energy concentration.

Under Emotion, item two was intriguing. The therapists reported feeling sexual excitement 10% or less of the time, but A's qualification data had an interesting consistency with the writings of mystics. He wrote that the excitement he feels in the course of psycho-energetic healing "has a similar charge/kinesthetic pleasure" to sexual excitement. This raises the possibility that exposure to energy may provide an excitation akin to sexual excitement. Upon mystic exposure to God - Who is arguably the source of energy - mystics have similar experiences, and some scholars have argued that the sexuality depicted in the Song of Songs is an Old Testament prefiguration of the soul's unity with Jesus (The New International Version Study Bible, text notes, 1985). Similarities may exist in the sensuality of energetic and mystical experience. Both may produce excitement similar to but not identical to sexual excitement.

Item three under Emotion was surprising. All therapists reported feeling love for their clients 90% or more of the time. In their qualification data, A and C made special comment on the frequency with which they feel the feeling. A wrote, "I feel love most often during the experience." C wrote, "É I always É feel love É." Why therapists would so often feel love is mysterious. C believes that love is the energy of healing. If this is the case, love would be the emotional registration of the energy of healing flowing through the therapist's body.

Item nine under Emotion was surprising. The item was Insignificant because B and C reported sending their client energy encoded with positive emotion 0% of the time. Their responses may be accounted for by the fact that they see themselves as passive vehicles through which energy flows. A was different, however. He sends his clients energy encoded with positive emotion 100% of the time. It may be that psycho-energetic therapists can be divided into "passive" and "active" energy encoders.

Item one under Motor was intriguing. On this Significant item, therapists reported shaking or vibrating during psycho-energetic healing 20% or more of the time. Again, a correspondence emerges between psycho-energetic and religious experience. Quakers, Shakers, and modern charismatics experience shaking or vibrating in the course of intensive religious encounters. Energy may create unusual neurological events which account for the muscular activity that gives rise to shaking and vibrating.

Under Consciousness, item two was intriguing. Therapists reported entering into altered states of consciousness 90% or more of the time. B described the altered consciousness as a "higher state of awareness" in which she sensed "tranquility where everything is harmonious." C described her consciousness as "expanded," also noting that her expanded consciousness may linger after psycho-energetic healing has concluded. Exposure to energy may result in brain wave changes. When meditators meditate, they experience brain wave changes that may generalize to post-meditation periods (Benson and Stuart, 1992). Based on C's qualification data, some similar phenomenon may occur with psycho-energetic therapists.

It is also important to note that on item one under Consciousness, A reported experiencing normal consciousness 70% of the time, while on item two he reported experiencing altered consciousness 90% of the time. He may have misunderstood the questions, forgotten the mathematics involved, or wished to communicate a unique consciousness characterized simultaneously by normalcy and alteration.

Responses to the Extrapersonal items were surprising. On item one therapists reported experiencing clear words or images about their client's problems that suddenly appeared in their mind from paranormal sources. Therapists experienced this knowledge insertion 60% or more of the time. On item three therapists reported experiencing heightened intuitive knowledge about their client's problems 60% or more of the time. Therapists clearly believe they gain extrasensory knowledge of their clients in the course of psycho-energetic healing. In her qualification data of item two, however, B noted, "I don't think of this as ESP but as a gift of knowledge from the Holy Spirit." This underscores how the world-view of different therapists influences their interpretation of identical phenomena.

It was also surprising that items four, five and six never reached significance, although all therapists at one time or another have experienced extrapersonal entities like demons, angels, and spirits. In none of their responses to these three items were therapists in agreement that they all experience entities 20% or more of the time. On the whole, such experiences may not be all that common. Also, Qualification data shows that therapists experience entities literally or figuratively, depending on their world view. Influenced by her orthodox Christian theology, B experiences entities as objectively real persons. More liberal, C experiences entities as manifestations of her client's personality. Again, world-view may influence a therapist's experience of psycho-energetic phenomena.

Responses to Spiritual items were surprising because of the degree of Significance and agreement among the therapists on the phenomenology of psycho-energetic spirituality. Therapists believe that the psycho-energetic experience contains spiritual dimensions 90% or more of the time. Therapists' mean score on this item was 96%, a mean identical to the pilot study's mean on this same question (see item five in the pilot study). New therapists and master therapists find spiritual experience in psycho-energetic healing. Further, on item two therapists found that encountering energy was in its self a spiritual experience 90% or more of the time. On item three they experienced the source of energy as coming from God 80% or more of the time. On item five they reported gaining greater insight into religious traditions as the result of contact with energy. On item six they reported having a spiritual experience during the course of psycho-energetic experience 90% or more of the time. The only Tentative item was four. B never experiences healing energy as coming from the universe. Her well-developed belief in a personal God may guide her away from experiencing the universe as the source of her energy. Taken as a whole it is clear that spiritual experience across psycho-energetic therapists occurs frequently.

Under Technique there are some responses worth mentioning. Therapists reported laying hands on their clients 40% or more of the time, sending clients energy simply by intending to do so 50% or more of the time, and praying for clients 80% or more of the time. Three Significant items all concerned technical aspects of psycho-energetic healing which were compatible with pre-psychodynamic Christian healing techniques. Items that concerned psycho-energetic techniques that concerned practices well outside the traditional Christian practices (e.g. item three - chakras; item seven - meridians) were marked as occurring 0% of the time by the Christian B, while A and C responded to these items above the level of Significance. Results illustrate that therapists' beliefs influence not only phenomenological experiences but also psycho-energetic technique.

Limitations of the study

While this study was small it produced data about common experiences and a tentative technical vocabulary. The extent to which these findings can be generalized to a larger number of psycho-energetic therapists represents a yet outstanding question. Because the sample was small and comprised of three proficient, long term practitioners, it is by definition not a representative sample of the population of energy therapists. A larger, randomly selected sample would have improved the generalizability of the findings. It is important to note, however, that this study's method was phenomenological and accomplished its goal of describing and interpreting experiences of expert therapists. Additionally, the study did not include a way to validate its findings. This could have been overcome by the most basic phenomenological method of validation, which entails returning to the subjects and asking, "Is this what you experienced?" Or validation might have been pursued by circulating lists of common experiences established by the initial findings and asking a larger section of psycho-energetic therapists if the experiences and constructs established represent their own experiences. The problem of validity itself is problematic. Phenomenological science seeks validity through personal verification, the natural sciences seek validity through repeatable measurements; sometimes validity rests upon faith. While it is regrettable that this study did not include a phenomenologically sound validating component, many readers would probably like to see complementary verification via natural scientific methods such as by repeatable increases in electromagnetic SQUID measures when therapists report psycho-energetic "through-flow." Perhaps future research will work toward this. Also, the credibility of the Psycho-Energetic Healing Questionnaire would increase if greater reliability and validity could be established. Test-retest, for example, could establish reliability over time while multiple item readers, familiar with psycho-energetic psychotherapy, could improve validity by consensually agreeing upon specific items and placing them into the various item categories such as "Emotional," "Extrapersonal," and so forth. Another problem with the instrumentation concerns its length. Toward the end of the instrument, therapists provided less and less qualified data. Shortening the instrument or administering the instrument over two sessions could prevent this. Also, C was most reluctant to provide comprehensive Qualification Data and this compromised the amount of verbal available to produce a larger picture of the experiences. Another study might provide some sort of incentive system to encourage therapists to be as forthcoming as possible with their Qualification Data. Therapist's world view is another limiting factor, although it is a welcome limitation. B's theology, for example, influenced many of her responses. To me this was welcome, because her theology helped to inform her own and our understanding of psycho-energetic phenomena. Any researcher desirous to generate less culturally influenced data might consider designing a more "culture free" instrument than my own.

Areas of future research

This study provides rich and provocative data, and suggests many avenues of research. As stated above, future research may seek to duplicate and/or dispute these findings, using a larger sample size and an improved or different instrument. Projects might include experiments using SQUID technology to establish the objective, measurable fluctuations in energy when therapists report subjective psycho-energetic experiences in much the same way that EEG measures "legitimized" the reported bliss of meditators. Another project might involve establishing energetic increase using objective measurement devices when, say, a Christian therapist intends to heal a client. Projects of this type could begin to establish the clinical reality (or unreality) of psycho-energetic interventions. Other profitable research might involve studying questions raised by specific responses to various items or the technical terms derived from them. Such research, for example, might seek to understand the interplay between therapists' physiology and subjective experiences during psycho-energetic outcome, or might study which subjective states correlate most with positive therapeutic outcome. This latter area of research would be helpful in teaching psycho-energetic healing. Student therapists could learn to monitor various experiences to gauge the extent to which the whole of their phenomenology is in a healing mode. Such an inquiry could even promote the identification of "good" psycho-energetic therapists. Other profitable research includes scholarship geared to understanding the obvious correspondences between psycho-energetic and religious/spiritual experience conducted by teams of mystics, religious scholars, and scientists. Since all therapists answered "Yes" to the sixth sense question, it would be intriguing to further explore the possible interplay between the perineural system, psycho-energetic healing, and sixth sense-related events, in the context of Becker's (1985, 1990, 1992a; 1992b) theories. Another important area of inquiry concerns ethics. Since many clients have been psychologically wounded, touch has traumatic implications. Ethical panels might work to establish the rules of psycho-energetic healing, especially when interventions concern touch.

Conclusion

Whatever direction future research takes, it appears certain that psycho-energetic psychotherapy deserves further study. Still in its infancy, psycho-energetic research may validate age-old assertions and support the claims of pioneering scientists and therapists. There is much work to be done.

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The Anthropological and Scientific Case for Psycho-Energetic Healing Part 2

by Charles Zeiders, PsyD