September 2004, Volume 4, No. 3

Autumns of Our Lives

Image credit: Akiyoshi Kitaoka

Editor's Musings

Our world can be perceived and experienced as matter or as energy. Einstein suggested this early in the 20th Century in his famous equation, E = mc2 and modern physics has amply confirmed this theory. Matter and energy are two sides of the same coin. Newtonian medicine focuses on the matter side of the equation and has been slow to absorb that the body can also be addressed as energies. Healers and many other CAM therapies address the energy side of this equation. Healers interact with bioenergies in two broad ways.

1. By sensing the bioenergies in and around the body, healers can perceive what is happening in the body. Most people can sense these energies with their hands. Some see them as auras of color around the body. Others may pick up information from the body as different sensory impressions, such as smell or taste. Some intuitives find that their minds translate this information as words when it filters through to their conscious awareness.

By interpreting their perceptions of the bioenergy fields, healers can identify a person's state of being on several levels: physical, emotional, mental, relational and spiritual. Assessing bioenergy states, they may note excesses, depletions, blocks or energies that indicate states of dis-ease or disease.

Healers report that the bioenergy fields not only reflect the state of the person, but are also templates for what is occurring in the body.

2. Healers can use their own consciousness and bioenergies to adjust abnormalities in careseekers' bioenergy fields. The biofield templates will then alter what is happening in the body, bringing about improvements in health....

The complexity of the task of analyzing healing is evidenced by Table 1, detailing a broad spectrum of items considered important by experienced caregivers involved in offering and teaching healing. This is a long but by no means a comprehensive list, nor does it address how to implement the inherent recommendations suggested by these items as factors that may influence healing...

Autumns of Our Lives

The author describes changing attitudes toward dying in America and her personal experience with the loss of her husband from cancer in 1993. She nursed her husband at home until he died, with the guidance of Dr. Anna Lups, a physician trained in therapeutic care for the dying which is based on the philosophy of the Austrian mystic and scientist Rudolf Steiner (1861- 1925). Elements included in this particular protocol include use of homeopathy, massage, creating an atmosphere of peace and beauty, detoxifying the body with enemas, and minimizing the use of drugs in order to allow the people who are dying to be as conscious as possible in order to meet their death.

The author also describes the support of the community after the death and the involvement of

Holes

How is it possible to bear the grief of losing

My companion, friend, lover, husband, and family?

The holes created in my life are too numerous to be counted Do numbers even matter?

Who am I?

Once stripped of him, of his presence-

What is left of me?

Less than a shell

Whose lonely spirit is drifting More wildly than a little leaf in an autumn storm

Just as cut off, tossed about, No roots, no destination, some inkling of origin perhaps?

Where am I going?

And why?

When every movement appears to take more energy

Than this fragile leaf can muster

No memories are easing the strained breath

Why are you not out there?

How dare you leave!

(More in IJHC September 2004, Volume 4, No. 3)

Research

This study examined the long-term effects of Reiki, a form of energetic healing, on symptoms of psychological depression and self-perceived stress as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Hopelessness (HS), and Perceived Stress (PSS) scales. Forty-five participants in need of healing were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Group 1 - hands-on Reiki; Group 2 - non-touch Reiki; or Group 3 - distance Reiki placebo. All groups were blind to treatment conditions. Reiki practitioners provided participants with a free 1 to 1 1/2 hour treatment each week over a period of 6 weeks. Pretest analyses demonstrated no significant difference between groups. After completion of treatment, significant differences were noted between treatment and control groups (p < .05), and 1 year later, these findings weremaintained. Fourteen subjects were then selected on the basis of high and low change scores obtained from pretest to follow-up data collection. Seven subjects demonstrating the greatest change scores, and seven subjects exhibiting the least change were selected for qualitative data collection based on interviews and subsequent content analysis. Findings demonstrated that high and low change subjects differed only on the variable of skepticism, and nearly all subjects reported experiences of deep relaxation, calming, increased energy flow, and greater connection to Spirit as a result of Reiki treatments.

Wholistic Approaches

"Tessa" was diagnosed with a stage four mixed small and large cell follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 51. She was treated at Dr. Burzynski's clinic in Houston, Texas. Her treatment was supported by Thought Field Therapy¨ (TFT) procedures such as eliminating the trauma and anxiety associated with having cancer as well as treatments for Psychological Reversals (PR), which is assumed to promote greater bioenergy healing flow. Unpleasant side effects of necessary medications were also greatly reduced or eliminated with a treatment recently developed by Dr Callahan, who founded and developed TFT. The combined treatments were successful and she has been cancer free for a year and a half.

This article provides a framework for understanding how traumatic experience impacts the whole organism. Distorted thought process and projection, defensive verbal expression, tension pattern, disturbed subtle energy field, inhibited breathing, and characteristically-held body posture all exhibit the nature of the specific physical and emotional traumatic experiences of the individual. Accessing the information available within the clusters of symptoms and understanding how to facilitate the opening and release of the held memory enables a more effective modality for change in psychotherapy. This author also uses her personal experience in this therapeutic framework to speak to the spiritual transformations that naturally evolve when healing of trauma occurs.

Over the past two issues of IJHC, we have explored the long-term effects of child abuse/neglect, and the initial steps required for recovery. A brief summary will bring the final phases into focus. People who were abused as children develop a tear in the mind-body fabric, as well as a separation of the spirit from the mind and body. In the wake of that trauma, four persisting inner states are created, namely the "wounded inner child," the "battlefield," the "void," and the "inner abuser." The last article took us through the healing of the wounded inner child and the battlefield. We are now ready to consider how to face the void and then the inner abuser. This concludes this 3-part series on adult survivors of abuse, as the total reintegration of body, mind, and spirit leads to a recovery of the soul.

Diagnosing the Void

There are few things in Medicine that I can predict with 100% certainty, but decades of experience have proven that if you were severely abused as a child, you do have an inner void. The worse the abuse was, the deeper the void will be. Many people report that they "live" at the edge of the "void" every day of their life, fearing they are about to fall in. Others feel as if they are living their life at the bottom of the void, in a state of isolation and depression. The void is the cause of many addictions, deep/dark depressions, and feelings of profound emptiness...

Anything can be healed.

One or Two Months to Live When I had terminal cancer in 1975, I had been told that I had one or two months to live, and that the end might come very suddenly, any moment, if I coughed or sneezed. I was faced with a reality in which each day was possibly my last day, each hour my last hour, and I recognized that for whatever limited time I had remaining, I wanted to be happy.

Living a compromise made no sense to me. Since each meal was possibly the last one I would ever have, I wanted to eat whatever I had an appetite for, whatever my body was asking for. It didn't make sense to me to eat food I didn't enjoy just because someone else thought it would be healthy for me... When an individual who has been out of balance has made the decision to return to balance, they must make it a high priority project. Nothing else must be more important. Particularly in the case of a catastrophic illness, the return to health necessarily becomes more important than family, friends, or job. When there has been a recognition of a path to health, nothing must interfere with that path. The development and maintenance of a positive mental attitude is imperative...

Wholistic News Reviews

Taking A Spiritual History

Psychoeducational group intervention impacting mood and glycemic control for diabetics

The use of hypnosis and existential psychotherapy with end-stage patients

Mindfulness meditation and heart disease-results of a pilot study

Childhood abuse and later medical disorders in women

Humor

Poetry

Book Reviews