Pondering the future directions of Energy Psychology (EP)...

Yes, we need to systematically document and research EP efficacy.

BUT... I believe we should invest in EP research not just for the sake of making the point that EP is effective - to convince colleagues, the public, insurance companies and governmental agencies who might approve and promote greater uses of EP.

I hope we are invested in EP to promote a method that has potentials for deeply transforming global healthcare and global consciousness.

My wish list:

That we hold the vision of promoting EP not only in formal randomized, RCT research but in other ways as well.

That we promote EP work in integrity - working first on ourselves so that we can model that which we teach, sounding a clear, healing energetic note to which others can resonate.

That we consider EP a research project in global healthcare transformation. That we keep our awareness open to other opportunities - in addition to formal research - for promoting uses of EP.
e.g.
- As preventive and therapeutic interventions in schools.
Imagine a world in which children grow up not needing to carry the baggage of childhood hurts, fears and angers that leave us susceptible to manipulation of these feelings by politicians and others.

- As prevention and treatment for compassion fatigue in therapists and other caregivers
When caregivers learn to clear their PTSDs and secondary PTSDs, they will understand how to help others to do the same, and to use EP in other ways.

- As an adjunct to pain management and for other ailments
I'm gathering and documenting reports of remarkable recoveries with EP and other healing approaches for publication in the International Journal of Healing and Caring - www.ijhc.org.
I have several people treated by or otherwise known to Gary Craig who had remarkable recoveries from illness and we are getting documentation from their doctors to confirm this.
 
- To help people of prominence and influence who can be gateways to public and institutional awareness of the benefits of EP
Let's keep visioning EP on Oprah and media.

- To see EP in industrial and business settings, to lower healthcare costs that are seriously affecting the bottom line of many businesses.
Personal contacts with this in mind will eventually bear fruit

- To help people who are stressed by the impending economic meltdown and will be severely stressed when it arrives and as it drags on
How about visioning EP in economic institutions where transforming fears into concerns could be productive

- To attend to the qualitative aspects of EP benefits that go beyond symptom relief, such as learning to connect with and trust our intuition (through muscle testing and proxy healing); connecting with higher Self awareness (through observing the benefits of love, compassion, inclusion of spiritual components in affirmations/ setup wording)

- To bring EP to parts of the world that are desperately in need of better health care.
See TFT helping in Nigeria in Julie Roberts, PhD, Healing Trauma in War Torn Countries, International Journal of Healing and Caring January, 2009, 9(1), 1-5.

Abstract

Women for Women International (WFWI) helps victims of war become self sufficient in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Sudan. WFWI conducts year-long programs for participants, providing financial aid, job training, rights awareness and leadership education. They also want to help participants deal with the often severe trauma they experience during war. I have adapted my Energy Psychology methodology called Clearing Limits Energetically with Acupressure Release (CLEAR^TM) so that it may be used in groups in short, onehour sessions as a part of WFWI's program. In July 2008, WFWI sent me to Nigeria to test CLEAR with its participants to see if it could translate into other cultures and to see if the women would accept it. In this article, I explain CLEAR and the pilot program in Nigeria with WFWI facilitators and participants.

- To transform healthcare from "Me: doctor/ therapist/ prescriber of treatments that I administer; You: patient who patiently listens to and obeys my orders" to "Me: teacher/ guide/ counselor for self-treatment/ self-healing ways to improve/ transform your life; You: student who takes whatever advice fits your needs/ level of understanding/ cultural traditions and applies it to shift your understandings of your stresses and stress reactions, to address your symptoms, and to transform your body, emotions, mind, relationships and spirit."
See: Bernie Siegel. Respants: Information, Inspiration and Expiration International Journal of Healing and Caring, January, 2002, 2(1), 1-5.

- To shift EP from its apparent (to me - with caveat that perhaps this is my misperception) narrow focus within the EP community to be accepted by the conventional healthcare establishment as a 'legitimate therapy' amongst the 'accepted therapies,' and to create a new therapy that teaches self-care rather than promoting passivity in careseekers.
  This might involve developing two streams/ levels of EP practitioners:
1. Those who are licensed in conventional healthcare modalities and have license to diagnose and "treat;" and
2. A new stream of EP teachers/ instructors, much like yoga teachers who instruct people in physical exercises that can be transformative for their health, lifestyles and consciousness as well as for their bodies.
  It might e healthy for us to hold in our awareness that Gary Craig, who has done more than any other single person to promote EP, is already a pioneer in this new category of healthcare caregiver. This stream of caregivers would teach people self-healthcare, not treat diagnoses. (In addition to Gary, Ingrid Dinter has been most helpful to me in seeing possibilities of this approach.)

- To develop provisions for treatment for Veterans who are on the one hand ignored and denied care by the VA. Ingrid Dinter and others are pioneering in this area.
See needs for this:
Wounded veterans battle for treatment at home
02:34 PM CST on Thursday, January 1, 2009
A report by the Government Accountability Office this year says there are 392,000 pending appeals. The average takes 657 days, according to the GAO. Jeffrey Taggart's has taken more than two years.

- Most important of all, IMHO, as treatment for the collective PTSD of humanity - that I believe is the underlying cause of human abuses of each other and the environment, that will lead us very soon to collective suicide of humanity and genocide of most life as we know it on our planet, unless we make major changes in the collective consciousness.
See: Ho'oponopono, the Hawaiian healing approach, and my adaptation combined with WHEE to clear the PTSD from humanity's collective consciousness - hopefully to help us avert collective suicide:

Brief version

Full version

Blessings

Dan Benor - WHEE MD