This psychologically streamlined theoretical base allows energy approaches to be readily integrated with virtually any other form of psychological treatment, including psychodynamic therapies, cognitive-behavioral therapies, narrative therapies, Transactional Analysis, Gestalt, bioenergetics, art therapy, addictions counseling, and therapies that use hypnosis, guided imagery, or meditation. Energy interventions also weave well into couples, family, and group psychotherapy, other personal development approaches, and into organizational contexts. Energy interventions have also been successfully used with special populations, such as those suffering with dissociative disorders, addictions, PTSD, and eating disorders (several such applications are detailed in Fred Gallo’s anthology, Energy Psychology and  Psychotherapy, 2002, one of the first titles in the authoritative Energy Psychology Series by W.W. Norton Professional Books).

Although energy interventions themselves are psychodynamically atheoretical, they can serve as a powerful adjunct for facilitating deep psychodynamic change. In addition to reflecting on early experiences that shaped the client, and analyzing here-and-now transference dynamics, if deeply-ingrained patterns are targeted for energy interventions, change can often be induced with greater speed and precision.

DSM Axis II personality disorders are a good example. The South America study found tapping methods to be only marginally indicated with personality disorders, judging them as less effective than other therapies (grouping them in its 4^th category of 5). But other practitioners are finding ways to "tap away" at aspects of the personality structure, going ever deeper with energy methods that work with core beliefs, early decisions, dissociated parts of the personality, trauma-based coping strategies, mythic structures, "past life" residue, and transference/counter-transference issues.

Combining an energy approach with established systems that target specific populations or that possess other clinical strengths can increase the potency of the energy approach as well as of the more conventional treatment. Energy Psychology Interactive provides a knowledge base from which you can experiment in incorporating an energy perspective with other clinical approaches you have already mastered. For instance, while meridian-based treatments in themselves have not been particularly effective with major depression, they have been effectively combined  with cognitive-behavior therapy.

Because energy psychology is such a new area, much of this territory is still uncharted. The way that EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) has been integrated with other therapies is, however, instructive. In an anthology, edited by Francine Shapiro, the originator of EMDR, leaders from within major schools of psychotherapy explore how EMDR interfaces with their own system (EMDR as an Integrative Psychotherapy Approach: Experts of Diverse Orientations Explore the Paradigm Prism, American Psychological Association, 2002). These clinicians offer guidelines and techniques, along with substantial case material, showing how to integrate EMDR into the therapist’s primary modality, including psychoanalysis, cognitive-behavior therapy, schema-focused therapy, multi-modal therapy, hypnosis, experiential therapy, feminist therapy, family therapy, transpersonal psychology, and biological interventions. The clinical innovations and experiences archived in this volume provide valuable instruction and, by analogy, suggest many implications for integrating energy psychology with other clinical approaches.

Preliminary formulations for integrating energy psychology itself with other forms of psychotherapy are presented in several chapters of the Norton anthology on Energy  Psychology and Psychotherapy, with a focus particularly on hypnosis, EMDR, Adlerian psychotherapy, and spiritual approaches.

The author of this program (DF) has for nearly three decades been finding ways to influence the deep "personal myths" that structure an individual’s feelings, thought, and behavior. Most recently he has been integrating an energy approach into that model. A preliminary outline of this consolidation (the handout from a CEU presentation on this topic called Guiding Myths and the Energy Body: Energy Treatments for Deep Psychodynamic  Change) is offered here to provide an example of how such integrations might be conceived.

Click here to jump to these initial formulations.

For a more detailed overview of the personal mythology model, click here to access the author’s
 "Personal Mythology and Psychotherapy: Myth-Making in Psychological and Spiritual Development"
(American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1997)

1. Participants will be able to conceptualize a client’s presenting problem in terms of the dysfunctional or conflicting personal myths that underlie that problem.
    

2. Participants will be able to describe a five-stage process for resolving this dysfunction or conflict, leading to a freshly conceived guiding myth.
    

3. Participants will be able to describe an energy-based technique that helps facilitate the successful completion of each of these 5 stages.

Like memories, PERSONAL MYTHS are stored within both the body’s chemistry and its energy fields.
 

… your brain chemically codes events and then uses
    imagery and story to process this coded experience.

Humans, in fact, live more by symbols than by instinct. Living by symbols and story is the essence of myth-making.

Myth-making is among nature’s most elegant schemes. It is the way the human brain, the most sophisticated single piece of handiwork seen in nature, structures its highest achievement, consciousness. It is through myth that we grapple with life’s most basic and most profound questions!

1. The need to comprehend the natural world in a meaningful way
    

2. The search for a marked pathway through succeeding epochs of the human lifespan
    

3. The desire to establish fulfilling personal and work relationships within a community
    

4. The longing to participate in the vast wonder and mystery of the cosmos (after Joseph Campbell)
    

1. A prevailing guiding myth (thesis) becomes outdated or otherwise dysfunctional.
    

2. The psyche generates alternative myths, one of these gathers critical mass as a "counter-myth" (antithesis), and it comes to challenge the prevailing myth.
    

3. The two engage in a deep struggle, largely outside the person’s awareness, but impacting (and often creating havoc within) perceptions, feelings, thoughts, and behavior.
    

4. A synthesis, a new guiding myth, is gradually achieved which, ideally, incorporates the qualities of both the prevailing myth and the counter-myth that best support the person’s wholesome development.
    

5. This new myth is reconciled with the person’s life structure and begins to shape the person’s thoughts, choices, and actions.
    

1. PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERVENTIONS have been formulated that facilitate the tasks that must be accomplished for each of these critical stages to be successfully negotiated (this is the basis of the book The Mythic Path).
    

2. ENERGY INTERVENTIONS bring in a fresh and highly potent way for further facilitating the successful passage through each stage. That is the basis of this presentation. Personal myths are stored within both the brain’s chemistry and the body’s energy fields.

The Mythic Path program provides a series of personal rituals for revisiting and healing these childhood experiences.

The Energy Intervention:

begins with a SUD rating of each memory judged to be significant for the issue being addressed

corrects for neurological disorganization and psychological reversals (it is a major piece of work to affirm "Even if I continue to organize my life around . . . , I deeply love and accept myself.")

brings the SUD down to 0 for each, working with meridian, chakra, and radiant circuit treatment points

The COUNTER-MYTH emerges spontaneously from deep in the psyche, a creative integration of hopes and dreams, treasured childhood experiences, significant role models, transpersonal apprehension, and the inspiration offered by the culture in its leaders, literature, and triumphs.

The Mythic Path program provides a series of personal rituals for examining the counter-myth’s solutions to the problems created by the old myth, and for reaching deeply into the psyche for fresh perceptions and guidance.

ENERGY INTERVENTIONS cultivate receptiveness for deep intuitive insight (neurovasculars, hook-ups, radiant energies, etc.).

The DIALECTIC occurs naturally and organically, without conscious intent and largely outside the person’s awareness.

The Mythic Path program provides a series of personal rituals for bringing the inner conflict into awareness and lending it conscious support and guidance.

The Energy Intervention:

embraces and supports both sides of the conflict (the old myth still carries the wisdom of the past)

corrects for neurological disorganization and psychological reversals

lowers to 0 or near 0 the SUD associated with holding both sides of the conflict

The NEW GUIDING MYTH emerges as a synthesis of the prevailing myth and the counter-myth.

The Mythic Path program provides a series of personal rituals for strengthening the thought field of this new myth.

The Energy Interventions:

use energy checks to refine the wording of the new myth

correct for neurological disorganization and psychological reversals while holding the new myth

anchor the new myth neurologically with methods such as the temporal tap

draw upon techniques such as Gallo’s "Outcome Projection Procedure," mentally and energetically projecting the new myth into one’s life

WEAVING the new guiding myth into the structure of one’s life is the final stage of a mythically-oriented approach.

The Mythic Path program provides a series of personal rituals for beginning to live from the new myth, including the use of affirmations, focused visualization, changes in self-talk, behavioral rehearsals, contingency management, and behavioral contracts.

The most important ENERGY INTERVENTION is to provide the client with a treatment routine (based on the treatments needed in the office) that can be applied "in vivo" when situations that beckon the new myth result in old behaviors or a rise in the SUD level. Also valuable for anchoring the new myth is a daily energy routine to keep the energies clear and minimize neurological disorganization, paired with affirmations, focused visualization, and rituals for anchoring the new myth into the energy body, such as the chakra anchoring method, "blowing out" the energy of the old myth, and "zipping in" the energy of the new myth.

Combined with a basic energy routine (such as the three thumps, the cross crawl, The Wayne Cook posture, the crown pull, the neurolymphatic flush, and the "blow-out/zip up), this chakra-based ritual can be a potent way of mindfully anchoring into the energy body a new life myth derived from the 5-stage process.

Tap and cradle into each chakra affirmations that express the new myth, worded in terms of the function of that chakra and stated with passion. For instance, if the affirmation has to do with living with joy and spontaneity, you might at the 3rd chakra tap in "My innate Power feeds my joy and spontaneity" (capitalized to denote the archetypal sense of the chakra’s quality). Imagine the tapping as opening the energies of the chakra to feed the quality you wish to cultivate. Next, with either hand, make three or four figure-8 patterns over the area. Then cradle the chakra with a statement such as "I bring joy and spontaneity to my innate Power."

Continue from the root chakra to the crown chakra, working with the themes of 1) Primal Force, 2) Creativity, 3) Power, 4) Love, 5) Expressiveness, 6) Comprehension, and 7) Connection with the Cosmos. Breathe fully. Finish with a crown pull and "zip it in" or "weave it in" (figure 8s) deliberately and with an affirmation directed toward the heart of the matter.

References

Eden, D. (1999). Energy Medicine. New York: Tarcher/Penguin Putnam.

Feinstein, D. (2003). Energy Psychology Interactive: An Integrated Book and CD Program for Learning the Fundamentals of Energy Psychology. Ashalnd, OR: Innersource.