David Grudermeyer, Ph.D.
Rebecca Grudermeyer, Ph.D.
© 2002

NOTE: David Grudermeyer and Rebecca Grudermeyer, two of the founders of the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology, have studied in depth most of the approaches to energy psychology developed by the leaders and innovators within that organization. This paper presents principles for maximizing treatment success based on this broad exposure to existing energy psychology approaches, along with their extensive clinical experience. First written for the Energy Psychology Interactive CD, the paper is based on a talk delivered by David Grudermeyer at the First European Conference on Energy Psychology, July 6, 2001, Fűrigen, Switzerland.

Many of the issues raised in this paper are addressed in greater detail in the authors’ The Energy  Psychology Desktop Companion (Del Mar, CA: Willingness Works Press, 2000, www.willingness.com), which also provides multiple, subject-related lists of clinical resources and academic references.

INTRODUCTION

All good psychotherapy serves to reorganize the client’s energy field in a manner that helps free the client of psychological disturbances. Energy psychology is distinguished by approaching this in a deliberate, focused, and systematic manner.

In our own practice, we use energy methods as treatment tools, applying them within a broader therapeutic context, rather than as a complete treatment approach within itself. Five keys for making treatment more rapid, effective, and lasting, using the energy-based methods presented in this CD, are addressed in this paper. When treatment isn’t going as well as you believe it can, troubleshooting in those five areas will likely reveal the source(s) of interference. These five areas are: 1) Specify & Attune to the "Top Priority Issue;" 2) Establish Readiness to Benefit From the Treatment; 3) Select the Priority Treatment Method; 4) Confirm Full Completion of the Treatment; 5) Upgrade the Undisturbed State With Peak Functioning.

1. SPECIFYING THE TOP PRIORITY ISSUE: The first key to a successful therapeutic outcome, after preliminaries such as developing rapport have been established, involves identifying the issue that is selected as the focus for the treatment (the initial issue as well as each subsequent issue) and attuning to that issue. The rule for choosing this "top priority issue" is based on the principle of highest leverage. What issue will yield the most effect from the simplest intervention? What issue is going to help the client move forward most effectively?
   
   For some clients the initial "top priority issue" might focus on the root cause of the presenting problem. This could involve identifying a trauma that underlies the presenting problem and clearing it, or addressing even deeper issues having to do with the client’s basic, inherited temperament.
   
   Other clients won’t be ready to open the treatment to issues involving deep trauma or basic temperament until they feel some relief of more immediate presenting problems.
   
   In addition to correctly identifying the general territory of the "top priority issue," effective treatment also targets the "right" level or aspect of that issue. Is the next area for the client to focus upon "the tightness in my chest" or "the moment of the car crash?"
   
   Operationally, if you don’t get the results you intended, you’re most likely to find that the glitch lies in one or more of the five areas discussed in this paper. So, one way to use this paper is as a guide to troubleshooting when treatment doesn’t go as you think it should. For instance, one thing you’ll want to investigate is whether you really did accurately identify the "top priority issue" (i.e., if you didn’t use energy checking, did you guess wrong about what the top priority issue is, or, if you were using energy checking, was there deception or error in the energy check).
   
   Finding the "top priority issue" often emerges naturally from the clinical interview. In the first session, the interview might go into considerable depth, but even after the basics have been established, the client might be asked: "Intuitively select the aspect of the issue that is the most important part of the problem to start with today?" (deliberately phrased in a way likely to call more from the client’s intuition than preconceived ideas). As practitioners, we also listen to our own intuition. If we believe the client is focusing on an issue that will not lead to the best therapeutic outcome, we may ask if we can share our hunch, leading to further dialogue.
   
   Energy checking can also be used to verify and further refine the top priority issue (as well as with each of the other keys to successful treatment). First a few comments about energy checking. Therapeutic interviewing can and should be geared toward attuning clients to their intuition. We use energy checking more as a way of getting a "second opinion." It is also a way of attuning our own therapeutic intuition. Energy checks are the "training wheels" for developing the therapist’s intuition, much like children may first learn to ride a bike using training wheels to help them until they can balance themselves on their own.
   
   Once the dialogue has established the top priority issue, the wording to verify it with an energy check might be as simple as, "The moment of the accident is the most important issue to start with today." If the energy check verifies it, continue. If not, discuss the client’s understanding of the discrepancy.
    

2. THE PRINCIPLE OF ATTUNEMENT: Once the issue has been selected, the client needs to be attuned to the issue during the tapping or other energy treatment. Sometimes this is simply a matter of asking the client to keep the issue in focus. But often the person has been doing everything in his or her power not to experience the feelings associated with the issue, and it is not an easy matter to will an ongoing attunement to the problem.
    

3. METHODS OF ATTUNEMENT: The simplest method for attunement is to ask the client to tune into the problem and to let you know when it is sufficiently attuned to proceed. An energy check can verify: "Are you tuned into the problem enough at this time to effectively receive the treatment?" The question, "Are you still tuned in?" should periodically be asked and verified, particularly following periods of dialogue or heightened emotional reactions. Additionally, techniques such as the "leg lock" and the "third eye up" can energetically lock  in  the problem state, so that it can be treated.
    

4. METHODS OF EVALUATING PROGRESS: A final way to help a client remain attuned to an issue is to get a baseline measure of the extent of the problem, and then to regularly re-measure in order to determine how treatment is progressing. In addition to self-report, there are commonly used subjective scales clients are asked to use, including distress levels (SUD), subjective units of elation (SUE), validity of cognition (VOC), validity of imagery (VOI), positive belief scores (PBS), muscular units of distress (MUD), etc. These scales can also be cross-checked using energy checking methods.

1. ELECTROMAGNETIC READINESS: When a person is functioning optimally, the electromagnetic output at the top of the head, feet, and hands holds a positive charge. The output at the bottom of the feet and in the palms of the hands is negatively charged. If these polarizations are reversed, or if there is a non-polarization (i.e., there is no difference in charge between tops and bottoms), other energy treatments will not be as effective. This and a number of other areas of electromagnetic and neurological readiness for treatment are addressed in the "Neurological Disorganization" module of this CD. Because "neurological disorganization" is only one of a number of sources and symptoms of non-polarization, we refer to this broad category of electromagnetic unreadiness to benefit from treatment as "non-polarization."
    

2. 100% PERMISSION TO TREAT. The requirement here is the unconscious mind’s permission, or the body’s permission, rather than the conscious mind’s permission. We use Judith Swack’s wording for energy checking permission: "Do we have 100% permission to treat this issue?" or "Do we not have 100% permission to treat this issue?" If you don’t have the unconscious mind’s or the body’s permission to treat the issue, treatment will not progress, whether using an energy approach, talk therapy, or any other method. If the energy check shows that you don’t have 100% permission to treat, ask the client what he or she believes is the source of non-permission. This in turn becomes the new priority treatment focus (until the electromagnetic "objections" are cleared). If the client’s first response is "I don’t know," go deeper with your questions and/or use energy checking to uncover clues. This is a critical issue for a successful treatment outcome.
    

3. INTERPERSONAL READINESS FOR THE THERAPY TO PROCEED. If rapport has not been adequately established, therapeutic success will be compromised. As an aside, in treatment approaches that limit themselves to energy-based interventions, the client’s transference tends to go more to the technique than to the therapist. Counter-transference, however, is heavily interpersonal, because counter-transference can occur as much at the energy level as the more obvious levels known to conventional psychotherapy. If the therapist is neurologically disorganized, this will affect the treatment. If the therapist has any psychological reversals regarding the treatment, this will also affect the treatment. If the therapist has unfinished business in working through the issue being addressed, this will affect the treatment as well. The caveat, "practitioner heal thyself," is therefore arguably even more important with energy psychology treatments than in conventional psychotherapy or medical interventions.
    

4. INNER OBJECTIONS. Psychological reversals, inner objections to accomplishing a desirable therapeutic goal, have already been addressed in this CD. We call them psychoenergetic reversals because they are not "just psychological"; rather this powerful obstacle to desired and desirable change is embedded in the energy system. So as not to convey to the client a quality of blame or an assumption of intentional sabotage, we also refer to them simply as inner objections to the treatment goals.
   
   There are many different flavors of inner objections to attaining the treatment goal. Over two-dozen kinds of psychoenergetic reversals have been catalogued, such as those already described in this CD, and they can extend to permutations that involve every conceivable intrapsychic and interpersonal dynamic. For instance, there are vengeance psychoenergetic reversals, such as: "I won’t overcome this problem until my spouse is truly sorry for having hurt me." There are codependence psychological reversals, such as: "It’s unsafe for my mother if I get over this problem." Each of these is a variation on a more general theme (vengeance is an intensification of the feeling that other person "does not deserve to have me overcome this problem"; codependence is a prolonged feeling that "If I get over this problem," it jeopardizes another’s safety). The dramatic wording, however, adds to the clinical impact of identifying the reversal.
   
   Some psychoenergetic reversals are so fundamental that no other psychological issue can be meaningfully addressed until they are resolved: "I don’t want to live." These psychoenergetic reversals are generally amenable to the same basic correction strategy. An acupoint or neurolymphatic reflex is stimulated while a verbal correction is introduced. The verbal correction takes the form of an acknowledgement of the feeling or position involved in the reversal combined with an affirmation of self-acceptance: "Even if I don’t want to live, I deeply and completely accept myself." In line with insights from the field of linguistics, we use a fixed order in the phrasing in these treatment statements, having the client instead state the self-acceptance clause at the end of the sentence.
   
   It is, of course, not feasible (or necessary) to energy check every conceivable psychoenergetic reversal for treatment to proceed. Rather than going through the catalog, you can trust the client’s intuition to know what is getting in the way of treatment progress, using such interview questions as, "If you had an objection to getting over this problem, what would it be?" You can also energy check: "There is a psychoenergetic reversal currently affecting this issue" versus "There are no psychoenergetic reversals currently affecting this issue."
    

5. METAPHYSICAL IMPOSITIONS. Some people not only believe that a supernatural force is involved in maintaining their problem, the belief is coded in their energy system. Examples: "The only way I can be worthy in the eyes of God is to be a person who is suffering; if I stop suffering, the devil will have my soul." "The root cause of this issue traces back to a previous lifetime, and it is my karmic debt to bear this burden." Often these deep beliefs will co-exist with a desire to be free of the problem. Regardless of the therapist’s judgment about the beliefs, if the body is coding a top priority issue within such metaphysical concepts, the objection can be treated within those terms, adapting the procedures used for other forms of psychoenergetic reversal. Believing in such phenomena is not a prerequisite for clearing these issues. It works just as well to view this as metaphoric or symbolic representation, so there’s no need to view these energetic codings as any more literally true than, say, a representation of a past trauma that didn’t necessarily occur exactly as it is symbolically or metaphorically represented in the client’s memory.

1. SEARCH FOR HIDDEN ASPECTS AND LAYERS. Treatment is not complete until every aspect and layer of the top priority issue has been resolved. Sometimes we don’t need conscious knowledge of all these layers in order to clear them – our inner wisdom knows them for us. But, at other times, there are indeed layers that do need to be brought to conscious awareness before they can be cleared. Energy psychology provides the tools for doing both, and for discovering when to do which. Careful interviewing is combined with energy checks on questions such as, "Is there anything we’ve missed?" If the issue involves a trauma, the search for unresolved aspects may be as thoroughgoing as to ask the client to run through the trauma in slow motion and inquire, "Do you get any discomfort when you get into the worst part of it?" If not, move on. If so, introduce another round of treatment.
    

2. FUTURE PACING. Having clients mentally project themselves into a future situation that once would have evoked the problem state is another way to confirm if the treatment is complete. If anticipatory anxiety arises, if the SUD goes above 0, introduce another round of treatment. If not, move on.
    

3. FOUR LEVELS OF COMPLETENESS. Once the problem appears to have been completely resolved, another method for confirming that this is the case, taught to us by Judith Swack, is to energy check four statements: "This treatment is 100% complete at the . . .

• Body Level
   
• Conscious Level
   
• Unconscious Level
   
• Soul/Spiritual Level

If the energy check indicates that the treatment is not complete on one or more of these levels, further discussion is likely to identify its unresolved aspects. A final confirmation, after each of the above checks shows the treatment to be complete, might be to energy check a statement such as, "This treatment is 100% complete at all other levels, known or unknown."

4. IN-VIVO CONFIRMATION. The ultimate test of the treatment is whether the client responds differently in the situations that once evoked the problematic response. In our experience, when back home results are disappointing, it usually means we missed an aspect or layer of the issue. This becomes evident in the follow-up interview and leads to treatment of the aspect or layer that had been neglected. (Again, knowing all five of the key areas described in this paper make the troubleshooting process very efficient. Better yet, if you address each of these areas as you go along, you’ll have to go back and troubleshoot much less often!)
   
   Some situations are actually treated most effectively in the real life context in which they occur rather than in the therapist's office. Again, you can determine when this is true through interviewing the client, energy checking, noticing that attempts to treat the issue in the office aren't as effective as you would expect, and/or noticing that in-office treatments only take the client so far in resolving the issue. Under these circumstances, there may be one or more aspects of the issue that need to be treated in the real life context. Sometimes this is because the client may not be able to access important diagnostic or treatment information about this situation while in the safety of your office. When this is the case, such information may only become available to the client when you work with them in vivo.

1. PEAK FUNCTIONING. If you try to install a desirable belief or response over a pattern of disturbed meridian responses, you still may bring about temporary relief, but you are pushing the problem deeper rather than resolving it. A systematic approach removes the baggage of meridian disturbances as the treatment unfolds. But rather than leave the client merely with an undisturbed response, we look for ways to psychoenergetically install internal states that help the person function in an optimal way.
    

2. THE FULLY FORMED OUTCOME. The first step is to create a vivid, multi-sensory image of what we call the "fully formed outcome" (in NLP, this is called a "Well Formed Outcome.") The client envisions how he or she ideally would like to be when in the kind of situation that once evoked the problem. This vision is cultivated and described using all 5 senses: "What do you want to see, hear, feel, smell, taste?"
    

3. "INSTALLING" THE FULLY FORMED DESIRED OUTCOME IMAGE. As in Fred Gallo’s "Outcome Projection Procedure" introduced in the Closing Phases module, the tools for correcting disturbances in the meridian system can also be applied for installing positive states. Installing the "fully formed outcome" vision is a powerful method for supporting peak functioning. Many of the leading energy psychology approaches have their own procedure for accomplishing this.
    

4. PSYCHOEDUCATION ABOUT RESOURCES AND STRATEGIES. An important final part of treatment is to explore whether the client has the internal and external resources for optimal functioning in relation to the issue that has been successfully treated. Again, a simple interview will reveal much about whether critical resources are missing. This may lead to further therapy (e.g., for boundary-setting or reparenting), homework (e.g. listening to instructional audio tapes on basic emotional or practical skills­), or referrals to community resources (e.g., vocational testing or classes on parenting or money management skills).

Psychological interventions always occur within the container of the client-therapist relationship. The five keys to successful treatment outlined here attune the therapist to ways of keeping the process proceeding in the most efficient way possible, largely through interview and energy checks, by focusing on the diagnostic and treatment issues that are most critical to successful outcome:

1. correctly identifying the issue that will help the client move forward the most effectively,

2. establishing a psychological, energetic, and interpersonal readiness to benefit from the treatment,

3. selecting the interventions that will be most powerful for resolving the top priority issue,

4. confirming that the treatment has been thorough and is complete, and

5. replacing the now undisturbed response with internal states that help the client function in an optimal way.