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Psychotherapy and energy medicine are twin poles of a current that unites us, body, mind and spirit with the larger and the smaller energies of the Universe. Psychotherapy, the “expert” in the micro, assists us in finding a map to the dilemmas, confusions, distortions of our childhood ego state that was vulnerable before all the cruelties and foibles of the world, was paralyzed, frightened, intimidated, or just plain confused as it faced the daunting task of establishing a beachhead of consciousness in the family drama. Psychotherapy has as its tools the mind and all its talents: analysis, deconstruction, recognition of truths both obvious and subtle, evaluation of costs and benefits, aggregates for the ego to rest on while it heals its wounds. While we are ‘in” psychotherapy, we are resting in the trusting, dreamed-about relation to the archetypal Mother and Father, our fantasies, wishes, desires, displayed in all their acute loneliness and vulnerability, while the wished for solution to “Life” remains tantalizingly out of reach of the actual relationship (with the therapist). This “transference,” as it is called, allows the therapist and client to enter into the primordial blissful state of the uroboros, the snake eating its tail, where all manner of possibilities and their attendant obstacles are explored, held up to the light, and reviewed for their healing and ultimately redemptive value. Measured against what, you may ask: Why, said Alice, against whatever it is that you wish it to be measured against. That is both the art and the science, the strength and the failing of psychotherapy: it leaves us, ultimately, on the shores of our own consciousness, bereft of larger connection to the Universe, but ultimately and hopefully connected to our unique individual Selves.
Energy healing, or subtle energy medicine, takes a different route. Within its parameters lie all the reaches of philosophy, theology, physics, intuition, cosmic consciousness, and more. It represents a connection to the larger, the macro context of the universe, explores our place and connection to that consciousness, and hopefully relieves us of our ultimate existential aloneness as we explore the "rays” of energy and light that connect us to ourselves and to one another. Energy medicine is redemptive, also, in its own way. It offers a glimpse at a reality larger than most of us can access on our own, a glance behind the veil, an unmasking of archetypal energies and forces that in ages past were either the realm of fantasy or of witchcraft.
Energy healing is a form of prayer. It is a theological probing of the most intimate areas of an individual’s consciousness: the cellular alignment of muscle, ribs, cartilage, cell membranes, pulsation of a neuron, energies of light. Each divorce, distraction, defining of self, loss of hope, partitioning of consciousness, leaves a mark upon the field, a mark that can be traced as tracks upon snow. The spirit searches for an avenue of hope, redemption, light; the body resists, acquiesces, aligns itself with the greater good, retreats into its own stubborn ways, arms itself against attack, yields to love -- or it doesn't. The mind leaps to conclusions, elegantly invents explanations, reduces all to ridicule, prohibits exploration, invents fantasies -- or it doesn't. And the Soul, patient, yields to the bent of the individual consciousness, until, at junctures like mid-life, it reasserts its primacy in the delivery of the second act. Also in adolescence, at two, and at the dying of the light, the Soul holds forth as the final arbiter of what is to be saved, what discarded in the search for personal truth and ultimate meaning.
The human body is connected through its heartbeat not only to its own Self, but also to the self in the Other, the Beloved, the Spirit that animates the Universe. Energetic fields surround us as we wake, sleep, swim, breathe, and die. Each area of the body connects us to its psychological corollary, its “DSM-IV diagnosis,” its pain and felt elation. The depressive is marked not only by her “symptoms” of pain, fear, loneliness, grief, but also by the dark mass that appears in the lower right-hand quadrant of her field, where the heart, breaking, “leaks” into the area of the live-er. Each panic attack robs its victim not only of much cherished autonomy and freedom, but also paralyzes the energy field in the knees, lower legs, ankles, hobbling the freedom to move forward. Trauma grabs us at the hamstrings, the back of the spine, the rear of the skull pulling us “backward” into regressed and regressive states of being and pitiable behaviors that we left long ago in childhood. It is this complicated trail that the tracker of energies follows, stalking the wild mind, the frightened sprit, the dubious body, until the road becomes clear. The touch of a hand upon the field can clear, lighten, alter, exonerate past sins, betray past confidences, disturb past certainties, heal past wounds. Guided by the intuitive faculty, subject aligns with object to connect in a synaptical dance that profoundly changes the patterns that are constantly forming and reforming.
Who knows how this gift is released, how transmitted? Laying on of hands, and prayer, is as old as human history. There is no explanation as to why the touch of a healer can bring about change in the field: for some it is a gift of birth, for others training has brought to the surface a latent talent. For most, it remains a mystery. However it is imagined, it receives us with welcome, reverence, care and hope. We are pilgrims in ferreting out the complex relation between the energy sciences and that which has been called “psychotherapy,” and our journey in the 21st century remains to be seen. It is in the interest of mapping this dimension of higher consciousness that this article was written, and it is offered with love as a vehicle for expanded learning and change.
Dr. Deni Horton is a Harvard-trained psychologist with a private practice in Psychotherapy & Energy Medicine in Charlottesville, VA and Santa Fe, NM. Her healing ministry, Hands of God, is a gift from her Higher Power, and uses ancient healing methods to effect spiritual change. Her memoir, The Field: A Personal Journey into Psychotherapy & Energy Medicine, will be published in 2007. Dr. Horton can be reached at 434.296.2930.
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