Module III:
Energy Healing Psychotherapy
Course description
Offered over four years of IHC Psychotherapy Training Program
Time commitment
Students meet one Sunday per month, 10 months a year for a total of 320 Hours
Course Overview
The Energy Healing training is an integration of Eastern and Western psychology. It is a comprehensive program presenting a large body of information combined with extensive assisted and supervised practice of the healing techniques taught. The first year is dedicated to the understanding of concepts, basic healing techniques, and development of awareness of energy. Group meditation is an integral part of this process. In the following three years, these concepts and practices are continually developed. The anatomy of energy bodies (including universal and human energy fields) bioenergetics fields, managing one’s and others’ energy fields, centres and channels of energy (chakras, location, structure, psychological correlates, psychological issues, states of balance and imbalance, and holding techniques).
Components of the Training and Learning activities:
For every feeling or thought, there is a corresponding reaction in the body, which is heightened by trauma in any form. This course examines the intersection of experiences of trauma, neglect, attachment wounds and other disturbances, with resulting energetic imbalances.
The practice of energy healing seeks to address these imbalances by affirming the health of the whole client: Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual. Embodied manifestations of dis-ease often lead to somatic symptoms such as:
Chronic pain,
Digestive issues,
Hyper-arousal and anxiety,
Hypo-arousal and depression,
Dissociation
Blocks to energy flow
Fragmentation and split off parts of self.
These can all be addressed and supported to re-integrate through non-invasive techniques offered in energy healing practices.
Students learn the fundamentals of how energy works through required readings, in class teaching and demonstrations, and hands-on experience of energy healing applications. This course will provide in depth exploration of energy psychology to build a broader unifying framework of psychotherapeutic work built on Eastern and Western psychologies.
Learning Activity: Group Meditation
Each Sunday morning, throughout the four years of training, class begins with students participating in a group meditation that lasts about an hour. Appropriate background music is played throughout to create and support an environment that is conducive to the meditation practice. Students are instructed to find a comfortable position using classic meditative postures where the energy channels are open and flowing, and to focus on their breathing.
Guided meditations are used periodically so students can follow along with instructions, engaging the imagination as well as tracking body sensations that arise from the guided material.
Acquired skills and competencies:
Students develop the capacity to meditate effectively, learning to identify the normal “chatter” of the mind, and to release it as many times as necessary in order to clear and open the mind to allow images, insights, messages to come forward. Meditation is an essential practice to develop competency in energy healing, and is the first step all students must master. It strengthens the ability to remain focused for long periods of time, clearing the mind of any preconceptions before conducting an energy session on a client. It supports the healer’s ability to allow rather than impose healing energy flow, using the universal energy field and not one’s personal energy field.
Learning Activity: Building the Altar/Working with Dreams
On Sunday morning, students bring an object from home that symbolizes something about their experience of the training weekend. Once the meditation is complete on Sunday, the students are invited to bring their item to the altar one at a time. This is approached very mindfully, and as students are moved, they come to the altar, have a seat, and talk about the personal significance of the object they have brought, and how it relates to the training of the weekend while the rest of the group listens in silence. They then place it on the altar. There is often an emotional expression that is supported and held by the group. This is repeated until all students and instructors have placed their items and told the story of their piece.
The building of the altar creates a shared sacred space, a feeling of reverence, setting the mood and mentally preparing the participants for the healing sessions that follow.
The use of bringing an object to symbolize the experience of the weekend strengthens the sense of metaphor, image and symbol, essential to working with client dreams, and with the energies of the healing sessions. These objects also help to open up parts of the student’s psyche that had been forgotten or are newly discovered.
Working with Dreams
After the altar is built, students are invited to share a dream they may have had the night before. The instructor works with the student dreamer and with the elements of the dream to uncover significant material that the student’s psyche is bringing forward. There is a rich opportunity to teach how to work respectfully with client dream material and help guide the dreamer to uncover his or her own sense of the dream. Teaching how to work with symbols, setting, feeling, energies, characters in the dream, through psychodrama, active dreaming, artwork, exploration of energies of the dream within the body, all critical to the rich modality of dream work. Students are introduced to the Jungian concepts of the Collective Unconscious and Archetypes, and are encouraged to do further exploration of this material through readings and attending supplemental trainings on dream work.
Acquired skills and competencies:
Students expand their experience and intellectual scope through symbol and metaphor, strengthening their ability to work with client dreams, and introducing them to the Jungian psychology theories of the Collective Unconscious and Archetypal energies.
Students practice maintaining focus and clearing the chatter of the mind through meditation
The experience underscores the seriousness and reverence required to prepare for energy healing
Students employ the safe and effective use of self by being mindful of themselves as an instrument in the energy healing, in a setting that requires intense focus and reverent respect for the work that is being done in class.
Learning Activity: Chakra System
Students are taught about the Chakra System, the energy system in the body recognized and used extensively in Eastern medicine practices. This learning forms the foundation upon which all theories, techniques and energy healings are based. They learn the seven basic chakras, their purpose, the colour and how each chakra correlates with psychological issues within the character structures.
Working in pairs, students learn how to locate the chakras in each other’s body learning proper use of the pendulum. The pendulum is a tool that is essential to this Module as it can pick up and inform the therapist of the energy flow of each chakra. Students use their pendulums to read the energy flow in their partner’s chakras, and determine the health of each chakra. Chakras can be open, closed, flowing clockwise, counter-clockwise, distorted, over-charged or excessive, undercharged or deficient. Students will learn how to properly dowse the client with the pendulum, and determine the state of health of the chakra system.
Most importantly, students learn how each chakra correlates to a specific stage in human development, and integrate the knowledge of chakra health with development stages and correlating character structures that are studied and taught in Modules I and II.
Acquired skills and competencies:
Can name and explain the purpose and psychological issues for each chakra
Can place where each chakra is located, and understands the frequencies and colours associated with each chakra
Can draw direct correlation of each chakra to character structure and development stage, informing the therapist where possible psychological issues will arise.
In addition, they will:
Integrate the IHC blended modalities model of comparative theories of human psychological functioning and development.
Work within the framework of energy healing psychology
Recognize the importance of the self as an essential tool in the therapist role as healer.
Build client trust by assuring agency to stop a healing session any time they feel the need, and to create a safe environment
Learning Activity: Basic Chelation
Students are taught how to perform a basic chelation, the foundation of energy healing techniques. They will experience the trainer creating a safe and sacred container within which to conduct energy healing. Students are led through a guided meditation that will support them in getting well-grounded, accessing universal energy to charge the body in preparation for a healing session. The trainer demonstrates the specific steps of the basic chelation, using channelled white energy, pointing out how to identify and interpret patterns of energy that are sensed and how to use grounding, energy flow, and how to tune into what is going on energetically with the client. Students require constant supervision from the trainer as they learn this technique. At the end of the healing session, students learn how to create a protective energy field around the client, an important step when working within the chakra system. They then guide the client to sit up, and make sure they have found proper grounding before they attempt to stand and walk as they have likely been in an altered state of consciousness throughout the healing session. A good deal of class time is spent in debriefing the experience, first between paired duos, and then within the class as a whole. Sharing experiences is a useful means of expanding the learning of this Module, because the experiences can be so varied and profound.
Students spend most of Year One using the basic chelation healing technique in order to become comfortable with the modality, master the steps, the chakra readings, to build confidence and a fine attunement to the client, employing their intuitive sense of how to read the energy and determine what areas of the energy field need special attention, and when it is time to move to the next step of the healing sequence. They learn how to bring balance to a chakra system that is out of balance.
Acquired skills and competencies:
Students will be able to:
Create a safe container for the healing work
Explain that the nature of the healing session requires a light hand’s on treatment from the therapist, and gaining permission for this, assuring the client they have agency to stop the session at any time
Conduct a basic chelation, and know the sequence of steps required
Demonstrate proper posture to ensure a clear flow of universal energy
Dowse the chakras at the beginning of the treatment to read the health of each chakra
Dowse at the end of a session to determine chakra health and effect of the energy treatment
Tune into the client’s energy to intuit when to move to the next step in the chelation or to spend more attention in any specific area
Develop an ability to be finely attuned to the client and client’s energy flow
Note when an energy block is interrupting flow, and how to facilitate removing the block
Make note of client’s posture on the table, and suggest correction if energy flow is being hindered
Observe client’s facial colour, breathing, movement, noise and take appropriate steps if necessary
Close the session by creating a protective energy field around the client
Ensure the client is fully present in the here and now at the end of the session before they move off the table
Take client’s lead about the appropriate use of a debrief as some will not want to engage right away
Advise client to drink plenty of water, have a bath or shower when they return home, and to take note of any dreams they may have for the next few nights
Use information gathered on chakra health and energy flow and apply it to knowledge of client history of trauma, character structure and body armouring to get a fully integrated understanding of the psychological systems at work
In addition students will:
Integrate the IHC blended modalities model of comparative psychotherapy approaches for understanding human psychological functioning and development.
Work within a framework of energy psychology, which includes explaining what energy healing the therapist feels is most appropriate, why, and what the client can expect. The therapist will also gain permission as appropriate throughout the session.
Integrate awareness of self in relation to the therapist/healer role, to remain grounded and fully focused
Build a sense of safety, and client trust through professional boundaries, and establish a therapeutic alliance where the client feels the safety necessary to submit to an energy healing
Learning Activity: Basic Concepts of Energy Healing, Healing Sessions
Basic concepts of energy healing, such as understanding what an Aura is, what a Hara is, its purpose and where it is located, are taught alongside the Basic Chelation, and are expanded upon when students demonstrate competence with the Basic Chelation and are ready to move on to other types of energy healing. These include: Colour Chelation, Hara healing, Heart healing, Womb building, Sacred Geometry, Exorcism, as well as others. At the end of the fourth year, students will have learned how to conduct about 16 different energy healings, know their purpose, how they work and when to use them.
Sessions are set up as with the Basic Chelation, with a grounding exercise, guided meditation to access and channel universal energy. Also, as with the basic chelation, students practice their skills working in pairs or trios. The instructor is present to guide, correct, clarify throughout the practice sessions to ensure students integrate the material, as well as maintain an atmosphere of utmost safety.
Students are taught psychic hygiene to ensure the wellbeing of both the client and the therapist. Techniques such as smudging a room or using chimes to clear the air before and after a healing session ensures any enduring stagnant energies are removed. Drinking plenty of water flushes out the system along with any toxins that may have been released during a healing.
Acquired skills and competencies:
Students will be able to:
Explain what an “Aura” is
Explain what a ‘hara’ is, where it is located, and what its purpose is
Name at least 14 of the healings they have been taught
Explain the purpose of each healing, and when they would be used over other healings
Explain the psychological issues behind certain healings and when they are required
Correlate the psychological issues of the healing with developmental stages and character structure
Effectively close the energy session with an appropriate de-briefing, being mindful of the client’s psychological state
Ensure the utmost safety of the client by explaining the energy treatment up front and ensuring the client that they are in charge if they wish to stop the session
Identify when an energy healing is contraindicated, and use a form of therapy that would be of highest benefit to the well-being and safety of the client
Employ psychic hygiene at the beginning and end of each session to ensure safety of both client and therapist
Employ safe and effective use of self in taking care to release any energies that the therapist may have picked up during the healing, and to drink plenty of water to flush away toxins that may have been loosened during the healing
In addition students will:
Correlate energy healing psychology with Modules I and II in the understanding of human psychological functioning and development through study of character structures and life stages of development
Integrate awareness of self as an instrument in the therapist role, drawing attention to the need to employ safe and effective practices of psychic hygiene (clearing stagnant energies from treatment room and from self) and physical caretaking (well-rested, well hydrated).
Use effective, soothing communication with client, understanding their feeling of safety is paramount.
Build client trust through professional boundaries, assurances of client agency in the ability to end the healing session if they feel discomfort or unsafe for any reason.
Learning activity: In class Discussion of Core Concepts, Theories and Applications of Energy Healing
In class teachings and demonstrations cover a variety of theories and methods used in energy healing psychology. This information is taught throughout the day as appropriate, and most of it is part of the debriefing sessions after an energy healing session.
Through required readings and in class demonstrations, students learn to respect the subtle yet powerful effect of energy healing. Done properly, the client sinks into the altered state of consciousness we all experience just before falling asleep. Many indigenous cultures understand and value this state of consciousness as a healing space where innate and spontaneous movement toward recovery and equilibrium can take place. In-class learning helps students experience the effectiveness that these alternative modalities have for application with psychotherapeutic work by soothing distress held in the body as a result of unprocessed trauma and other physiological disturbances.
Instructors teach how these practices are instrumental in calming the nervous system’s activation from fight, flight freeze responses. They will demonstrate ways to support energetic patterns so parasympathetic states can return to function and the energy can once again return to the natural flow of the life force.
Students will learn how energy healing works with client neurological functioning. Energy healing orients one to the here and now, so the therapist can remind them they are in a place of safety, and not stuck in past trauma. This form of emotional regulation opens up channels that allow the client to recover the use of their prefrontal cortex, critical for accessing greater tolerance, integration and acceptance of the past. Energy healing has been known to be effective for symptoms of PTSD.
Students will integrate the use of these applications in conjunction with talk therapy and Bioenergetics Psychotherapy. Integrated methodologies provide useful tools that counteract the potential de-stabilizing affect that talk therapy or somatic processing of past trauma can have on clients. Students learn how to effectively use energy to interrupt disruptive patterning and assist in reprogramming a more balanced energy flow.
There are a number of different healings that are taught and students become familiar healings that will be the most effective in any given case. Students learn about core concepts, theories and practices that are specifically designed to compliment integration of stored and unprocessed trauma, as well as examine aspects of character structure that live in the energy fields of clients.
Debriefing sessions point out the therapeutic outcomes of energetic interventions. These include the re-patterning of a client’s nervous systems so capacities for stabilization and regulation are strengthened.
Students come to understand the benefits that these applications have on supporting expansion of the client’s scope of experience towards greater levels of openness and broader range of choice. These practices work to increase client awareness of automatic thoughts as simply moment-to-moment events rather than solid facts, thus allowing them to disengage from them more easily. This shifts associated energy states to discover new ways of living.
In class learning reviews the communication skills and approach required by therapists to work effectively with clients energy fields. Compassion, respect and an open nurturing and non-judgmental stance are valued discussed as essential qualities to undertake this type of work.
Acquired skills and competencies:
Full integration of the IHC blended modalities model of comparative psychotherapy approaches that the IHC training is based upon, weaving character structure with developmental stages
Use effective and clear communication to ensure client’s feeling of well being and safety.
Establish and maintain a therapeutic alliance through client permission for treatment, and client agency in stopping a session if they feel unsafe. .
Apply safe and effective use of self, learning correct postures and channeling methods to avoid body pain or exhaustion while giving energy treatment.