A Process-Oriented Approach to Integrating Ancient Shamanic Practices with Energy Psychology

Dynamic Energetic Healing® (DEH) is a healing model that can be appreciated through many lenses. In my book, Dynamic Energetic Healing®, I present a synthesis of three different psychotherapy and healing models that combine seamlessly into a powerful methodology designed to eliminate past trauma. These three models include process-oriented psychology, as taught by Dr. Arnold Mindell, Ph.D., core shamanic practices and energy psychology strategies. Process-oriented psychology or processwork, as it is also known, continues to inform my clinical practice more than anything else I have learned. I began my study of core shamanism in 1981 and continue to enjoy learning advanced shamanic healing techniques by human teachers and teachers in nonordinary reality. Energy psychology methodologies are my most recent addition, having spent since 1996 training, interacting with and practicing from a variety of energy psychology educators. Additionally, the disciplines of clinical hypnosis and manual muscle testing (from the field of applied kinesiology) are also incorporated.

In 1997 I began to meet regularly with two colleagues (Mary Hammond, LPC and Nancy Gordon, LCSW), sharing our many years of clinical experience as we were being introduced to energy psychology strategies. What emerged was Dynamic Energetic Healing®. Mary and I have continued to evolve our respective emphases within our initial Dynamic Energetic Healing® model.

What makes Dynamic Energetic Healing® stand out among other energy psychology models is its emphasis on the spiritual component of the human experience, and how spiritual resources are solicited and integrated into the transformative change process that occurs in sessions.  Spiritual issues continue to remain prominent for clients, especially when confronted with overwhelming life experiences (i.e., trauma).  What is important to note however, is that as our society increasingly becomes more secularized, the role of the psychotherapist has to change and adapt to accommodate issues and concerns of deeper meaning and purpose. Popular culture, with its continually expanding menu of seductive and distracting technological wonders, panders to the lowest common denominator, ultimately disappointing in its attempts to provide balm to those who have been both psychologically and spiritually wounded. Dynamic Energetic Healing® integrates and accesses universal spiritual resources in its unique application of shamanic practices historically recognized by nearly every culture.  Though the potential of hypnosis and the power of the unconscious mind tend to be collectively accepted in the West, the notion that sentient spirit beings from a different but nonordinary reality can come to our aid is really beyond consensus psychological thinking for most Westerners. However, it is exactly this psychospiritual paradigm shift that differentiates Dynamic Energetic Healing® from many other psychological change models.

My conversations with clients as well as with health care professionals at various conferences I attend, increasingly reinforce my own perceptions that acknowledging and learning to address spiritual concerns in the psychotherapeutic context is absolutely essential. Whether it is using hypnosis to access a  “past life story,” shamanic practices to infuse into the client the healing power of the divine feminine, or energy psychology strategies to release traumatic and emotionally toxic residue by tapping on acupuncture meridians or chakras, the subsequent paradigm shift creates the space for a profound healing response to occur. Additionally, constructive altered states of consciousness generated by the different modalities I have referenced to, tend to generate a sustained sense of wonder and delight in clients, particularly as they discover that difficult or even dreadful things from their past no longer continue to bind them in the present.

Copyright © 2005, by Howard Brockman, LCSW. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing by the author.