Anyone incorporated holistic therapies with counselling?

RE: Anyone incorporated holistic therapies with counselling?

Hi

This is one of the things that I would eventually like to achieve and I am planning on starting a BACP accreditied counselling course inSeptember through the local college. I think it is important for all therapists to have some counselling skills as the very nature of our work means we here about people's differing problems etc. However I would like to take it further and merge counselling treatments with aromatherapy treatments in order to treat the whole person. I really would like to develop some ideas I have had about treating people suffering from post natal depression.

Laura

RE: Anyone incorporated holistic therapies with counselling?

Laura seems like you and me think alike in so many ways.

RE: Anyone incorporated holistic therapies with counselling?

I think your right 😉

RE: Anyone incorporated holistic therapies with counselling?

I have found that a good understanding of different therapies is more powerful than specialising in just one.
Personally I use essential oils with NLP and hypnotherapy.

Essential oils affect our emotions and feelings in a very powerful way. On a biochemical levelcertain oilsinfluence the limbic system, and the pineal and hypothalmus. These release hormones into the body, and as I am sure you are aware, hormones and emotions are very closely related. Also, the olfactory, the sense of smell, is the most influential sense we have, and is very long lasting. For example, I bet you can remember a time way back in your childhood when a certain smell still reminds you of that occasion. Maybe it was the smell of homebaking, and every time you go to the bakery, it reminds you of a happy home.

A word of caution though. Whilst it is very easy to create positive anchors, or emotional release using essential oils, when used incorrectly, in conjunction with counselling, it is very easy to create negative anchors, and cause distress, reminding people of some traumatic times in their life. This is something which even though the intent may be good, you must be aware of.

Best of luck in this venture. The use of oils can certainly benefit you and your business in a profound way. The biggest trap for a counsellor is that the client becomes dependent upon them. The use of oils can be a way of putting the client at cause, instead of effect. They are certainly a great add on for residual income.

RE: Anyone incorporated holistic therapies with counselling?

Rich thanks for that - very very important points there to considere, thank you x

RE: Anyone incorporated holistic therapies with counselling?

Not specifically councelling, but I have used a short (15 minute) Reiki treatment at the end of an EFT or FREEWAY-CER treatement to help the client feel relaxed and to end the session. Works wonders.

Love and Reiki Hugs

RE: Anyone incorporated holistic therapies with counselling?

Interesting post! I regularly do massage with EFT and Reiki with EFT, where the EFT is part of the massage or Reiki treatment. So I guess that's a kind of "yes" to your question. I probably do an average of 3 a day, 4 days a week, as it is reasonably popular at our clinic. I also do some work with an amazing kinesiologist and Aura Soma therapist where we combine kinesiology, colour therapy and EFT. And one of my clinic colleagues incorporates spiritual healing into her EFT treatments. This is just a few examples! I'd say go for it, although I'd recommend a more punchy method than just talk therapy for the counselling bit - at least basic NLP is essential imho. The results are really amazing.

RE: Anyone incorporated holistic therapies with counselling?

I agree with Giles,

I start with EFT but finish with 10-15 mins of Reiki to 'fill up' with positive energy where the negative energy releasedhas left a vacuum.
Clients seem to like this!

Love and light

reikiangel

xxx

RE: Anyone incorporated holistic therapies with counselling?

i am studying towards my goal of becoming a counsellor i am hoping to incoporate indian head massage and reki with counselling

I have been thinking about combining therapy treatments with counselling skills, but wondering how it can be done.

Hello

I do find I use counselling skills during the consultation, but less obviously if things arise out of the massage. Sometimes doing bodywork will release stored memories and the client may start crying or start talking to me.

I've just started a counselling course and I'm hoping to combine it with homeopathy and nutritional therapy

I think its useful for complementary therapists to have some basic knowledge of counselling skills. Occasionally a client can become quite emotional after experiencing deep relaxation for the first time during therapy -and some soothing words can help to calm them again.

However, counselling as a stand-alone therapy requires some knowledge of psychology as well and so one needs a recognised qualification and reliable insurance first.

I think we use counseling skills in our every day life whatever we practice, but I got to the point that I needed to know more so I've signed up for a counseling course at our local university. As it is part time it will take years before I am qualified, but even though this is the first module we have discussed a lot of issues and I've discovered that people are multi-layered and the peeling back and digging out what really is the problem, is really interesting.

Now trying to juggle everything is as usual causing problems, but I have a chance this week (got a terrible cold - yet again!) to decide how, what and why I want to do this, carry on doing what I enjoy (reflex, ihm, essental oils, etc), keep up the day job for the time being, add to the mix being a wife, mother and homemaker. The journal writing is a very useful tool as it helps clarify issues that pop up.

As you can see, the course has openned up a whole lot of questions, but I do know I want to continue.

Fudge

Hello, I trained and worked firstly in bereavement counselling and trauma support and my complementary therapies developed from this so yes, I believe very much so that there is a potential synergy between counselling and complementary therapies. It’s offering a truly holistic approach which is the key benefit that I find to be most useful.
Major grief and trauma can become such physical conditions, many people become totally consumed by grief, its often held and nurtured in every part of there body. Having witbessed this first hand, it occurred to me that a truly holistic approach to trauma would be beneficial and I now firmly believe that it is. Counselling is great, the talking cure may be extremely powerful but sometimes for some people it may prove impossible to express trauma and grief by words alone and complementary approaches often help, be they on on spiritual, emotional or physical levels.
The therapeutic power of touch and non verbal communications can be very helpful.
Bob

Hi,

The healer I go and see does this...I go and see her for an hour and a half and the first hour or a bit more is spent in a Spiritual counselling session then she does 20mins of Gaia healing at the end and while she does the healing she does an attunement to see which deep acting flower remedies are needed...

It really is amazing and it feels like its covered everything when you leave! Especially 'cos you have a flower remedy blend which lasts for about 6weeks..

Enjoy whatever you choose to do 🙂

I do, hypnotherapy/NLP with massage

To me, the important bit is to find out what your client wants and expects, and tailor the treatment to them - if the client is expecting only "talk therapy" and you feel it would be useful and appropriate to supplement it with any type of touch therapy, it is important to explain these options and the reasons for them and get their informed consent.

Some people may reluctantly agree to be touched, not feeling confident enough to refuse even if they don't want it, and as a result may feel tricked into paying for something they didn't expect or asked for, or, worse, violated.

I am all for mixing and matching different approaches and love the flexibility of integrating a wide range of therapeutic tools, but believe that it is necessary to proceed with caution.

Msha

A word of caution though. Whilst it is very easy to create positive anchors, or emotional release using essential oils, when used incorrectly, in conjunction with counselling, it is very easy to create negative anchors, and cause distress, reminding people of some traumatic times in their life. This is something which even though the intent may be good, you must be aware of.

I tend to agree with the above posted by Rich and in this respect I would prefer to keep a counselling session as a separate session. Emotional release happens with all kinds of complementary therapies because body/mind/emotions are all connected and it is a useful to have counselling skills to help you respond to your client's experiences.

Binah
x

I tend to agree with the above posted by Rich and in this respect I would prefer to keep a counselling session as a separate session. Emotional release happens with all kinds of complementary therapies because body/mind/emotions are all connected and it is a useful to have counselling skills to help you respond to your client's experiences.

Binah
x

I also tend to agree with Rich and as a qualified councelor I do not combine the two. Having said that I teach listening Skills to all the therapists I teach, as I find this to be sufficient for their needs.

Good point Healistic. I did originally put in witness which I think is a better word than respond.

Binah
x

To me, the important bit is to find out what your client wants and expects, and tailor the treatment to them

Easier said than done, as you and others have said. I find it very hard not to use add-ons when I'm sure they would help the client, but I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that counselling is complicated enough to do, without any extra bits being bolted on to cause further misunderstandings and mistakes.

What I would do is make sure at the initial session that the client is aware of what I can offer (perhaps by just offerring it on a card, or as a leaflet). If at some point the client expresses an interest in going down one of those routes, I would treat that interest as part of the therapy, to be looked at, what the feelings are, what will it take us away from, what might we be trying to avoid etc etc. I wouldn't just jump in, because however much benefit the client might gain from the extra intervention, they might lose more by us not looking at the motivations behind the request.

As I said, its bloody complicated if its to be done properly. If it was a longstanding client I would certainly take it to supervision as well.

Having now qualified I don't think it's possible to be a qualified counsellor and a therapist for the same client. Every therapist should offer listening skills but beyond that it can cause more harm then good. For one thing counsellors don't give advice so how would you say "I think reiki or reflexology etc will help you" The boundaries would be crossed and hard to maintain and can't see the bacp allowing a therapist to offer mixed therapy sessions. The client wouldnt be fully present to talk about issues if they are supposed to be relaxing and also counselling is emotionally draining for the therapist too. Even if you did separate counselling how do you stop the client telling you things outside of the counselling session?
But as counselling isn't regulated people are free to do what they want.
Its too complicated so I've decided to just do two separate business's.

I do shamanic counselling, but I guess that's a bit different.

Why do you consider counselling NOT to be holistic? I agree patients may seek counselling for a specific issue, but any counsellor knows that clients may present with one issue - but the real issue is something else entirely.

Recently I have began integrating sound healing into psychotherapy with a number of my clients, with some really good results. Again, as discussed in some of the posts above it would be important to proceed with caution and consider individual client's needs, and if you are not sure about combining different treatment modalities I would suggest to discuss it with your supervisor.

I am an holistic therapist but also qualified in Life Coaching, Hypnotherapy and EFT. I am currently training as a Counsellor and am in my second year of my level 4 course so i should qualify in the summer. I have just opened a new business offering holistic and beauty therapies but i will keep my mind therapies seperate as i plan to launch it as another business in the autumn. I feel quite strongly that the two should be kept seperate because of the different skills involved and the issues around boundaries. A good therapist can be a great listener with great empathy for a client in distress but i think that a client having an holistic treatment would expect only that. In my experience this response to a treatment is often a surprise to them and they appreciate just being allowed to express what they need to and for someone (qualified or not) to take it further than that, would be inappropriate.

I am an holistic therapist but also qualified in Life Coaching, Hypnotherapy and EFT. I am currently training as a Counsellor and am in my second year of my level 4 course so i should qualify in the summer. I have just opened a new business offering holistic and beauty therapies but i will keep my mind therapies seperate as i plan to launch it as another business in the autumn. I feel quite strongly that the two should be kept seperate because of the different skills involved and the issues around boundaries. A good therapist can be a great listener with great empathy for a client in distress but i think that a client having an holistic treatment would expect only that. In my experience this response to a treatment is often a surprise to them and they appreciate just being allowed to express what they need to and for someone (qualified or not) to take it further than that, would be inappropriate.

I would agree, molemaid. As I said before, I do Shamanic counselling, but would not usually offer this to anyone coming for a healing. It isn’t generally appropriate, although if they already have a deep knowledge of shamanism I might well suggest it for future meetings. However, if I am seeing a client for counselling and it becomes clear that healing is needed, I will usually do that straight away.

I would agree to keep them seperate mainly due to the skills and boundaries involved. Dependant on assesment through psychoanalysis of the client, neurotic symptoms and possibly leading to psychosomatic analysis just by the slight crossing of a boundary where holistic therapy allows could have an effect on the counselling process and relationship with the client.
Nothing wrong with holistic therapies I am aware they do have quite an amazing successful result on clients and as with all things everything has its place in life.

Eventually in all approaches the client themselves uncounsiously heals by the value they believe in the therapy that they choose and as a part of their unconcious desire to seek help.

However ones self development in the process of becoming a holistic therapist may unfold ones increased self awareness and newness in relation to understanding empathy, connecting with another and offering a natural genuineness to which the relationship between therapist and client begins to flourish and work.

A genuine understanding of ones self, working through the blockages and once believed limitiations surfaces the genuiness,compassion and awareness of the emotional self, emanating a connection that the client senses triggering the relationship where healing now starts to begin.

I have always believed that in the end it is the relationship that heals. In similarities the truth in both the self developed holistic therapist and counsellor reminds the client of their own truth, in turn beginning to feel safe, helping to trigger their way forward with a renewed belief in themselves.

Each approach is effective and has its place and each approach will always have clients guided to that which they feel will help them move on and become more able to cope with life and the experiences they had and the fears they may face in the future.,:)