Holistic Counseling

(Spring, 1998)

When I tell people I'm in a "Holistic Counseling" program, I get a variety of responses, from an enthusiastic "cool!" to a bewildered look, to the sort of nod one gets immediately after having said something both incomprehensive and unnerving to someone who wants to be polite and pretend they're on your side in order to escape the situation unscathed.

But honestly, it's nothing to be afraid of, and while to some the concept is fairly radical, the ideas behind holistic counseling are not at all new or unheard of. Holism isn't intended to replace western medicine, or to promote itself as a new orthodoxy, determining what is and is not "good" medicine or therapy.

Instead, it's built upon the notion that there is no one specific technique which is universally appropriate. It's the idea that you can use a wide variety of resources and therapies in order to help people heal themselves, and that healing is the primary focus, and that most healing comes from within.

Furthermore, it's built upon the notion that mind, body and spirit are not entirely separate and distinct realms and that all three affect and interact with one another in ways which we might not always expect.

Here are some examples of therapeutic modalities which can be applied holistically:

Expressive Art Therapies: Expressive Art Therapy is intended to use guided visualization in order to facilitate the release of things which the client is holding inside. Often, the visualization involves asking the client to deal with a specific issue, and to tune into what's happening inside the body. Even though the process is a psychological one, it involves responding to one's physical and spiritual state, and expressing one's self artistically. Expressive Arts Therapies are not restricted to visual media; they can include Music and Movement Therapies as well.
Gestalt Therapy: Gestalt Therapy is primarily talk therapy. I.e., it involves interactive dialogue with a client. However, it's not limited specifically to that scope. For instance, if a client is feeling very agitated and needs to slow down, the therapist may do some sort of physical excercise, even something as simple as tapping one's finger and gradually reducing the tempo while asking the client to try to follow the rhythm of therapist to slow down. Or, possibly, if the client is feeling choked up, the therapist may ask where in the body they feel the choking sensation, and to try to address that. This helps clients develop an awareness of how their emotional states might be affecting themselves physically.
Massage Therapy: Massage Therapy primarily works on people's muscles, using direct contact to release muscle tension. However, sometimes serious emotional issues are involved with aspects of physical touch, and we can hold our emotional tension in our bodies. I.e., if we experience emotional stress, we might not release that stress, and it can manifest itself as physical tension in the muscles. Therefore, there's a mental component to how massage therapy works.

These are, of course, merely examples, to give one an idea of the scope of the issues involved. There are myriad modalities which can be applied holistically.

Healing vs. Curing

It's common in Western medicine to take a "curing" approach. I.e., "sit right there, be quiet, and we'll fix you." While this approach can be helpful in some circumstances, it can also sometimes miss part of the much bigger picture. Some years ago, I was involved in a bike accident in which my brakes failed while I was going down a hill. I crashed into a rod iron fence and pierced my neck on a spike on top of the fence.

When I got to the hospital's emergency, I was rather freaked out, having neither insurance nor money. They wanted to perform surgery right away, but when I asked how much it would cost, they went and talked amongst themselves for a moment, and decided that no, in fact, I did not need surgery at all.

They were entirely focused on my neck. When I repeatedly mentioned that I was a musician, and I was worried about getting some sort of infection in my hands, which had been seriously scraped up, they kept saying "oh, we'll take care of that." About seven hours later, the doctor handed me a bottle of bacitracin and a washcloth and said "here, this is for your hands" and walked away.

The experience did nothing whatsoever to increase my faith in medical establishments and, in fact, did nothing to help me heal in the slightest. It turned out the would was superficial and missed everything vital. I was bruised up some, but otherwise okay. The tests they gave me, in fact, did more damage than the accident itself. The hospital bed they kept me in overnight was extremely painful and unpleasant and left me in worse shape as well.

The point of this story is not to demonize medical establishments. I know people who have had very good experiences in hospitals, and not all my experiences have been horrendous (though virtually every one in the last ten years has ended with a statement very similar to "You're doing fine. Just keep doing what you're doing."). However, they have never attempted to address the fact that I was scared going into a hospital.

The healing that came from my bicycle accident was partially physical. My body did need time to heal from the experience. But the psychological and spiritual healing was much more serious. It took almost nine months before I was willing to ride a bicycle again.

And it was clear to me, in the long run, that I had to heal myself. No one else was going to do it for me. And, honestly, no one could have. I had to face those fears and decide what to do with them and how best to confront them. In time, I bought a new bicycle, with good breaks, and got used to riding again. I knew I was in a much better place when I was willing to ride down that same hill again, knowing I had come within inches of my life there a year before.

Inspiration

There's a poem by Marge Piercy called For Strong Women, which I find personally inspiring. I also enjoy the Desiderata. There is also a wonderful quote by Carl Jung, and one by Marianne Williamson

I will post more inspirational material as I think of it. In the meantime, I also have a list of recommended reading related to holistic counseling.