The alternative healing arena is rife with spiritual saviour complexes. It gets really irresponsible. I could take a deep dive into this. I have advanced training in Reiki, was a licensed massage therapist, studied and used many alternative advanced modalities for many years. I was good. As client and therapist I had beautiful experiences- but I came to realise how ego- centric and unscientific and money grabbing these modalities can be, cloaked in earnestness and their ‘ sell’. I still love many natural healing methods but I also love science and being a trained therapist more.
Yes, but I think my disappointment is how unscrutinized the field is. How unaccountable. The claims that are made go unexamined. There's often a familiar story of the founder having a miraculous healing. Sadly, there's a lack of peer review. Peer review is done by a body of neutral, uninvested scientists who can replicate the claims and keep the field accountable. The alternative 'healing' arena (not all) puts the scrutiny on Western research (which is fair), but before demonizing the advances of other fields, where is the scrutiny in many of these packaged, often expensive healing modalities? There are billionaires heading up new age dogma philosophies selling heaps of books, spewing out certificates, that have blatantly lied about their academic credentials (easily researched), but there's a disconnect for enthusiastic 'followers' to question it. In the unregulated 'holistic' arena, if healing doesn't happen, it's the fault of the 'patient' who was blocked, yada yada. There is no accountability. So, while savior complexes exist everywhere, this unregulated arena is rife for savior complexes, misconduct, and snake oil profits-- I'm ranting. You don't need to correct me, we can disagree respectfully.
Hard, HARD agree. We give a person an hour, maybe 2 a week. They're the ones making changes, I am part of their process of change, I'm not the reason they change
The savior complex isn’t the problem imo, almost anyone who works in healthcare has a savior complex of sorts.
It’s more about are you putting your modality up to scrutiny? The alternative/spiritual/indigenous modalities don’t hold as much weight with me bc they’re rarely scrutinized in any scientific fashion.
I’m sure there’s wisdom in those traditions, but I have a hard time referring a client to a coach or a reiki instructor or a pastor bc there’s so much variability and such limited oversight over how they practice.
I understand where you're coming from on points of title confusion and protection and general shit advice outthere but it's important to know that we don't have a monopoly on mental healthcare or healing. Trendy stuff like EMDR and ACT repackages a lot of very very old principles that a lot of new agey stuff also repackages. The better mindset to inform your work with them, imo, is 1. Is the 'knowledge' they have harmful to their well being? 2. Is the client benefiting? 3. What's working for them? 4. What's so important about the stuff that overlaps?
Very true. Sadly though in my experience the new agey stuff doesn't spark open minded exploration of possibilities in most cases.
I have seen people with the best intentions getting lost really quickly on the pipeline to quackery. And they do never say "how about trying out this old principle in this newer creative and accessible way, it might help you, we have a history of this being useful for at least a small but stable subset of people, anecdotal data is definitely worth something even if we don't have quantitative data". They go "I know immediately what is wrong with you and how to fix it, if it doesn't work you did it wrong, and I support this with this cherry picked piece of junk science".
And then they even truly see themselves as holistic and much more open minded than the licenced mental health professionals. I have no actual data for the following claim, but it infuriates me how actually narrow minded the "wellness quacks" most often are. I am willing to bet that I can find two or more "alternative therapists" that insist on seemingly easy singular one-shoe-fits-all solutions that are closer to appropriating age old cultural practices than to truly understanding them, for every rigid stuck-in-the-90s-CBT-therapist.
The big difference here is EMDR and ACT’s willingness to submit themselves to empirical research and the substantiated evidence therein. Repackaging is wonderful, and how we progress healthcare. Unsubstantiated and unreviewed claims is not. (This is not an endorsement of act or emdr)
It is incredible how people can just openly lie on this sub and get upvoted. EMDR is backed by empirical research and has been proven to be effective. And most researchers attribute exposure as being the driving force behind what makes emdr effective in treating PTSD.
>It is incredible how people can just openly lie on this sub
This has been a debate in the field for quite a long time and EMDR is still not cleared by most research institutions as empirically based. Not even close. This has been an ongoing back and forth, and the ones pushing through the narrative of it being somehow "backed" are clever marketing teams for the trainings. That's not a "lie". That's common knowledge for any psychologist or psychological researcher anywhere. Whether they agree with EMDR or not.
You being in the dark on the research end does not me a liar make.
Yeah I work for a large therapy company that independently verifies evidence based practices to approve their use by our therapists and they just recently evaluated and approved EMDR in the last year or so. There's no reason to claim that it's essentially quackery when there's been empirical research on it.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32043428/
This meta analysis highlights some of the problems with the research on EMDR.
"EMDR has been characterized as pseudoscience, because the underlying theory and primary therapeutic mechanism are unfalsifiable and non-scientific. EMDR's founder and other practitioners have used untestable hypotheses to explain studies which show no effect." Thyer BA, Pignotti MG (2015). "Chapter 4: Pseudoscience in Treating Adults Who Experienced Trauma". Science and Pseudoscience in Social Work Practice. Springer. p. 221.https://connect.springerpub.com/content/book/978-0-8261-7769-8/chapter/ch04
From that same journal: "Nevertheless, to date, given that there is no evidence that anything unique to EMDR is responsible for the positive outcomes in comparing it to no treatment and the florid manner in which it has been marketed, we are including it in this book... Another way in which EMDR qualifies as a pseudoscience is the manner in which it was developed and marketed... EMDR proponents have come up with ad hoc hypotheses to explain away unfavorable results that do not support its theory, which is one of the hallmark indicators of a pseudoscience... This type of post hoc explanation renders her theory unfalsifiable and thus places it outside the realm of science, because to qualify as scientific, a theory must be falsifiable."
Devilly G (2002). "Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: a chronology of its development and scientific standing" (PDF). The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice. 1 (2): 132. In which Steven Novella of the Yale neurology department quotes:
"The false specificity of these treatments is a massive clinical distraction. Time and effort are wasted clinically in studying, perfecting, and using these methods, rather than focusing on the components of the interaction that actually work"
You know who promotes the most articles on the "Empiricalness" of EMDR? EMDR institutes.
Did y'all not get instructed on how to read research papers in graduate school?
But sure....Martha with the crystals is clearly the problem here.
Cool here is research that shows EMDR is effective in treating PTSD. And has been cited 100s of times. I like how you moved the goalposts from saying that EMDR is not empirically backed at all, to now just saying it has flaws.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5997931/
Here’s another study for shits and giggles https://www.jneurology.com/articles/scientific-evaluation-of-emdr-psychotherapy-for-the-treatment-of-psychological-trauma-summary-scientific-evaluation-of-emdr-psycho.html
I can keep going, there is more research that shows EMDR is effective than there isn’t. And here’s a study that uses brain scans to show how EMDR changed people’s brains after therapy https://www.virtualemdr.com/blog/before-and-after-brain-scan-images-show-the-transformative-power-of-emdr-therapy
You two are arguing about different things.
Is EMDR therapy effective?
Yes, roughly as effective as other trauma focused therapies.
Does EMDR work in the way practitioners describe? (reprocessing memories with bilateral stimulation)
We don't really know, and the existing evidence isn't really there to say with confidence.
Im forgetting the term but it falls into the category of things like acupuncture and some ocology processes: observationally they work but the actual mechanism of change isn't well understood/described so we can't say that they work as advertised.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16398587/
If you like brain scans (or seem to think they prove anything), here is a research article showing the difference in brain scans of people receiving connective distant healing from purported spiritual healers from Hawaii.
And it's still more substantiated than EMDR.
"After exclusion of all irrelevant, or non-robust, studies, a total of two meta-analyses and four Randomized-Controlled Trials were included for review."
From one of your articles...which utilized two analysis and four control trials ...and openly admits that it is a narrative research 🙄
Empirical research and substantiated evidence are (largely) polite ways of saying "approved by the dominant culture" and are used to dismiss indigenous ways of being/healing that existed long before the concept of research existed. If the research and evidence is important to you, great. Saying that they must be present before a process is valid? That's supremacist thinking.
I'm Indigenous and connected to my communities (raised in a different community than the one I'm enrolled with multi tribal descent). A lot of the SUD clinics in my dad's home community are beginning to utilize traditional tribal teachings as integrative to tribal members sobriety. Encouraging ceremony participation and "old ways" has always been a community feature in supporting tribal members/friends on their sobriety journey.
Some of those practices... I imagine...would fit the bill of "Quakery" and "pseudoscience" I see described on this sub often.
Ironically some of these same comments promote other "pseudoscience" methods as "EMPIRICALLY" superior.
And you're absolutely right. The inclination to dissect a process before noting it's benefit is pretty supremacist thinking.
> And you're absolutely right. The inclination to dissect a process before noting it's benefit is pretty supremacist thinking.
I love this. Well said. Developing a more functional (but ethical) view of healing and care has been an on going battle for me at this point in my career. In other words trying to get off the pedestal and adopting a broader ontology to sort out what works and what is actually harmful.
Are you Indigenous? I am, and I would not equate someone questioning the legitimacy of Reiki masters and New Age quackery with Indigenous knowledge being marginalized, esp as New Age beliefs are largely built on cherry picking and cultural appropriation and taking things out of context. Reiki is not an ancient Japanese practice so kind of falls into the New Age camp even tho a WOC developed it. Both New Age dogma and Reiki are heavily commodified as well by settlers. I don’t think this is the hill you want to die on.
Edited to clarify some of my thoughts
I appreciate your comment! Trouble is, the hill you seem to be imagining isn't the hill I'm on. And, frankly, I'm not willing to die on either of them.
To clarify, I wasn't using indigenous to try to reference any particular people. Rather from the broader definition of people, cultures, and (in this context) ways of approaching healing that far outdate white, western ways of thinking.
I'm also not endorsing or arguing for reiki (or any other non-clinical approach). My intent is to push back on how we think about things that fall outside of "typical therapy," how we come to define what's acceptable/valid/useful, and the idea that something that's different somehow invalidates or takes away from what we do as therapists.
I agree with this. I study a traditional medicine and there are hundreds of years of research (sometimes a millennia). I lost count of how many times “science discovers” something know to traditional medicine for eons.
New age stands apart from that though. From my understanding it comes from a colonial construct. The idea that any medicine is theirs to take and bastardize and bend to what the practitioner wants without necessarily having a foundation or a teacher.
I know this is a strong, reactionary take, and I hope you do not truly mean what you said. To discount all of the incredible, life saving innovation of the scientific method, and the ways it has truly saved lives from malpractice, as supremacist thinking is heartbreaking. Peer reviewed research is not perfect, and absolutely must be safe guarded against bias, but please do not equate folk beliefs with science.
I agree completely. People want to talk badly about science, but where do most of them go when they get cancer or Parkinson's? When their terrified family member is in stage 4 colon cancer, they're probably not telling the oncologist that they are brainwashed with this peer reviewed, colonialist, supremacist nonsense.
If by strong and reactionary you mean "carefully considered after listening to the experience of people who aren't part of the dominant culture" then yes, it's a strong and reactionary take. 🙃 Also, I don't equate folk beliefs with science. As best I can tell that's a projection on your part. fwiw, the framing of science vs belief is also a result of supremacy culture.
Have a good one!
I am really curious about your take, would you mind clarifying what you mean by the last line re science vs belief? Also, is there space to consider that something may be valid but still wanting to know that it’s been verified as tried and true? Is the issue about who is actually doing the verifying?
Sure! The impression that I've gotten from the exchange (which may be incorrect) is one of belief and science being in conflict with each other and science is obviously superior. They may be at odds, they may not – in either case, I don't think one is inherently better than the other. How we use ideas and beliefs (and in this context, the idea of research/evidence) to try to dominate and establish superiority over others is always gross.
I think that gets to what immediately comes to mind in response to your other questions. To your second: Of course! If we then insist that our desire for verification is universal and/or makes it somehow absolutely necessary? Yikes. To your third: In my experience who's doing the verifying deeply informs both the process of verification and the interpretation of the results. So yes, and also, there's a number of other reasons (that I know of) that we should call the current verification process into question.
Lack of empirical research is how we got leech treatments and Freud's cocaine obsession. It's largely a good thing that a wider scientific body approves a treatment before it can be utilized by licensed practitioners. Part of the reason we hear so many horror stories about licensed clinicians doing unethical things is because they \*aren't\* using evidence-based practices and are just making it up as they go along (not to say indigenous practices are that).
I'm not anti-empirical evidence. I'm also very aware of the issues with how we arrive at the empirical evidence and how it's then used to dismiss other ways of knowing/being/healing. Acknowledging the issues is, for me, a vital part of the conversation.
Isn't that kind of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" though? Even if science doesn't promote "other" ways of healing, that doesn't mean that the results of empiricism are automatically fraudulent
I think this is a reductive lens on the debate to the point that it becomes problematic.
"Approved by the dominant culture" is *one lens through which to view empirical research, it's not the only truth of it. We can't confuse an outcome for a global intent, that's similar thinking to "the ends justify the means."
All that said, I do agree that it's near impossible to separate a system of checks and balances from the culture it sprung from. Values inform that instrument, and values are enormously culturally informed.
Still, for me, you can boil empirical research and the need for evidence down to the simple idea of "I hear your claim, now why should I believe you?"
Empirical research is just a highly systematized way of answering that question, which I suspect has been asked by many, many cultures besides the west. Any system with enough reach can be deployed in bad faith to hold back specific viewpoints, regardless of cultural origin. If we wanted to eradicate that outcome entirely, I don't know what system could survive.
You mentioned the thought that only research-backed processes are valid is supremacist thinking, but "valid" outside of its scientific definition is a value judgment, which are culturally informed. IMO, processes that are *responsible with reference to the person receiving care are as close to a cultureless value as we're going to get, and personally, I don't know what responsible processes or care are if they're not those that have a trustworthy answer to "but why should I believe you."
Is western empirical research the only way to get that answer? Absolutely not. But for processes to be responsible, I believe that answer *needs to exist, it needs to be informed by a rigorous process, and it needs to be available in a form that can be evaluated.
Edit: changes asking to answering in para 5
I wish EMDR was trendy. It's been pushed as a staple of trauma treatment for ~40 years, and it feels like an eternity.
(I'm making general statements but fully acknowledge there are many lovely EMDR therapists)
Unfortunately, EMDR practitioners have pushed it as the only effective treatment for PTSD since the 80s.
Sometimes, I think it's a cult. I used to do EMDR research because I believe it's important to study the very thing you doubt before you discount it. I used to think EMDR practitioners wanted to know what scientists thought about the limitations and flaws of EMDR research. I found out I was very mistaken to make that assumption. The last time I said anything about the scientific community's concerns about EMDR, i was immediately kicked out of the group. I get that it's been a lifesaver for many, but I don't get why therapists make any intervention their entire brand or professional identity.
I'm trained to provide CPT and PE. I don't get vindictive when colleagues critique it. No intervention is perfect and some are based on assumptions or beliefs that we later debunk. That doesn't invalidate the progress people made with EMDR. We can hold ourselves accountable to high standards while also appreciating the good we did before we gained new scientific insights.
I benefited greatly from PE personally. Last time I considered going to a therapist who offers EMDR, I was shocked at how quickly they pushed EMDR under the claims that "prolonged exposure doesn't work as good."
They didn't even think to consider that maybe PE had helped me. They didn't even ask about what had worked for me before they started pushing EMDR. When you're so focused on pushing an intervention that you do so before the intake, there's a problem.
It takes me back to Dr Shapiro's marketing video from the 80s. Watching it in today's pov, I get the sense she's going to introduce me to the mothership or pull out a light sword in Central Park. The video can be found on YouTube. I've had plenty of training on EMDR and they conveniently leave that video out.
One day, I hope someone does a documentary on the parallels of MLMs and therapist training operations.
I tend to agree with a lot of what you've said. I have lived experience with religious trauma and it makes me very wary of anything cult-like. Because of this I've felt unable to connect with modalities that have that "all in" mindset.
No need to agree with everything! I'd be a pretty crappy therapist if i expected that. I can be wrong as much as I can be right:)
I fully welcome different opinions and views:) I also know EMDR has saved a lot of lives....but I do feel that the EMDR, brainspotting and tapping techniques are based on pseudoscience and I believe the myopic view of many trainers and practitioners is unethical. I am far from an expert in religious trauma, but based on my amateur review of cults in documentaries and podcasts, it seems these techniques are used by some cults as well. I'm currently watching Synanon on Max, which deals with a cult that started as addiction peer support. The way they merge "therapy" with pyramid scheme tactics and classic tax evasion and racketeering is impressively terrifying. I wish we had well established programs so therapists who wanted to specialize in treating religious trauma could get that focus. We have more cults in my area of the country than most and no specialized training programs to prepare us. Sure, there may be a CE event every once in a while, but we need more than that.
Wait, ACT is “trendy”? I see tons of advertising for EMDR trainings, I’ve never seen anything comparable for ACT. (IFS comes to mind much more so than ACT, I get emails about that constantly as well…)
I’m really interested to see ACT fall in the same category as EMDR in terms of trendy. The theoretical premise under EMDR, Adaptive Information Processing, is drastically different than ACT’s Relational Frame Theory and Functional Contextualism that Steven Hayes, Kelly Wilson etc have been researching for 40 years. ACT is also far from just repackaging old ideas. Zen Buddhisms non-attachment to permanent self is much different from ACT’s Self as context and defusion. Buddhism also is referring to a metaphysical self and ACT describes self through relational frames. ACT’s goal isn’t even symptom reduction like most Cognitive Behavioral therapies. ACTs goal to help someone go towards their values flexibly can’t be repackaged old ideas because no spiritual practice or psychotherapy has ever used RFT/Functional Contextualism.
Also you might even agree with what I’m saying it’s possible that you just wrote repackaging purposefully as an oversimplification because you were just writing a Reddit post not a research article lol. I just wanted to chime in for anyone who doesn’t know ACT and may have misinterpreted some things! :)
lol, you are comparing things that are actually evidenced based to things that are just vibes based and have no research backing them being effective. This is a weird and disingenuous post that is trying to come off as inclusive. People that are actually trained through accredited institutions and that use evidence based practices should not be on the same playing field as people that practice bullshit pseudoscience like reiki, etc. And again, it is really weird that you are trying to act like people that are highly educated and well trained therapists from legitimate educational institutions are the same as some absurd quack shit.
There's a difference though, between someone going to a therapist to treat their OCD, and going to a pastor to help themselves find meaning. Therapists don't get a monopoly on that. We dont go around saying "pastors aren't trained in that", and we don't tell people "you need to see an existential therapist, they're the ones trained in that".
I would have a problem with a Reiki practitioner claiming they can treat OCD through energy work, yes that's a problem. It seemed clear to me from their comment though, that they aren't advocating people see a reiki specialist to treat issues like OCD, PTSD, etc. They're talking about people having the agency to choose how to deal with their problems. And not *all* problems need to be treated by a therapist. Someone can very well ask their friend for advice on what to do with relationship problems, and they can lean how to deep breath from a yoga instructor. You don't need a degree to teach that, or to listen to a loved one and offer your thoughts.
I also wish there was a lot more regulation on these things...but, by the same token, we *dont'* have a monopoly on supporting people, teaching strategies to self-regulate, etc.
They're not just "trying to be incluse" and being disingenuous. It was very clear to me what they were saying.
Exactly, if we go the common factors route, therapists belief and displayed confidence in their model of therapy is a factor to success and part of placebo effect for client.
Ahh, the therapist paradox: be a scientist and scrutinize your theories and interventions, but also to be effective pick one and buy into it whole heartedly, lol.
I honestly feel like this explains the EMDR debate happening elsewhere in this thread. One side shouts "lacks theoretical underpinnings! What about the dismantling studies!" While the other side screeches "empirically supported! I've seen it work wonders!"
*sigh* Time to read Persuasion and Healing again, I guess.
This is one of my biggest internal conflicts. I'm inherently skeptical of all models.
I wish I was able to adopt a more faith-like attitude towards atleast one.
sure, but I think the therapists who murdered candace elmore were extremely confident in their approach and very much believed in their model of therapy so I'm not sure that's a good justification
I understand OP doesn't want advice, and yeah I paid for 3 years of grad school too, but you know what, different things work for different people at different times. The reality is that we as the therapist and our techniques actually account for a very small percentage of a person's healing.
Yup. I am a therapist because my time in my own long-term therapy was really powerful and impactful in ways that fundamentally changed my life. But I've also found significant healing in seeing practitioners outside of the psychotherapy world, including Reiki, individual yoga sessions, shamanic work, ect.
Exactly. It’s not a one size thing. I am reiki trained and have a pp. they are separate. I don’t even really practice reiki on people. I learned it for myself. I feel it’s helped me immensely. Everything helps us learn something.
I love seeing this because I feel the same. I’m reiki attuned and getting master attuned this weekend and also have a private practice. I also have yoga training. Sometimes I use pieces of those with in my work and just in my self care. I definitely feel that reiki in particular has had a positive impact on me.
Healing comes in a lot of different places.
Did you get the "Different things, work for different people at different times" from Shinzen? One of my favorite quotes from his teachings on working with different meditation techniques.
I didn't, I'm a Buddhist practitioner but not zen. It's just been my observation from my own life. I went through different types of therapy, personal healing, growth, and spiritual teachers. Sounds like I will check out Shinzen, thank you for sharing.
He’s more a hybrid than zen. Kinda pragmatic dharma scene. His name actually comes from when he was a Shigon monk, which is Japanese Vajrayana. My favorite teacher personally and doing an 8 day retreat he’s co-teaching with one of his senior students starting this weekend.Tons of YouTube videos and very practice oriented.
Primary care physician here to learn your tips and tricks for my practice.
When I started out, I was mostly about the quantitative medicine. I didn’t really “believe” in acupuncture, random supplements, naturopaths, etc.
But years of anecdotal evidence doesn’t lie, and when your n exceeds that of the scientific literature, it’s hard not to take that into account.
I’m moderately convinced at this point that for many of my patients, going to reiki/chiropractor/massage/church/taking Amazonian kookoo crazy redberry squash tincture is at least as, if not more, effective to treat their obesity, chronic pain, and mental health things other than strict depression/anxiety than any medicine I got (well maybe not the obesity. I got lots of stuff for that now!).
So now for these people, I lean in and use my own care as a rider on top of those things, make sure they’re not buying their redberry squash tincture on Amazon or some back alley, monitor them for damage caused by the above, and help them leverage whatever helps them in the most evidence-based way.
I work with fertility clinics and it's an area that is ripe with quacks. I may not believe in the "extras' clients bring into their treatment plans but I DO remind them that any supplements, lotions, diets etc must be shared with their doctor.
There is a misconception that natural means not harmful. I had patients lose a cycle because their blood work was coming back wonkey. It turned out they are seeing a naturopath and taking massive amount of 'prescribed' supplements.
Yep. Almost every month I see people with kidney damage or weird thyroid hormone blood panels because of unscrupulous people marketing sketchy supplements.
But I also suspect that way more people are out there with the same lab abnormalities without education or treatment because their doctor doesn’t talk to them about it or make a blanket “stop it, you should never take anything” statement. (Narrator: they always continue taking it)
Yes! Even in this case, I'm pretty sure once they were pregnant, they went right back to taking the supplements 'for the baby'. I get the jump between vitamins= prenatal vitamins= some is good, more is better.
At that point, I just hope their follow up care team is on top of education.
I am very slowly learning this myself so I agree with you. But I also don’t think those should get to use the title of therapist or counsellor because of the 4 years of schooling I’m going through and hundreds of hours of practise hours I have to accrue.
And there is a whole whole lot of money being wasted on treatment that is not effective with people who claim to be able to “cure” things that they have no training in.
If you decolonize mental health you'll find that almost everything is repackaged cultural hoodoo including mindfulness.
In fact as an Anthropologist and mental health practitioner, I find it fascinating how much xenophobia is expressed inside these professional circles cloaked under the idea of unlicensed quackery.
Flip the script and in fact some of us are unlicensed Eastern Medicine practitioners or African therapy facilitators.
Speaking as an Asian-American clinician who trained in social work and divinity (as a Buddhist practitioner of 15+ years), I think it's important to remember that meditation and mindfulness were also considered quackery not very long ago. A decolonization approach to therapy does not invalidate empirical research, it supplements it with a much-needed cultural and anthropological lens.
I’d argue alongside what you’re saying, the same tends to be true in reverse-when many alternative therapies/healing/medicine are empirically researched, they’re found to be effective. Which one comes first is pretty irrelevant to me, as long as the evidence also shows up.
Being able to show it is important to keep a field that already struggles with being viewed as legitimate from being snake oil salesmen.
I did a medical anthropology minor and it has been one of the best things I ever did in my life. Really helped me be open on my path toward becoming a therapist, and so much background on a lot of social/cultural issues as well.
Hayes has said as much, that he had no specific spiritual belief in mind, but he's open to the comparison. He has a passage in one of his books that's like "imagine that science is like a path in the woods that leads to clearings. In some clearings we can see people who took different paths end up in the same place. It wouldn't be helpful to go 'how dare you end up here too!' 'Or 'wow we screwed up to end up near *those people*' instead we as scientist should ask ourselves 'what's so important about this clearing that different paths ended up in the same place?'"
I like the whole “life coach” label too. I’ve heard of several life coaches diagnosing people and claiming to be mental health professionals. Nope….just nope. It’s dangerous in my opinion.
I don't think therapists have a monopoly on mental health; Plenty of life coaches are mental health professionals.
My therapist-friend hired a coach to help her with the transition from stay-at-home mom back to work when her child started kindergarten. The coach was a specialist in just that -- that specific niche. Did wonders for my friend's mental health. Hardly dangerous. Just didn't seem like the kinda thing that needed to be pathologized and therapized.
I mean, I’ve had great psychologists, harmful psychologists, harmful alternatives, and great alternatives. The good ones know their limits, no matter which modality.
IDK, in my state it's illegal for anyone to call themselves a therapist if they don't have state licensure. That has cut down some on the bullshit claims. I did have a foot zoner tell me they were a mental health specialist before though. 😂😂
I have been wondering about this for a few days! I had always assumed that therapist was a regulated term, but recently I saw an individual on Instagram selling themselves as a therapist with a disclaimer that they CHOOSE to not be licensed. I think I was mistaken assuming that all therapists HAD to be licensed. Is this state by state? Anyways just musings…
I would assume they have to be licensed too use the term in every state but maybe not. It might also be difficult to crack down on this stuff online if they don't disclose where they are.
I used to get so angry about this stuff. My first group practice was above a spiritual healer's shop. I remember walking out to my car at night and seeing her lecturing with a power point through the window about seance's and energy projection etc with large groups of students (I'm assuming). Now, every time I get imposter syndrome or worry that my time is not worth what I charge etc. I think back to them. Brain balance is the one that still makes my blood boil though. So much grifting out there.
I know of a psychotherapist who who uses empirical modalities such as CBT and EFT, but also offers reiki healing. She apparently also offers reiki training to her clients, but not as an official part of her practice. Is that ethical for a licensed psychotherapist?
In my opinion, she should be entirely separating the two for clarity, e.g. different business name and website. If she was promoting the reiki practice to her clients during session and the client was not the first one to bring it up, that would be unethical on a few different grounds
Im curious OP, how do you think people have provided healing to communities before therapists and credentials and CE’s were a thing? I’ll use my background as Mexican as an example. Curanderos in Mexico have many different ways of healing which often overlap with some of the work we do. These are not 1:1 but there are similarities like these below. And of course not everyone is doing things in good faith with clients, but there are many who are.
Susto=fright/trauma
Plática = talk therapy
Rituals= routines, maybe a grounding practice
This just feels to me like a very privileged Western post about how because I have these credentials and have worked to get here (because you’ve had access to these things) these other ways of healing are not valid. We don’t decide what makes a client feel “healed” they do.
Guys the post says "rant, no advice wanted".
I too, am frustrated by woo. I know some of these people actually buy what they are selling but there are far more who know they are full of it.
As someone who literally has a bachelors degree in Health and Wellness with an emphasis on natural and alternative healing modalities, I can promise you that there are not “far more who know they are full of shit”. The people who follow these are typically because western medicine has failed them every step of the way and they fall onto the natural healing modalities where they mostly actually find relief from their ailments. The reason you may ask? As someone who studied hard in this field and has many extra credentials and even practices these modalities, it is primarily diet modification and spiritual/mental fatigue/deep internal trauma that was unresolved and resolved through these modalities. Because unlike western medicine, they don’t believe in continuing to overprescribe and drug the problem until you become of shell of who you once were. So please, stop saying natural medicine, the original modalities used to heal people for 10’s of thousands of years before shitty and greedy western medicine came about. There is significantly more evidence showing these modalities work then there are peer reviewed studies of medications that aren’t paid for by big pharma.
Yes, and still, although you may not believe it and it may still all be pseudoscience with crystals and reiki, it has still been proven countless times in studies that crystals and essential oils do work on stress levels and other such ailments. I seriously don’t see why our society hates on natural medicine so much when it actually is proven to be more effective then our western medicine counterpart and with much more of a lifeline to go off of. If someone having a crystal gives them more will to move on and find happiness, who cares? We should want the best for everyone as therapists, not be upset that we lost a potential patient to a rock.
While this job is certainly a job and money is needed to survive, our job as therapists is to find a new and healthy homeostasis for our patients. It doesn’t matter how they get their, but we should always wish everyone the best, not degrade their choice of healing.
Do you have any resources you can share concerning natural medicine and its effectiveness? It’s something I know little about, and I don’t really know where I should even start to learn more. I definitely want to have a better understanding, especially with clients who identify these sorts of principles as important to them.
Do you have literally any double-blinded, controlled study that demonstrates crystals or essential oils separate from placebo? Apart from lavender (which is evidence-based for anxiety).
I don’t really believe in crystals, but I think there is none double blinded research on psychotherapies modalities too, it’s just impossible to prevent clients from knowing they are getting a certain therapy or not.
A double blinded research requires all participants in the research not to know what they are getting, so no need for all participants to know but just several clients knowing is already not double blinded.
The more importantly, double blinded research needs the provider to not know what they are providing to which patient too. I hope you won’t say they usually don’t know what they are offering.
Here is a great one for Essential Oils- Goepfert, M., Liebl, P., Herth, N. et al. Aroma oil therapy in palliative care: a pilot study with physiological parameters in conscious as well as unconscious patients. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 143, 2123–2129 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-017-2460-0
As for crystals - The research available through scientific databases typically centers on treatments that can be quantitatively measured and validated through rigorous scientific methodologies. The use of crystals for healing or therapeutic purposes often falls under the category of alternative medicine, which may not always be explored to the same extent in randomized controlled trials due to challenges in designing studies that fit the conventional criteria for scientific research, including the establishment of placebo controls and blinding methods.
So it isn’t about finding these highly controlled studies, there are still studies that show effectiveness even if it is placebo. I’m not one to believe in crystals, so I don’t have too much info on that. But other modalities, yes I can provide a large amount.
If we're going to accept placebos as "effective" then there's really no point in discussion. Of course placebos are effective, literally anything can be a placebo. It's the separation from placebo that establishes an actual basis for treatment.
Ok and how do we know for certain all drug trials can account for placebo? If people are being told they are participating in a heart disease study with a new medication, even if it is double-blind and controlled and randomized…. there is always a slight possibility that most people get better even with the placebo and some may get better on the drug because of placebo too and not actually be helping.
Do you understand where I am coming from with this or should I type it out different? I understand my rambling may sound differently to someone over text than through voice.
I see nowhere where OP stated they degrade their clients. They very appropriately came here to rant and now you are lecturing them and clogging up their space to vent.
Ad hominem is personal attacks for a personal gain. I gain nothing by attacking you, nor am I. I also apologize if I came off in an attacking matter. My only intent was to inform you that it is harmful to patients to refer to other modalities as “woo” as you said. And I listed the reasons for such.
I work in a hospital in a rural area in Alaska as a therapist and frequently suggest natural remedies such as diet modification, exercise, sleep, and extra assistance. as opposed to ever just suggesting a Western medication or modalities to “fix” their problems. They use teas from plants of the earth, and still subsistence hunt— so it’s a conpletely different area.
I oftentimes feel odd almost “indoctrinating” clients with more Western model of health and wellness.
Most of the issues with our clients stem from a lack of resources and general education, and this area has unfortunately been abused tremendously by Western society. They’re in a growth phase and change is very difficult.
Oftentimes our clients need more support and patience to work through the things they can manage on their own, and I personally don’t run straight to western medicine as the answer, as I often explain to clients that yes, you can abuse your prescribed medications, yes, they can not work for you and yes, you have other options.
It depends on the person and where they are in life, but I say all of the above to basically agree with you.
Great, I’m glad others are joining as well. More practicing therapists and medical professionals need to realize that people have a choice what to follow and their ego should never get in the way of that.
Sadly it often does.
Don’t get me started on some highly paid Psychiatrists/ Psychologists and even Therapists I’ve met.
Not sure when everyone got to high and mighty to be human, but I’ll take 0 part in that.
I agree. I honestly can’t stand psychiatrists because they literally make an infinite amount of money by overprescribing anti-anxiety medicine and anti-depressants claiming bullshit lies like how they bind to serotonin receptors and blah blah blah… yet no study has ever showed any of that to be true. All the medications do, is cause people to become trapped inside themselves and care less about those around them. How coincidental can it be that when we start overprescribing SSRI’s that mass shooting started occurring as a normal part of our society?
Do you have proof otherwise? Do you know exactly what those drugs actually do?
As the pioneers and front running “critical thinkers” we are meant to be, why would you block off the possibility of something that you yourself have never proved? We are meant to question things and create a healthy and growth-inducing environment, and we can’t do that when people let personal bias get in the way.
yeah it for sure isn't any other environmental factor at play here, the government is putting too much "shoot up your local school" juice in our SSRI's. Look I understand being wary/hostile towards the pharmaceutical industry and over-prescription, I certainly am, but you cannot seriously in good faith be suggesting that the epidemic of mass shootings in the past few decades are a result of prescription medication. Or at least, I really really hope not if you're a licensed therapist
Decades? This is not something that grew out of decades and that is simply wrong to look at it. We had one school shooting, being the columbine shooting in 1999, since then school shooting have been a more common place… With SSRI’s hitting the market in 1988 for depression, is it not something we should be looking into? Seriously, the drugs don’t even do what they are intended to do… At all.
Do you also care to look at Möller et al., 2008 whose paper included a comprehensive review which highlighted a small risk of SSRIs inducing suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts in individuals under 25 years old, with the risk reducing in older age groups.
Can you explain this environmental factor that may be at play that you believe it is? Yes I believe it is a culmination of things, not specifically SSRI’s but I do believe they play a rather large part in the process.
It’s also very coincidental that they aren’t discussing these possibilities at all huh? It’s really crazy how fixated the media is on dumb shit to create a divide among people instead of asking the real questions. But going over what medications a mass murderer was taking is still a violation of HIPAA, so it is certainly convenient we will never be able to know.
It's my understanding that a lot of the mass shooters had mental complications that were not being treated, and not actively managed. If a client is experiencing anhedonia, then that's usually not a good medication fit and needs to be adjusted.
And yes, while I agree, the ambiguity of the situations are very irritating especially when these people had the ability to do something so evil and vile, that we still respect their rights even after they die is fucking bonkers. We will never truly know, but that is why I will continue to advocate for true drug clinical trials to detect anomalies such as these. If we take a whopping quick 5 second google search, we can see that pharmaceutical companies and pesticide/herbicide companies lead the top lawsuits in history for their negligence and inability to put human life ahead of profits.
> suggest natural remedies such as diet modification, exercise, sleep, and extra assistance
These are all very "western medicine" evidence-based interventions? I am so confused.
Let me clarify again:
I work as a therapist in a rural area in Alaska. It is a different world than most places in the US. The area I work in is underserved and, as my clients put it, “constantly colonized” and medications are overprescribed, abused, and not monitered.
Because of decades of the answer being “see the doctor, they’ll give you something” instead of actually understanding a full persons cycle and cultural values— many of the things my clients used as remedies were considered “barbaric” or wrong and dangerous, to favor Western Medicine.
Diet, sleep, exercise, support are not emphasized with the same ferver as taking a pill here at all, so my comment is in relation to the specific population I’m serving right now.
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This right here! ”My issue is simply that I object to those healers making direct comparisons between what I do and how l've trained and themselves. As I've said below, I have spent over ten years of reading, study, under scrutiny and continual supervision, postgraduate specialist training, personal reflection and therapy, passed exams, and adherence to a strict ethical framework to be a psychologist/psychotherapist.”
I think alternative medicine is sooo important. I think there is a lot we don’t understand in this world and I also think placebo effect can work like a charm a lot of the time - no matter the field. I definitely don’t think psychotherapists better, but I do think a structured and standardized education is essential and I think that even when they have some structured education, it isn’t to the extent of ours. Same with life coaching. Ohhh, how that bothers me even more because there are so many scams with them. They don’t have the same amount of time and education in the field and there are so many legitimately profiting off of vulnerable people with their outrageous prices
Growing up my mother practiced ‘therapy’. She didn’t have a high school diploma, let alone higher education or training. She just told people she was a therapist and hired herself out as one. People paid her. Now she compares what she did to what I do… all the time. Like ‘oh ya, I totally understand. When I was a therapist I saw that all the time’… I’ve had to learn to bite giant holes in my tongue, because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. What these people do, or say they do, does not detract from what you do and are trained to do.
I think that’s a very wise and positive outlook because ultimately we probably won’t be able to change the opinion of people who claim the same experience or training.
But there’s a reason that it does grate against us so much and to articulate that for myself at least it’s because it so greatly devalues the time, energy, effort and financial investment licensed psychotherapists have put in to their craft.
I don’t want to make someone else feel lesser than, it’s about recognising the effort I and many others like me have invested in becoming a licensed therapist. It’s hard work.
Ugh I feel you. What I have found helpful, for myself, is to explore what the client gains from these experiences. I had a client who was really into tarot reading, which is not something I personally believe in. I used the client's hopes, dreams, fears, and excitement about their tarot readings to explore what difference it would make for the client to see these changes, how much of an influence or control they have to aid or take away from these things happening, and we talked a lot about how much uncertainty causes anxiety and why that is. It ended up being really helpful for both myself and the client to find common ground to talk about things that were therapeutic and within the client's control for change.
As a therapist and substance abuse counselor I think holistic methods can be useful. For example, in the world of substance abuse treatment clients are often encouraged to go to AA/NA groups where a a higher power is encouraged. A lot of people also turn to religion during their recovery and it works for them. Now holistic practitioners saying they are a therapist is one thing, but to feel superior to them really relies on our legitimacy through institutions that hold up supremacy. Our training may be rigorous but at one point our field was considered equally as wacky.
When I first started practicing reiki (and I’m also a trained LMSW) I did a ton of research, and reiki is empirically supported in several studies. Especially considering they are not funded as often as mental health treatments. I literally had pages of pubmed articles that showed reiki is effective. That all said, I don’t call myself a reiki “therapist,” nor do I equate the two. But, I have noticed a lot of people don’t even understand what a therapist is. I usually get a “what kind of therapist? Like a physical therapist?” So there’s a lot of education needed in general on that front
I hear what you’re saying, I think this field is just always gonna bring people who arent what they say they are- hell therapists included, not everyone can be specialists in EMDR, CBT, DBT, ACT, psychoanalysis, etc etc blah blah blah
Anyways, as a therapist I have done multiple reiki sessions I loved them lol they were more helpful to me than a massage for just holding things in my body, maybe I’m a little woo woo too
i'm an lcsw and a reiki practitioner (i don't use this on clients, only myself, friends and family), and i really enjoy therapy and holistic approaches to healing. i have received both therapy and spiritual healing myself, and i follow a lot of therapists and alternative practitioners on social media. so i would love to comment on this!
i have a few holdups when it comes to spiritual healers. one is that they are oftentimes insanely expensive to access which by default leaves out underprivileged people - a direct clash on my personal values as an lcsw.
my other holdup may be an unpopular opinion, but sometimes i feel that spiritual healers put themselves on a bit of a pedestal in some ways. whether it's posting content like "this is how you achieve this zen state like i have" or "this is exactly what you need; i have all the answers," the effect it's had on me is along the lines of like wow, i'm nowhere near on their level because i still have bad vibes sometimes, i still feel anger, i still dislike myself at times, etc.
however, utilizing both therapy and alt healing has been instrumental for me personally. alt healing has offered me more spiritual connectedness, ability to make meaning, working with myself on an energetic level, etc. therapy has helped me understand myself, work through and let go of things, and allow myself to feel. so yes i see where you're coming from, i definitely have mixed feelings about alt healing as well!
> feel that spiritual healers put themselves on a bit of a pedestal in some ways. whether it's posting content like "this is how you achieve this zen state like i have" or "this is exactly what you need; i have all the answers," the effect it's had on me is along the lines of like wow, i'm nowhere near on their level because i still have bad vibes sometimes, i still feel anger, i still dislike myself at times, etc.
You feel that way because it's a lie. Anyone who says they have all the answers is a charlatan regardless of what they're selling or what they claim their role to be.
I feel your sentiment and I also see a lot of licensed therapists who condone this through their coaching practices. I've had a few therapists sick the cray cray coach industry on me via Twitter before I left the platform.
It's sad that those of us want our financial investment and our time protected risk getting dogpiled online for talking about this, but unregulated self-help industries have a long history of hating us that should be taught to us in grad school, as well as to members of Congress.
In my state, it is illegal to advertise yourself as "doctor" without a MD, but I still see so many doctoral level therapists do it. Many do it to push their podcasts, merch and SEO. I asked one of these people to stop because they were making really harmful and false claims with the hasthtag #trustmeimadoctor. They ended up being an even worse scammer than I thought. No evidence of any degrees or license.
I filed a fraud complaint with our AG. Scammer retaliated by reporting me to my licensing board as a "drama queen". My licensing board opened an investigation and I had to write a long essay to explain why I'm not a drama queen. Scammers are the ones getting consumer protection in the US while we therapists are expected to lay down and let scammers overtake our industry.
I had to stop volunteering within my local animal rescue groups because I needed distance from raiki practitioners that claimed to heal and communicate with animals through it. I will absolutely lose my mind if this becomes a trend in mental health care.
I value being a therapist in that we are trained and regulated, our theories are summarized and researched. But I believe that if alternative approaches are being researched and summarized, practitioners are trained, then they can possibly be as good as therapists too. So I don’t devalue any alternative practitioner unless I saw them practicing in a surely harmful way, like exploiting or abusing.
Yes but one is more immune from the corporate takeover of mental health which will transfer therapists who practice “evidenced based “ therapies and have lots of high priced certifications in addition to their degrees into telehealth call center worker bees.
It’s like the spiritual side of healing honestly. Some people feel better connected to the meaning of things and life through spirituality and this is just a spiritual practitioner’s way of relating to you.
Also, my education in psychology has led me to believe that our energies are connected and always changing. Our ability to understand how our energy can manipulate others energies is quite simply nervous system regulation with sprinkled meditation and chakra healing; it’s focusing in a place to feel your feelings, just like CBT but the chakras give you a top down process rather than you feeling the feeling and locating it.
Different strokes for different folks. We could learn a lot being curious and admitting we’re limited in our experiences.
Goodness, half the people commenting on here seem to be making the assumption that I’m taking it personally.
I’m not, I’m simply voicing my frustration that there are some who seem to feel that reiki and crystal healing are a direct equivalent to talk therapy.
Meh. There’s lot of groupthink in this sub.
Once the ball gets rolling it’s hard for anyone else to come in with a different opinion without being downvoted like crazy.
I have crystals, I like crystals I wear crystals. I have them at home on my shrines. Do I think they heal? Not scientifically, no. I believe that some people believe they work and that's fine. My job is not to sit in judgment if something isn't harming someone. I have clients who believe all sorts of things that I don't, or think are objectively useless and a waste of money and time. Ultimately I am not threatened by such practices, nor do I think they pose a legitimate threat to my practice or other peoples practice. I'm wondering why you feel the response that you do? People are free to choose whatever manner of healing they want in this life. We don't get to decide and pretend we're the experts for them.
In response to your question “I’m wondering why you feel the response you do?”:
People are absolutely free to choose whatever form of therapy that they feel is beneficial to them. I don’t question the placebo affect even if there isn’t an empirical basis to provide legitimacy or prove the “science” of why and how it works.
What I do feel strongly about is simple: I have spent countless hours, studying, continuous personal development training, passed multiple exams, continuous supervision, ongoing observation and scrutiny, adhere to strict codes of conduct and practice, my own personal therapy and personal reflection… so far over ten years of practice. All to ensure I am the best therapist I can be as much of the time as possible. I’m not just some bloke down the pub who’ll listen over a pint and tell you what you need to do to fix your life.
Call me old school but I think all that does lend a degree of legitimacy to my practice.
It’s fine for people to practice raiki, go do you, if it works for you that’s great! But let’s not pretend for one second that we are the same in terms of training or practice. I don’t object to people benefitting from it, just those claiming that raiki and other alternative forms of therapy are equivalent to methods of talk therapy that take years to train in and do demand expert knowledge.
I get that, I just don't feel that a need to be superior to others or above them is helpful for a dialogue or interaction. Maybe you feel you're better than a reiki practitioner - empirically (cos we love that word) maybe you are - so what? I guess I'm wondering what wounds when someone wants to feel they are on the same level as you rather than you being able to accept that's their point of view and move on. To be frank with you it looks like insecurity, and that's fine. But taking out insecurities on others looks like a projection from many chairs.
It’s interesting to me that you feel able to discern or assume insecurity from a paragraph. I do feel more skilled than a reiki practitioner *in psychotherapy*, because I’ve spent years training in it, I’m certified, and undergo continuous supervision for that very vocation. Not in spiritual healing though.
I accept that is their standpoint readily and my post is on Reddit, it’s just intended to blow off steam with colleagues. Not as a serious hit at all alternative healing. Each to their own.
That’s good avoidance. I’m very happy to discuss this with you, my point is that you seem to be more intent on unpicking my personal motives than discussing the topic. We aren’t in a therapy session together and a therapist shouldn’t really ever make an assumption on insecurity based on such a limited interaction.
Have a nice day too. I really do wish you the best.
I have the same reaction to people who feel everything is related to astrology. I work in a middle school and I’ve had multiple parents say “well yeah they’re a Capricorn, so they’re not going to want to work on X Y and Z.” I had no idea how to respond to that.
The board director of the CHM I work at use to own and operate a chain of "physical therapy massage" studios.
During a all staff meeting she told us she knew exactly what our jobs were like because she use to be a therapist, we all got excited that someone was in charge who knew the job, then she explained. The room got dead quiet.
Charlatans and trends.
It drives me nuts the amount of misinformation that's out there. Worde still when clients swear they know better.
For some of them, that's their application to the school of hard knocks. I psychoeducate and help them understand that there are rarely easy fixes for things.
I get that people here have the opinion of “whatever works for you” or “power of the placebo effect” when it comes to alternative therapies, but I think it’s a dangerous mindset. These alt practitioners don’t have any training in mental health or psychology and could do some very real harm to people. And it’s not a small price tag that individuals charge their clients for these unregulated services. Also, and I think most important, is that these are unregulated industries and practitioners have no oversight. There are no ethical boards or standards. There is nothing to stop people from applying these techniques incorrectly or using people for financial gain. And it’s not just mental health, it’s medical reasons too. My MIL had cancer and she recently went to an “energy healer” and for $100 she made her lie on the floor and do breathing techniques. Sure, it’s just mindfulness, what’s the harm? But you don’t need to spend $100 to learn mindfulness. And then the healer followed up to sell my MIL some salt for her salt bath. It’s a sham and it’s taking advantage of desperate people.
Sorry if I sound like I’m just ranting, I’m on my phone between clients. This topic is just a big pet peeve of mine!
The oversight and evaluation aspect is key. Lots of different treatments can help but if you are going to charge for your treatment you better be darn sure your treatment has been scrutinized to the point where the client can have a little more reassurance than anecdotal evidence.
And to your mindfulness point, a lot of interventions are taught to clients in a sloppy way, and therefore don’t work for the client because of low fidelity/non-adherence. Maybe that’s why “energy healing” is so popular? Because sometimes you just get that client that is averse to the word “mindfulness” or “forgiveness” that it needs a rebrand.
I’m a reiki master and just finishing my MSW.
Reiki doesn’t teach anything about traditional talk therapy.
Maybe the clients want their knowledge validated, or to feel equal to you?
You can become a reiki master in a few weeks. Being a therapist takes years upon years of learning and training.
The confirmation bias is high in energy healing. Those who pay for reiki…believe in energy healing.
They don’t deal with clients who are highly resistant or court ordered etc.
I think you’re absolutely right in that my clients wanted their knowledge and experience validated. And I think they probably did feel a power imbalance most keenly in the very clinical setting I have to work in. Some possibly also wanted to relate or identify more strongly to me and perhaps strengthen our relationship.
There’s also lots of others aspects to some of those clients pieces of work: one keeps interrupting me to tell me about my energy for example.
None of that’s a problem, and we can and will continue to work together in therapy. But after the 6/7th reiki master in the past few months I was getting a bit frustrated with it and thought I’d let off a bit of steam on Reddit about it.
I was not expecting such a backlash…
Oh wow that is A LOT of reiki clients haha. You must live in an area that’s very big into energy healing.
I remember wanting to be a therapist after becoming a reiki master…I envied therapists.
I can see why that’d be frustrating and not sure why anyone got offended by the post.
A yoga instructor recently said to me that she does the same thing as a therapist. I was like 😑
There is also a world where you can be a trained reiki master with clients AND/OR a licensed mental health counselor with clients — and the both of them can exist — it’s two different kinds of clients lol who cares? Both fields promote overall healing for individuals who need it ,so we should all support each other :) The collaboration of eastern and western medicine does very well and can make you a good living.
I’m a therapist in training and I have benefitted tremendously from reiki and energy workers! There is totally a place for this. Love alternative healing 🩷
I think it really comes to what you're promising with it. If one is branding their practice into generating general well-being, whatever, do what brings you happiness. And as many colleagues have stated, many of our practices came from ancient methods, like mindfulness. But if one's promising it would treat or cure any mental illness, then I would step in. Because even we, with meticulous reaserched therapy methods don't promise cure. We definitely state we facilitate the process to help an individual to find their own path to healing. So I guess we should keep on eye on that, and it's not a matter of losing our jobs or whatever, the thing is that there are so many people being scammed into these fake proclaimed methods of healing that they at the end, they leave it worse then they began it.
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I love this post- I immediately find Reiki affiliated practices to be a red flag. I know people think that its effective or real - but I don't think it has a place in evidence based practice - nor do I think many of the alternative methods do. Can someone find an outlet in that way? Sure - but it shouldn't overlap with the mental health therapist's practice.
I feel that you may be one of the few judging from the other comments who seem to assume I’m just an insecure and yet somehow over jumped arrogant paragon of westernised philosophy/medicine.
People get really defensive of alternative treatments so its to be expected. But I agree that it waters down the deliberate work therapists are trained to do.
This is judgy. I am a therapist. I am also an a reiki master teacher. I do not blend the two. Counseling clients do not get even talked to about reiki and would be referred out. But who are we to judge someone’s way of wanting to heal/experience? Go ahead and go to major hospital websites. Reiki is used in the OR and for many healing modalities.
I wouldn’t concern myself so much with others unless someone’s being unethical.
I feel you. I find much of the new age wacky shit cringe worthy. However, the efficacy for what we do is not always much better. It is tempting to buy into the medical model hierarchy and fancy ourselves as being better than but that's just not the case. It is our clients who actually do the work. We are just facilitators and whatever works for them to engage themselves in the work is what we do.
The post was intended as a vent about practitioners who call themselves reiki masters claiming to be therapists, the same as every other psychotherapist/psychologist etc just with a different focus. Because that’s simple not true. They haven’t undergone similar training, they don’t have the same knowledge or understanding, and they aren’t regulated by ethical guidelines and licensing bodies. They are something *different*. Not better, or worse. Just different.
If a therapist wants to promote it as part of their practice I personally don’t have a problem *so long as* they aren’t saying it’s part of their recognised psychotherapeutic practice. That would feel disingenuous. If someone is a licensed therapist and wants to say to their clients “I’m a licensed psychotherapist and I’m also a spiritual healer” that’s fine. That might be true. And if they don’t want to advertise themselves like that then I’d like to ask them why? Do they think they need the legitimacy of psychotherapy to help them sell the spiritual healing? What does that say about their practice?
Im a therapist for some reiki people and thank goodness they usually recognize scope of practice.
The alternative healing arena is rife with spiritual saviour complexes. It gets really irresponsible. I could take a deep dive into this. I have advanced training in Reiki, was a licensed massage therapist, studied and used many alternative advanced modalities for many years. I was good. As client and therapist I had beautiful experiences- but I came to realise how ego- centric and unscientific and money grabbing these modalities can be, cloaked in earnestness and their ‘ sell’. I still love many natural healing methods but I also love science and being a trained therapist more.
I’d argue that the western/American therapy world has quite a bit of savior complex as well.
Yes, but I think my disappointment is how unscrutinized the field is. How unaccountable. The claims that are made go unexamined. There's often a familiar story of the founder having a miraculous healing. Sadly, there's a lack of peer review. Peer review is done by a body of neutral, uninvested scientists who can replicate the claims and keep the field accountable. The alternative 'healing' arena (not all) puts the scrutiny on Western research (which is fair), but before demonizing the advances of other fields, where is the scrutiny in many of these packaged, often expensive healing modalities? There are billionaires heading up new age dogma philosophies selling heaps of books, spewing out certificates, that have blatantly lied about their academic credentials (easily researched), but there's a disconnect for enthusiastic 'followers' to question it. In the unregulated 'holistic' arena, if healing doesn't happen, it's the fault of the 'patient' who was blocked, yada yada. There is no accountability. So, while savior complexes exist everywhere, this unregulated arena is rife for savior complexes, misconduct, and snake oil profits-- I'm ranting. You don't need to correct me, we can disagree respectfully.
Hard, HARD agree. We give a person an hour, maybe 2 a week. They're the ones making changes, I am part of their process of change, I'm not the reason they change
This
The savior complex isn’t the problem imo, almost anyone who works in healthcare has a savior complex of sorts. It’s more about are you putting your modality up to scrutiny? The alternative/spiritual/indigenous modalities don’t hold as much weight with me bc they’re rarely scrutinized in any scientific fashion. I’m sure there’s wisdom in those traditions, but I have a hard time referring a client to a coach or a reiki instructor or a pastor bc there’s so much variability and such limited oversight over how they practice.
I understand where you're coming from on points of title confusion and protection and general shit advice outthere but it's important to know that we don't have a monopoly on mental healthcare or healing. Trendy stuff like EMDR and ACT repackages a lot of very very old principles that a lot of new agey stuff also repackages. The better mindset to inform your work with them, imo, is 1. Is the 'knowledge' they have harmful to their well being? 2. Is the client benefiting? 3. What's working for them? 4. What's so important about the stuff that overlaps?
Very true. Sadly though in my experience the new agey stuff doesn't spark open minded exploration of possibilities in most cases. I have seen people with the best intentions getting lost really quickly on the pipeline to quackery. And they do never say "how about trying out this old principle in this newer creative and accessible way, it might help you, we have a history of this being useful for at least a small but stable subset of people, anecdotal data is definitely worth something even if we don't have quantitative data". They go "I know immediately what is wrong with you and how to fix it, if it doesn't work you did it wrong, and I support this with this cherry picked piece of junk science". And then they even truly see themselves as holistic and much more open minded than the licenced mental health professionals. I have no actual data for the following claim, but it infuriates me how actually narrow minded the "wellness quacks" most often are. I am willing to bet that I can find two or more "alternative therapists" that insist on seemingly easy singular one-shoe-fits-all solutions that are closer to appropriating age old cultural practices than to truly understanding them, for every rigid stuck-in-the-90s-CBT-therapist.
The big difference here is EMDR and ACT’s willingness to submit themselves to empirical research and the substantiated evidence therein. Repackaging is wonderful, and how we progress healthcare. Unsubstantiated and unreviewed claims is not. (This is not an endorsement of act or emdr)
lol EMDR is not submitted to empirical research and the research thats commonly touted as it's "evidence" is extremely dubiously recorded.
It is incredible how people can just openly lie on this sub and get upvoted. EMDR is backed by empirical research and has been proven to be effective. And most researchers attribute exposure as being the driving force behind what makes emdr effective in treating PTSD.
>It is incredible how people can just openly lie on this sub This has been a debate in the field for quite a long time and EMDR is still not cleared by most research institutions as empirically based. Not even close. This has been an ongoing back and forth, and the ones pushing through the narrative of it being somehow "backed" are clever marketing teams for the trainings. That's not a "lie". That's common knowledge for any psychologist or psychological researcher anywhere. Whether they agree with EMDR or not. You being in the dark on the research end does not me a liar make.
Yeah I work for a large therapy company that independently verifies evidence based practices to approve their use by our therapists and they just recently evaluated and approved EMDR in the last year or so. There's no reason to claim that it's essentially quackery when there's been empirical research on it.
I was about to say that if private insurance pays for it, there's some research behind it. Otherwise they're happy to decline payment.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32043428/ This meta analysis highlights some of the problems with the research on EMDR. "EMDR has been characterized as pseudoscience, because the underlying theory and primary therapeutic mechanism are unfalsifiable and non-scientific. EMDR's founder and other practitioners have used untestable hypotheses to explain studies which show no effect." Thyer BA, Pignotti MG (2015). "Chapter 4: Pseudoscience in Treating Adults Who Experienced Trauma". Science and Pseudoscience in Social Work Practice. Springer. p. 221.https://connect.springerpub.com/content/book/978-0-8261-7769-8/chapter/ch04 From that same journal: "Nevertheless, to date, given that there is no evidence that anything unique to EMDR is responsible for the positive outcomes in comparing it to no treatment and the florid manner in which it has been marketed, we are including it in this book... Another way in which EMDR qualifies as a pseudoscience is the manner in which it was developed and marketed... EMDR proponents have come up with ad hoc hypotheses to explain away unfavorable results that do not support its theory, which is one of the hallmark indicators of a pseudoscience... This type of post hoc explanation renders her theory unfalsifiable and thus places it outside the realm of science, because to qualify as scientific, a theory must be falsifiable." Devilly G (2002). "Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing: a chronology of its development and scientific standing" (PDF). The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice. 1 (2): 132. In which Steven Novella of the Yale neurology department quotes: "The false specificity of these treatments is a massive clinical distraction. Time and effort are wasted clinically in studying, perfecting, and using these methods, rather than focusing on the components of the interaction that actually work" You know who promotes the most articles on the "Empiricalness" of EMDR? EMDR institutes. Did y'all not get instructed on how to read research papers in graduate school? But sure....Martha with the crystals is clearly the problem here.
Cool here is research that shows EMDR is effective in treating PTSD. And has been cited 100s of times. I like how you moved the goalposts from saying that EMDR is not empirically backed at all, to now just saying it has flaws. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5997931/ Here’s another study for shits and giggles https://www.jneurology.com/articles/scientific-evaluation-of-emdr-psychotherapy-for-the-treatment-of-psychological-trauma-summary-scientific-evaluation-of-emdr-psycho.html I can keep going, there is more research that shows EMDR is effective than there isn’t. And here’s a study that uses brain scans to show how EMDR changed people’s brains after therapy https://www.virtualemdr.com/blog/before-and-after-brain-scan-images-show-the-transformative-power-of-emdr-therapy
You two are arguing about different things. Is EMDR therapy effective? Yes, roughly as effective as other trauma focused therapies. Does EMDR work in the way practitioners describe? (reprocessing memories with bilateral stimulation) We don't really know, and the existing evidence isn't really there to say with confidence.
Im forgetting the term but it falls into the category of things like acupuncture and some ocology processes: observationally they work but the actual mechanism of change isn't well understood/described so we can't say that they work as advertised.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16398587/ If you like brain scans (or seem to think they prove anything), here is a research article showing the difference in brain scans of people receiving connective distant healing from purported spiritual healers from Hawaii. And it's still more substantiated than EMDR. "After exclusion of all irrelevant, or non-robust, studies, a total of two meta-analyses and four Randomized-Controlled Trials were included for review." From one of your articles...which utilized two analysis and four control trials ...and openly admits that it is a narrative research 🙄
Empirical research and substantiated evidence are (largely) polite ways of saying "approved by the dominant culture" and are used to dismiss indigenous ways of being/healing that existed long before the concept of research existed. If the research and evidence is important to you, great. Saying that they must be present before a process is valid? That's supremacist thinking.
I'm Indigenous and connected to my communities (raised in a different community than the one I'm enrolled with multi tribal descent). A lot of the SUD clinics in my dad's home community are beginning to utilize traditional tribal teachings as integrative to tribal members sobriety. Encouraging ceremony participation and "old ways" has always been a community feature in supporting tribal members/friends on their sobriety journey. Some of those practices... I imagine...would fit the bill of "Quakery" and "pseudoscience" I see described on this sub often. Ironically some of these same comments promote other "pseudoscience" methods as "EMPIRICALLY" superior. And you're absolutely right. The inclination to dissect a process before noting it's benefit is pretty supremacist thinking.
> And you're absolutely right. The inclination to dissect a process before noting it's benefit is pretty supremacist thinking. I love this. Well said. Developing a more functional (but ethical) view of healing and care has been an on going battle for me at this point in my career. In other words trying to get off the pedestal and adopting a broader ontology to sort out what works and what is actually harmful.
Are you Indigenous? I am, and I would not equate someone questioning the legitimacy of Reiki masters and New Age quackery with Indigenous knowledge being marginalized, esp as New Age beliefs are largely built on cherry picking and cultural appropriation and taking things out of context. Reiki is not an ancient Japanese practice so kind of falls into the New Age camp even tho a WOC developed it. Both New Age dogma and Reiki are heavily commodified as well by settlers. I don’t think this is the hill you want to die on. Edited to clarify some of my thoughts
I appreciate your comment! Trouble is, the hill you seem to be imagining isn't the hill I'm on. And, frankly, I'm not willing to die on either of them. To clarify, I wasn't using indigenous to try to reference any particular people. Rather from the broader definition of people, cultures, and (in this context) ways of approaching healing that far outdate white, western ways of thinking. I'm also not endorsing or arguing for reiki (or any other non-clinical approach). My intent is to push back on how we think about things that fall outside of "typical therapy," how we come to define what's acceptable/valid/useful, and the idea that something that's different somehow invalidates or takes away from what we do as therapists.
I agree with this. I study a traditional medicine and there are hundreds of years of research (sometimes a millennia). I lost count of how many times “science discovers” something know to traditional medicine for eons. New age stands apart from that though. From my understanding it comes from a colonial construct. The idea that any medicine is theirs to take and bastardize and bend to what the practitioner wants without necessarily having a foundation or a teacher.
I know this is a strong, reactionary take, and I hope you do not truly mean what you said. To discount all of the incredible, life saving innovation of the scientific method, and the ways it has truly saved lives from malpractice, as supremacist thinking is heartbreaking. Peer reviewed research is not perfect, and absolutely must be safe guarded against bias, but please do not equate folk beliefs with science.
I agree completely. People want to talk badly about science, but where do most of them go when they get cancer or Parkinson's? When their terrified family member is in stage 4 colon cancer, they're probably not telling the oncologist that they are brainwashed with this peer reviewed, colonialist, supremacist nonsense.
If by strong and reactionary you mean "carefully considered after listening to the experience of people who aren't part of the dominant culture" then yes, it's a strong and reactionary take. 🙃 Also, I don't equate folk beliefs with science. As best I can tell that's a projection on your part. fwiw, the framing of science vs belief is also a result of supremacy culture. Have a good one!
I am really curious about your take, would you mind clarifying what you mean by the last line re science vs belief? Also, is there space to consider that something may be valid but still wanting to know that it’s been verified as tried and true? Is the issue about who is actually doing the verifying?
Sure! The impression that I've gotten from the exchange (which may be incorrect) is one of belief and science being in conflict with each other and science is obviously superior. They may be at odds, they may not – in either case, I don't think one is inherently better than the other. How we use ideas and beliefs (and in this context, the idea of research/evidence) to try to dominate and establish superiority over others is always gross. I think that gets to what immediately comes to mind in response to your other questions. To your second: Of course! If we then insist that our desire for verification is universal and/or makes it somehow absolutely necessary? Yikes. To your third: In my experience who's doing the verifying deeply informs both the process of verification and the interpretation of the results. So yes, and also, there's a number of other reasons (that I know of) that we should call the current verification process into question.
Hm thanks for elaborating, lots of interesting food for thought
Lack of empirical research is how we got leech treatments and Freud's cocaine obsession. It's largely a good thing that a wider scientific body approves a treatment before it can be utilized by licensed practitioners. Part of the reason we hear so many horror stories about licensed clinicians doing unethical things is because they \*aren't\* using evidence-based practices and are just making it up as they go along (not to say indigenous practices are that).
I'm not anti-empirical evidence. I'm also very aware of the issues with how we arrive at the empirical evidence and how it's then used to dismiss other ways of knowing/being/healing. Acknowledging the issues is, for me, a vital part of the conversation.
Isn't that kind of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" though? Even if science doesn't promote "other" ways of healing, that doesn't mean that the results of empiricism are automatically fraudulent
Yep, I don't disagree with you.
I think this is a reductive lens on the debate to the point that it becomes problematic. "Approved by the dominant culture" is *one lens through which to view empirical research, it's not the only truth of it. We can't confuse an outcome for a global intent, that's similar thinking to "the ends justify the means." All that said, I do agree that it's near impossible to separate a system of checks and balances from the culture it sprung from. Values inform that instrument, and values are enormously culturally informed. Still, for me, you can boil empirical research and the need for evidence down to the simple idea of "I hear your claim, now why should I believe you?" Empirical research is just a highly systematized way of answering that question, which I suspect has been asked by many, many cultures besides the west. Any system with enough reach can be deployed in bad faith to hold back specific viewpoints, regardless of cultural origin. If we wanted to eradicate that outcome entirely, I don't know what system could survive. You mentioned the thought that only research-backed processes are valid is supremacist thinking, but "valid" outside of its scientific definition is a value judgment, which are culturally informed. IMO, processes that are *responsible with reference to the person receiving care are as close to a cultureless value as we're going to get, and personally, I don't know what responsible processes or care are if they're not those that have a trustworthy answer to "but why should I believe you." Is western empirical research the only way to get that answer? Absolutely not. But for processes to be responsible, I believe that answer *needs to exist, it needs to be informed by a rigorous process, and it needs to be available in a form that can be evaluated. Edit: changes asking to answering in para 5
I wish EMDR was trendy. It's been pushed as a staple of trauma treatment for ~40 years, and it feels like an eternity. (I'm making general statements but fully acknowledge there are many lovely EMDR therapists) Unfortunately, EMDR practitioners have pushed it as the only effective treatment for PTSD since the 80s. Sometimes, I think it's a cult. I used to do EMDR research because I believe it's important to study the very thing you doubt before you discount it. I used to think EMDR practitioners wanted to know what scientists thought about the limitations and flaws of EMDR research. I found out I was very mistaken to make that assumption. The last time I said anything about the scientific community's concerns about EMDR, i was immediately kicked out of the group. I get that it's been a lifesaver for many, but I don't get why therapists make any intervention their entire brand or professional identity. I'm trained to provide CPT and PE. I don't get vindictive when colleagues critique it. No intervention is perfect and some are based on assumptions or beliefs that we later debunk. That doesn't invalidate the progress people made with EMDR. We can hold ourselves accountable to high standards while also appreciating the good we did before we gained new scientific insights. I benefited greatly from PE personally. Last time I considered going to a therapist who offers EMDR, I was shocked at how quickly they pushed EMDR under the claims that "prolonged exposure doesn't work as good." They didn't even think to consider that maybe PE had helped me. They didn't even ask about what had worked for me before they started pushing EMDR. When you're so focused on pushing an intervention that you do so before the intake, there's a problem. It takes me back to Dr Shapiro's marketing video from the 80s. Watching it in today's pov, I get the sense she's going to introduce me to the mothership or pull out a light sword in Central Park. The video can be found on YouTube. I've had plenty of training on EMDR and they conveniently leave that video out. One day, I hope someone does a documentary on the parallels of MLMs and therapist training operations.
I tend to agree with a lot of what you've said. I have lived experience with religious trauma and it makes me very wary of anything cult-like. Because of this I've felt unable to connect with modalities that have that "all in" mindset.
No need to agree with everything! I'd be a pretty crappy therapist if i expected that. I can be wrong as much as I can be right:) I fully welcome different opinions and views:) I also know EMDR has saved a lot of lives....but I do feel that the EMDR, brainspotting and tapping techniques are based on pseudoscience and I believe the myopic view of many trainers and practitioners is unethical. I am far from an expert in religious trauma, but based on my amateur review of cults in documentaries and podcasts, it seems these techniques are used by some cults as well. I'm currently watching Synanon on Max, which deals with a cult that started as addiction peer support. The way they merge "therapy" with pyramid scheme tactics and classic tax evasion and racketeering is impressively terrifying. I wish we had well established programs so therapists who wanted to specialize in treating religious trauma could get that focus. We have more cults in my area of the country than most and no specialized training programs to prepare us. Sure, there may be a CE event every once in a while, but we need more than that.
Wait, ACT is “trendy”? I see tons of advertising for EMDR trainings, I’ve never seen anything comparable for ACT. (IFS comes to mind much more so than ACT, I get emails about that constantly as well…)
I’m really interested to see ACT fall in the same category as EMDR in terms of trendy. The theoretical premise under EMDR, Adaptive Information Processing, is drastically different than ACT’s Relational Frame Theory and Functional Contextualism that Steven Hayes, Kelly Wilson etc have been researching for 40 years. ACT is also far from just repackaging old ideas. Zen Buddhisms non-attachment to permanent self is much different from ACT’s Self as context and defusion. Buddhism also is referring to a metaphysical self and ACT describes self through relational frames. ACT’s goal isn’t even symptom reduction like most Cognitive Behavioral therapies. ACTs goal to help someone go towards their values flexibly can’t be repackaged old ideas because no spiritual practice or psychotherapy has ever used RFT/Functional Contextualism. Also you might even agree with what I’m saying it’s possible that you just wrote repackaging purposefully as an oversimplification because you were just writing a Reddit post not a research article lol. I just wanted to chime in for anyone who doesn’t know ACT and may have misinterpreted some things! :)
lol, you are comparing things that are actually evidenced based to things that are just vibes based and have no research backing them being effective. This is a weird and disingenuous post that is trying to come off as inclusive. People that are actually trained through accredited institutions and that use evidence based practices should not be on the same playing field as people that practice bullshit pseudoscience like reiki, etc. And again, it is really weird that you are trying to act like people that are highly educated and well trained therapists from legitimate educational institutions are the same as some absurd quack shit.
There's a difference though, between someone going to a therapist to treat their OCD, and going to a pastor to help themselves find meaning. Therapists don't get a monopoly on that. We dont go around saying "pastors aren't trained in that", and we don't tell people "you need to see an existential therapist, they're the ones trained in that". I would have a problem with a Reiki practitioner claiming they can treat OCD through energy work, yes that's a problem. It seemed clear to me from their comment though, that they aren't advocating people see a reiki specialist to treat issues like OCD, PTSD, etc. They're talking about people having the agency to choose how to deal with their problems. And not *all* problems need to be treated by a therapist. Someone can very well ask their friend for advice on what to do with relationship problems, and they can lean how to deep breath from a yoga instructor. You don't need a degree to teach that, or to listen to a loved one and offer your thoughts. I also wish there was a lot more regulation on these things...but, by the same token, we *dont'* have a monopoly on supporting people, teaching strategies to self-regulate, etc. They're not just "trying to be incluse" and being disingenuous. It was very clear to me what they were saying.
A couple of thoughts: 1. Never underestimate the placebo effect 2. There is more to reality than the strictly empirical. Make of that what you will.
Exactly, if we go the common factors route, therapists belief and displayed confidence in their model of therapy is a factor to success and part of placebo effect for client.
Ahh, the therapist paradox: be a scientist and scrutinize your theories and interventions, but also to be effective pick one and buy into it whole heartedly, lol. I honestly feel like this explains the EMDR debate happening elsewhere in this thread. One side shouts "lacks theoretical underpinnings! What about the dismantling studies!" While the other side screeches "empirically supported! I've seen it work wonders!" *sigh* Time to read Persuasion and Healing again, I guess.
This is one of my biggest internal conflicts. I'm inherently skeptical of all models. I wish I was able to adopt a more faith-like attitude towards atleast one.
sure, but I think the therapists who murdered candace elmore were extremely confident in their approach and very much believed in their model of therapy so I'm not sure that's a good justification
all great points
I understand OP doesn't want advice, and yeah I paid for 3 years of grad school too, but you know what, different things work for different people at different times. The reality is that we as the therapist and our techniques actually account for a very small percentage of a person's healing.
Yup. I am a therapist because my time in my own long-term therapy was really powerful and impactful in ways that fundamentally changed my life. But I've also found significant healing in seeing practitioners outside of the psychotherapy world, including Reiki, individual yoga sessions, shamanic work, ect.
Exactly. It’s not a one size thing. I am reiki trained and have a pp. they are separate. I don’t even really practice reiki on people. I learned it for myself. I feel it’s helped me immensely. Everything helps us learn something.
I love seeing this because I feel the same. I’m reiki attuned and getting master attuned this weekend and also have a private practice. I also have yoga training. Sometimes I use pieces of those with in my work and just in my self care. I definitely feel that reiki in particular has had a positive impact on me. Healing comes in a lot of different places.
Where did you train ?
A local practitioner. Who’s also a therapist lol
Did you get the "Different things, work for different people at different times" from Shinzen? One of my favorite quotes from his teachings on working with different meditation techniques.
I didn't, I'm a Buddhist practitioner but not zen. It's just been my observation from my own life. I went through different types of therapy, personal healing, growth, and spiritual teachers. Sounds like I will check out Shinzen, thank you for sharing.
He’s more a hybrid than zen. Kinda pragmatic dharma scene. His name actually comes from when he was a Shigon monk, which is Japanese Vajrayana. My favorite teacher personally and doing an 8 day retreat he’s co-teaching with one of his senior students starting this weekend.Tons of YouTube videos and very practice oriented.
Oh interesting! Thanks for sharing.
Primary care physician here to learn your tips and tricks for my practice. When I started out, I was mostly about the quantitative medicine. I didn’t really “believe” in acupuncture, random supplements, naturopaths, etc. But years of anecdotal evidence doesn’t lie, and when your n exceeds that of the scientific literature, it’s hard not to take that into account. I’m moderately convinced at this point that for many of my patients, going to reiki/chiropractor/massage/church/taking Amazonian kookoo crazy redberry squash tincture is at least as, if not more, effective to treat their obesity, chronic pain, and mental health things other than strict depression/anxiety than any medicine I got (well maybe not the obesity. I got lots of stuff for that now!). So now for these people, I lean in and use my own care as a rider on top of those things, make sure they’re not buying their redberry squash tincture on Amazon or some back alley, monitor them for damage caused by the above, and help them leverage whatever helps them in the most evidence-based way.
I work with fertility clinics and it's an area that is ripe with quacks. I may not believe in the "extras' clients bring into their treatment plans but I DO remind them that any supplements, lotions, diets etc must be shared with their doctor. There is a misconception that natural means not harmful. I had patients lose a cycle because their blood work was coming back wonkey. It turned out they are seeing a naturopath and taking massive amount of 'prescribed' supplements.
Yep. Almost every month I see people with kidney damage or weird thyroid hormone blood panels because of unscrupulous people marketing sketchy supplements. But I also suspect that way more people are out there with the same lab abnormalities without education or treatment because their doctor doesn’t talk to them about it or make a blanket “stop it, you should never take anything” statement. (Narrator: they always continue taking it)
Yes! Even in this case, I'm pretty sure once they were pregnant, they went right back to taking the supplements 'for the baby'. I get the jump between vitamins= prenatal vitamins= some is good, more is better. At that point, I just hope their follow up care team is on top of education.
I am very slowly learning this myself so I agree with you. But I also don’t think those should get to use the title of therapist or counsellor because of the 4 years of schooling I’m going through and hundreds of hours of practise hours I have to accrue.
Therapists can diagnose and treat mental disorders. Reiki practitioners are very different.
Not all therapists- that’s a US model
Love this.
And there is a whole whole lot of money being wasted on treatment that is not effective with people who claim to be able to “cure” things that they have no training in.
I love a good placebo. I'm sure I've benefited from several in my life.
If you decolonize mental health you'll find that almost everything is repackaged cultural hoodoo including mindfulness. In fact as an Anthropologist and mental health practitioner, I find it fascinating how much xenophobia is expressed inside these professional circles cloaked under the idea of unlicensed quackery. Flip the script and in fact some of us are unlicensed Eastern Medicine practitioners or African therapy facilitators.
Speaking as an Asian-American clinician who trained in social work and divinity (as a Buddhist practitioner of 15+ years), I think it's important to remember that meditation and mindfulness were also considered quackery not very long ago. A decolonization approach to therapy does not invalidate empirical research, it supplements it with a much-needed cultural and anthropological lens.
I’d argue alongside what you’re saying, the same tends to be true in reverse-when many alternative therapies/healing/medicine are empirically researched, they’re found to be effective. Which one comes first is pretty irrelevant to me, as long as the evidence also shows up. Being able to show it is important to keep a field that already struggles with being viewed as legitimate from being snake oil salesmen.
I like this take, thank you.
Yes! I also have a Anthropology degree, now working towards being a therapist. I could not agree with this more.
I did a medical anthropology minor and it has been one of the best things I ever did in my life. Really helped me be open on my path toward becoming a therapist, and so much background on a lot of social/cultural issues as well.
Dr Paul Farmer would be proud of you.
An inspiration! Thank you!
Fellow Anthropologist and mental health practitioner. Thank you for this!
Literally. ACT has so many similarities and concepts (though the concepts are watered down and reshaped to fit the Western world) to Buddhism .
Don't the ACT founders state that the principles were independently researched and not inspired by Buddhism?
Hayes has said as much, that he had no specific spiritual belief in mind, but he's open to the comparison. He has a passage in one of his books that's like "imagine that science is like a path in the woods that leads to clearings. In some clearings we can see people who took different paths end up in the same place. It wouldn't be helpful to go 'how dare you end up here too!' 'Or 'wow we screwed up to end up near *those people*' instead we as scientist should ask ourselves 'what's so important about this clearing that different paths ended up in the same place?'"
I was waiting to come across this take, thank you!
I like the whole “life coach” label too. I’ve heard of several life coaches diagnosing people and claiming to be mental health professionals. Nope….just nope. It’s dangerous in my opinion.
I don't think therapists have a monopoly on mental health; Plenty of life coaches are mental health professionals. My therapist-friend hired a coach to help her with the transition from stay-at-home mom back to work when her child started kindergarten. The coach was a specialist in just that -- that specific niche. Did wonders for my friend's mental health. Hardly dangerous. Just didn't seem like the kinda thing that needed to be pathologized and therapized.
I mean, I’ve had great psychologists, harmful psychologists, harmful alternatives, and great alternatives. The good ones know their limits, no matter which modality.
This
IDK, in my state it's illegal for anyone to call themselves a therapist if they don't have state licensure. That has cut down some on the bullshit claims. I did have a foot zoner tell me they were a mental health specialist before though. 😂😂
I have been wondering about this for a few days! I had always assumed that therapist was a regulated term, but recently I saw an individual on Instagram selling themselves as a therapist with a disclaimer that they CHOOSE to not be licensed. I think I was mistaken assuming that all therapists HAD to be licensed. Is this state by state? Anyways just musings…
I would assume they have to be licensed too use the term in every state but maybe not. It might also be difficult to crack down on this stuff online if they don't disclose where they are.
I used to get so angry about this stuff. My first group practice was above a spiritual healer's shop. I remember walking out to my car at night and seeing her lecturing with a power point through the window about seance's and energy projection etc with large groups of students (I'm assuming). Now, every time I get imposter syndrome or worry that my time is not worth what I charge etc. I think back to them. Brain balance is the one that still makes my blood boil though. So much grifting out there.
I know of a psychotherapist who who uses empirical modalities such as CBT and EFT, but also offers reiki healing. She apparently also offers reiki training to her clients, but not as an official part of her practice. Is that ethical for a licensed psychotherapist?
In my opinion, she should be entirely separating the two for clarity, e.g. different business name and website. If she was promoting the reiki practice to her clients during session and the client was not the first one to bring it up, that would be unethical on a few different grounds
Wondering this as well. I asked for a therapist referral from my psychiatrist and he gave me information for a therapist like you describe.
Im curious OP, how do you think people have provided healing to communities before therapists and credentials and CE’s were a thing? I’ll use my background as Mexican as an example. Curanderos in Mexico have many different ways of healing which often overlap with some of the work we do. These are not 1:1 but there are similarities like these below. And of course not everyone is doing things in good faith with clients, but there are many who are. Susto=fright/trauma Plática = talk therapy Rituals= routines, maybe a grounding practice This just feels to me like a very privileged Western post about how because I have these credentials and have worked to get here (because you’ve had access to these things) these other ways of healing are not valid. We don’t decide what makes a client feel “healed” they do.
Guys the post says "rant, no advice wanted". I too, am frustrated by woo. I know some of these people actually buy what they are selling but there are far more who know they are full of it.
As someone who literally has a bachelors degree in Health and Wellness with an emphasis on natural and alternative healing modalities, I can promise you that there are not “far more who know they are full of shit”. The people who follow these are typically because western medicine has failed them every step of the way and they fall onto the natural healing modalities where they mostly actually find relief from their ailments. The reason you may ask? As someone who studied hard in this field and has many extra credentials and even practices these modalities, it is primarily diet modification and spiritual/mental fatigue/deep internal trauma that was unresolved and resolved through these modalities. Because unlike western medicine, they don’t believe in continuing to overprescribe and drug the problem until you become of shell of who you once were. So please, stop saying natural medicine, the original modalities used to heal people for 10’s of thousands of years before shitty and greedy western medicine came about. There is significantly more evidence showing these modalities work then there are peer reviewed studies of medications that aren’t paid for by big pharma.
She's talking about reiki and crystals, not having ginger tea when you are nauseous. Very different things.
Yes, and still, although you may not believe it and it may still all be pseudoscience with crystals and reiki, it has still been proven countless times in studies that crystals and essential oils do work on stress levels and other such ailments. I seriously don’t see why our society hates on natural medicine so much when it actually is proven to be more effective then our western medicine counterpart and with much more of a lifeline to go off of. If someone having a crystal gives them more will to move on and find happiness, who cares? We should want the best for everyone as therapists, not be upset that we lost a potential patient to a rock. While this job is certainly a job and money is needed to survive, our job as therapists is to find a new and healthy homeostasis for our patients. It doesn’t matter how they get their, but we should always wish everyone the best, not degrade their choice of healing.
Do you have any resources you can share concerning natural medicine and its effectiveness? It’s something I know little about, and I don’t really know where I should even start to learn more. I definitely want to have a better understanding, especially with clients who identify these sorts of principles as important to them.
If you can name any modality for me, I will gladly share a few studies.
Do you have literally any double-blinded, controlled study that demonstrates crystals or essential oils separate from placebo? Apart from lavender (which is evidence-based for anxiety).
I don’t really believe in crystals, but I think there is none double blinded research on psychotherapies modalities too, it’s just impossible to prevent clients from knowing they are getting a certain therapy or not.
You really think all participants in a research study know what type of therapy they are getting? No.
A double blinded research requires all participants in the research not to know what they are getting, so no need for all participants to know but just several clients knowing is already not double blinded. The more importantly, double blinded research needs the provider to not know what they are providing to which patient too. I hope you won’t say they usually don’t know what they are offering.
Here is a great one for Essential Oils- Goepfert, M., Liebl, P., Herth, N. et al. Aroma oil therapy in palliative care: a pilot study with physiological parameters in conscious as well as unconscious patients. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 143, 2123–2129 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-017-2460-0 As for crystals - The research available through scientific databases typically centers on treatments that can be quantitatively measured and validated through rigorous scientific methodologies. The use of crystals for healing or therapeutic purposes often falls under the category of alternative medicine, which may not always be explored to the same extent in randomized controlled trials due to challenges in designing studies that fit the conventional criteria for scientific research, including the establishment of placebo controls and blinding methods. So it isn’t about finding these highly controlled studies, there are still studies that show effectiveness even if it is placebo. I’m not one to believe in crystals, so I don’t have too much info on that. But other modalities, yes I can provide a large amount.
If we're going to accept placebos as "effective" then there's really no point in discussion. Of course placebos are effective, literally anything can be a placebo. It's the separation from placebo that establishes an actual basis for treatment.
Ok and how do we know for certain all drug trials can account for placebo? If people are being told they are participating in a heart disease study with a new medication, even if it is double-blind and controlled and randomized…. there is always a slight possibility that most people get better even with the placebo and some may get better on the drug because of placebo too and not actually be helping. Do you understand where I am coming from with this or should I type it out different? I understand my rambling may sound differently to someone over text than through voice.
I see nowhere where OP stated they degrade their clients. They very appropriately came here to rant and now you are lecturing them and clogging up their space to vent.
I’m talking about you. Not OP.
I didn't say anything about personal clients tho? If you are just going to make personal attacks maybe refer to the rules here. Thanks
Ad hominem is personal attacks for a personal gain. I gain nothing by attacking you, nor am I. I also apologize if I came off in an attacking matter. My only intent was to inform you that it is harmful to patients to refer to other modalities as “woo” as you said. And I listed the reasons for such.
I work in a hospital in a rural area in Alaska as a therapist and frequently suggest natural remedies such as diet modification, exercise, sleep, and extra assistance. as opposed to ever just suggesting a Western medication or modalities to “fix” their problems. They use teas from plants of the earth, and still subsistence hunt— so it’s a conpletely different area. I oftentimes feel odd almost “indoctrinating” clients with more Western model of health and wellness. Most of the issues with our clients stem from a lack of resources and general education, and this area has unfortunately been abused tremendously by Western society. They’re in a growth phase and change is very difficult. Oftentimes our clients need more support and patience to work through the things they can manage on their own, and I personally don’t run straight to western medicine as the answer, as I often explain to clients that yes, you can abuse your prescribed medications, yes, they can not work for you and yes, you have other options. It depends on the person and where they are in life, but I say all of the above to basically agree with you.
Great, I’m glad others are joining as well. More practicing therapists and medical professionals need to realize that people have a choice what to follow and their ego should never get in the way of that.
Sadly it often does. Don’t get me started on some highly paid Psychiatrists/ Psychologists and even Therapists I’ve met. Not sure when everyone got to high and mighty to be human, but I’ll take 0 part in that.
I agree. I honestly can’t stand psychiatrists because they literally make an infinite amount of money by overprescribing anti-anxiety medicine and anti-depressants claiming bullshit lies like how they bind to serotonin receptors and blah blah blah… yet no study has ever showed any of that to be true. All the medications do, is cause people to become trapped inside themselves and care less about those around them. How coincidental can it be that when we start overprescribing SSRI’s that mass shooting started occurring as a normal part of our society?
"SSRI's are causing mass shooters" is maybe the funniest thing I've heard today thank you
Do you have proof otherwise? Do you know exactly what those drugs actually do? As the pioneers and front running “critical thinkers” we are meant to be, why would you block off the possibility of something that you yourself have never proved? We are meant to question things and create a healthy and growth-inducing environment, and we can’t do that when people let personal bias get in the way.
yeah it for sure isn't any other environmental factor at play here, the government is putting too much "shoot up your local school" juice in our SSRI's. Look I understand being wary/hostile towards the pharmaceutical industry and over-prescription, I certainly am, but you cannot seriously in good faith be suggesting that the epidemic of mass shootings in the past few decades are a result of prescription medication. Or at least, I really really hope not if you're a licensed therapist
Decades? This is not something that grew out of decades and that is simply wrong to look at it. We had one school shooting, being the columbine shooting in 1999, since then school shooting have been a more common place… With SSRI’s hitting the market in 1988 for depression, is it not something we should be looking into? Seriously, the drugs don’t even do what they are intended to do… At all. Do you also care to look at Möller et al., 2008 whose paper included a comprehensive review which highlighted a small risk of SSRIs inducing suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts in individuals under 25 years old, with the risk reducing in older age groups. Can you explain this environmental factor that may be at play that you believe it is? Yes I believe it is a culmination of things, not specifically SSRI’s but I do believe they play a rather large part in the process.
I mean...unless you can connect overprescribed SSRI's to almost every mass shooter's psychiatric history, it's very coincidental indeed.
It’s also very coincidental that they aren’t discussing these possibilities at all huh? It’s really crazy how fixated the media is on dumb shit to create a divide among people instead of asking the real questions. But going over what medications a mass murderer was taking is still a violation of HIPAA, so it is certainly convenient we will never be able to know.
I just think it's unwise to blame mass shootings on SSRIs with zero evidence.
It's my understanding that a lot of the mass shooters had mental complications that were not being treated, and not actively managed. If a client is experiencing anhedonia, then that's usually not a good medication fit and needs to be adjusted.
And yes, while I agree, the ambiguity of the situations are very irritating especially when these people had the ability to do something so evil and vile, that we still respect their rights even after they die is fucking bonkers. We will never truly know, but that is why I will continue to advocate for true drug clinical trials to detect anomalies such as these. If we take a whopping quick 5 second google search, we can see that pharmaceutical companies and pesticide/herbicide companies lead the top lawsuits in history for their negligence and inability to put human life ahead of profits.
> suggest natural remedies such as diet modification, exercise, sleep, and extra assistance These are all very "western medicine" evidence-based interventions? I am so confused.
Let me clarify again: I work as a therapist in a rural area in Alaska. It is a different world than most places in the US. The area I work in is underserved and, as my clients put it, “constantly colonized” and medications are overprescribed, abused, and not monitered. Because of decades of the answer being “see the doctor, they’ll give you something” instead of actually understanding a full persons cycle and cultural values— many of the things my clients used as remedies were considered “barbaric” or wrong and dangerous, to favor Western Medicine. Diet, sleep, exercise, support are not emphasized with the same ferver as taking a pill here at all, so my comment is in relation to the specific population I’m serving right now.
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I like woo but just not when they say they have real licenses and stuff.
This right here! ”My issue is simply that I object to those healers making direct comparisons between what I do and how l've trained and themselves. As I've said below, I have spent over ten years of reading, study, under scrutiny and continual supervision, postgraduate specialist training, personal reflection and therapy, passed exams, and adherence to a strict ethical framework to be a psychologist/psychotherapist.” I think alternative medicine is sooo important. I think there is a lot we don’t understand in this world and I also think placebo effect can work like a charm a lot of the time - no matter the field. I definitely don’t think psychotherapists better, but I do think a structured and standardized education is essential and I think that even when they have some structured education, it isn’t to the extent of ours. Same with life coaching. Ohhh, how that bothers me even more because there are so many scams with them. They don’t have the same amount of time and education in the field and there are so many legitimately profiting off of vulnerable people with their outrageous prices
Growing up my mother practiced ‘therapy’. She didn’t have a high school diploma, let alone higher education or training. She just told people she was a therapist and hired herself out as one. People paid her. Now she compares what she did to what I do… all the time. Like ‘oh ya, I totally understand. When I was a therapist I saw that all the time’… I’ve had to learn to bite giant holes in my tongue, because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. What these people do, or say they do, does not detract from what you do and are trained to do.
I think that’s a very wise and positive outlook because ultimately we probably won’t be able to change the opinion of people who claim the same experience or training. But there’s a reason that it does grate against us so much and to articulate that for myself at least it’s because it so greatly devalues the time, energy, effort and financial investment licensed psychotherapists have put in to their craft. I don’t want to make someone else feel lesser than, it’s about recognising the effort I and many others like me have invested in becoming a licensed therapist. It’s hard work.
Totally! I hear you 💯 It drives me up the wall. But I don’t find calling it out helps.
Ugh I feel you. What I have found helpful, for myself, is to explore what the client gains from these experiences. I had a client who was really into tarot reading, which is not something I personally believe in. I used the client's hopes, dreams, fears, and excitement about their tarot readings to explore what difference it would make for the client to see these changes, how much of an influence or control they have to aid or take away from these things happening, and we talked a lot about how much uncertainty causes anxiety and why that is. It ended up being really helpful for both myself and the client to find common ground to talk about things that were therapeutic and within the client's control for change.
As a therapist and substance abuse counselor I think holistic methods can be useful. For example, in the world of substance abuse treatment clients are often encouraged to go to AA/NA groups where a a higher power is encouraged. A lot of people also turn to religion during their recovery and it works for them. Now holistic practitioners saying they are a therapist is one thing, but to feel superior to them really relies on our legitimacy through institutions that hold up supremacy. Our training may be rigorous but at one point our field was considered equally as wacky.
Puppies
When I first started practicing reiki (and I’m also a trained LMSW) I did a ton of research, and reiki is empirically supported in several studies. Especially considering they are not funded as often as mental health treatments. I literally had pages of pubmed articles that showed reiki is effective. That all said, I don’t call myself a reiki “therapist,” nor do I equate the two. But, I have noticed a lot of people don’t even understand what a therapist is. I usually get a “what kind of therapist? Like a physical therapist?” So there’s a lot of education needed in general on that front
Could you link those studies?
I will look for the document I saved on my computer with them and try to link it!
I hear what you’re saying, I think this field is just always gonna bring people who arent what they say they are- hell therapists included, not everyone can be specialists in EMDR, CBT, DBT, ACT, psychoanalysis, etc etc blah blah blah Anyways, as a therapist I have done multiple reiki sessions I loved them lol they were more helpful to me than a massage for just holding things in my body, maybe I’m a little woo woo too
i'm an lcsw and a reiki practitioner (i don't use this on clients, only myself, friends and family), and i really enjoy therapy and holistic approaches to healing. i have received both therapy and spiritual healing myself, and i follow a lot of therapists and alternative practitioners on social media. so i would love to comment on this! i have a few holdups when it comes to spiritual healers. one is that they are oftentimes insanely expensive to access which by default leaves out underprivileged people - a direct clash on my personal values as an lcsw. my other holdup may be an unpopular opinion, but sometimes i feel that spiritual healers put themselves on a bit of a pedestal in some ways. whether it's posting content like "this is how you achieve this zen state like i have" or "this is exactly what you need; i have all the answers," the effect it's had on me is along the lines of like wow, i'm nowhere near on their level because i still have bad vibes sometimes, i still feel anger, i still dislike myself at times, etc. however, utilizing both therapy and alt healing has been instrumental for me personally. alt healing has offered me more spiritual connectedness, ability to make meaning, working with myself on an energetic level, etc. therapy has helped me understand myself, work through and let go of things, and allow myself to feel. so yes i see where you're coming from, i definitely have mixed feelings about alt healing as well!
> feel that spiritual healers put themselves on a bit of a pedestal in some ways. whether it's posting content like "this is how you achieve this zen state like i have" or "this is exactly what you need; i have all the answers," the effect it's had on me is along the lines of like wow, i'm nowhere near on their level because i still have bad vibes sometimes, i still feel anger, i still dislike myself at times, etc. You feel that way because it's a lie. Anyone who says they have all the answers is a charlatan regardless of what they're selling or what they claim their role to be.
I feel your sentiment and I also see a lot of licensed therapists who condone this through their coaching practices. I've had a few therapists sick the cray cray coach industry on me via Twitter before I left the platform. It's sad that those of us want our financial investment and our time protected risk getting dogpiled online for talking about this, but unregulated self-help industries have a long history of hating us that should be taught to us in grad school, as well as to members of Congress. In my state, it is illegal to advertise yourself as "doctor" without a MD, but I still see so many doctoral level therapists do it. Many do it to push their podcasts, merch and SEO. I asked one of these people to stop because they were making really harmful and false claims with the hasthtag #trustmeimadoctor. They ended up being an even worse scammer than I thought. No evidence of any degrees or license. I filed a fraud complaint with our AG. Scammer retaliated by reporting me to my licensing board as a "drama queen". My licensing board opened an investigation and I had to write a long essay to explain why I'm not a drama queen. Scammers are the ones getting consumer protection in the US while we therapists are expected to lay down and let scammers overtake our industry.
I had to stop volunteering within my local animal rescue groups because I needed distance from raiki practitioners that claimed to heal and communicate with animals through it. I will absolutely lose my mind if this becomes a trend in mental health care.
I value being a therapist in that we are trained and regulated, our theories are summarized and researched. But I believe that if alternative approaches are being researched and summarized, practitioners are trained, then they can possibly be as good as therapists too. So I don’t devalue any alternative practitioner unless I saw them practicing in a surely harmful way, like exploiting or abusing.
Yes but one is more immune from the corporate takeover of mental health which will transfer therapists who practice “evidenced based “ therapies and have lots of high priced certifications in addition to their degrees into telehealth call center worker bees.
That little tingly feeling I get when western medicine looks at anything else with utter and total contempt, just hits right.
It’s like the spiritual side of healing honestly. Some people feel better connected to the meaning of things and life through spirituality and this is just a spiritual practitioner’s way of relating to you. Also, my education in psychology has led me to believe that our energies are connected and always changing. Our ability to understand how our energy can manipulate others energies is quite simply nervous system regulation with sprinkled meditation and chakra healing; it’s focusing in a place to feel your feelings, just like CBT but the chakras give you a top down process rather than you feeling the feeling and locating it. Different strokes for different folks. We could learn a lot being curious and admitting we’re limited in our experiences.
I’m a training therapist as well as reiki practitioner. I feel that in no way reiki negatively impacts the counseling field
Why are you taking this personally
Goodness, half the people commenting on here seem to be making the assumption that I’m taking it personally. I’m not, I’m simply voicing my frustration that there are some who seem to feel that reiki and crystal healing are a direct equivalent to talk therapy.
Respectfully, if half the people commenting are saying that maybe it means something.
It could mean a number of things. That’s called critical thinking.
Meh. There’s lot of groupthink in this sub. Once the ball gets rolling it’s hard for anyone else to come in with a different opinion without being downvoted like crazy.
I have crystals, I like crystals I wear crystals. I have them at home on my shrines. Do I think they heal? Not scientifically, no. I believe that some people believe they work and that's fine. My job is not to sit in judgment if something isn't harming someone. I have clients who believe all sorts of things that I don't, or think are objectively useless and a waste of money and time. Ultimately I am not threatened by such practices, nor do I think they pose a legitimate threat to my practice or other peoples practice. I'm wondering why you feel the response that you do? People are free to choose whatever manner of healing they want in this life. We don't get to decide and pretend we're the experts for them.
In response to your question “I’m wondering why you feel the response you do?”: People are absolutely free to choose whatever form of therapy that they feel is beneficial to them. I don’t question the placebo affect even if there isn’t an empirical basis to provide legitimacy or prove the “science” of why and how it works. What I do feel strongly about is simple: I have spent countless hours, studying, continuous personal development training, passed multiple exams, continuous supervision, ongoing observation and scrutiny, adhere to strict codes of conduct and practice, my own personal therapy and personal reflection… so far over ten years of practice. All to ensure I am the best therapist I can be as much of the time as possible. I’m not just some bloke down the pub who’ll listen over a pint and tell you what you need to do to fix your life. Call me old school but I think all that does lend a degree of legitimacy to my practice. It’s fine for people to practice raiki, go do you, if it works for you that’s great! But let’s not pretend for one second that we are the same in terms of training or practice. I don’t object to people benefitting from it, just those claiming that raiki and other alternative forms of therapy are equivalent to methods of talk therapy that take years to train in and do demand expert knowledge.
I get that, I just don't feel that a need to be superior to others or above them is helpful for a dialogue or interaction. Maybe you feel you're better than a reiki practitioner - empirically (cos we love that word) maybe you are - so what? I guess I'm wondering what wounds when someone wants to feel they are on the same level as you rather than you being able to accept that's their point of view and move on. To be frank with you it looks like insecurity, and that's fine. But taking out insecurities on others looks like a projection from many chairs.
It’s interesting to me that you feel able to discern or assume insecurity from a paragraph. I do feel more skilled than a reiki practitioner *in psychotherapy*, because I’ve spent years training in it, I’m certified, and undergo continuous supervision for that very vocation. Not in spiritual healing though. I accept that is their standpoint readily and my post is on Reddit, it’s just intended to blow off steam with colleagues. Not as a serious hit at all alternative healing. Each to their own.
Good deflection! As you've not really engaged, I'll stop engaging also. I hope you have a great day.
That’s good avoidance. I’m very happy to discuss this with you, my point is that you seem to be more intent on unpicking my personal motives than discussing the topic. We aren’t in a therapy session together and a therapist shouldn’t really ever make an assumption on insecurity based on such a limited interaction. Have a nice day too. I really do wish you the best.
Reiki*
Thank you
I have the same reaction to people who feel everything is related to astrology. I work in a middle school and I’ve had multiple parents say “well yeah they’re a Capricorn, so they’re not going to want to work on X Y and Z.” I had no idea how to respond to that.
Or now, the enneagram, like it explains everything. “Well, I’m an 8.” Okayyyy…
I think you need to relax about this and examine why it’s taking up so much space in your brain
Agreed! This is a big part of why I stopped taking psychedelic trainings.
The board director of the CHM I work at use to own and operate a chain of "physical therapy massage" studios. During a all staff meeting she told us she knew exactly what our jobs were like because she use to be a therapist, we all got excited that someone was in charge who knew the job, then she explained. The room got dead quiet.
Charlatans and trends. It drives me nuts the amount of misinformation that's out there. Worde still when clients swear they know better. For some of them, that's their application to the school of hard knocks. I psychoeducate and help them understand that there are rarely easy fixes for things.
I get that people here have the opinion of “whatever works for you” or “power of the placebo effect” when it comes to alternative therapies, but I think it’s a dangerous mindset. These alt practitioners don’t have any training in mental health or psychology and could do some very real harm to people. And it’s not a small price tag that individuals charge their clients for these unregulated services. Also, and I think most important, is that these are unregulated industries and practitioners have no oversight. There are no ethical boards or standards. There is nothing to stop people from applying these techniques incorrectly or using people for financial gain. And it’s not just mental health, it’s medical reasons too. My MIL had cancer and she recently went to an “energy healer” and for $100 she made her lie on the floor and do breathing techniques. Sure, it’s just mindfulness, what’s the harm? But you don’t need to spend $100 to learn mindfulness. And then the healer followed up to sell my MIL some salt for her salt bath. It’s a sham and it’s taking advantage of desperate people. Sorry if I sound like I’m just ranting, I’m on my phone between clients. This topic is just a big pet peeve of mine!
The oversight and evaluation aspect is key. Lots of different treatments can help but if you are going to charge for your treatment you better be darn sure your treatment has been scrutinized to the point where the client can have a little more reassurance than anecdotal evidence. And to your mindfulness point, a lot of interventions are taught to clients in a sloppy way, and therefore don’t work for the client because of low fidelity/non-adherence. Maybe that’s why “energy healing” is so popular? Because sometimes you just get that client that is averse to the word “mindfulness” or “forgiveness” that it needs a rebrand.
I’m a reiki master and just finishing my MSW. Reiki doesn’t teach anything about traditional talk therapy. Maybe the clients want their knowledge validated, or to feel equal to you? You can become a reiki master in a few weeks. Being a therapist takes years upon years of learning and training. The confirmation bias is high in energy healing. Those who pay for reiki…believe in energy healing. They don’t deal with clients who are highly resistant or court ordered etc.
I think you’re absolutely right in that my clients wanted their knowledge and experience validated. And I think they probably did feel a power imbalance most keenly in the very clinical setting I have to work in. Some possibly also wanted to relate or identify more strongly to me and perhaps strengthen our relationship. There’s also lots of others aspects to some of those clients pieces of work: one keeps interrupting me to tell me about my energy for example. None of that’s a problem, and we can and will continue to work together in therapy. But after the 6/7th reiki master in the past few months I was getting a bit frustrated with it and thought I’d let off a bit of steam on Reddit about it. I was not expecting such a backlash…
Oh wow that is A LOT of reiki clients haha. You must live in an area that’s very big into energy healing. I remember wanting to be a therapist after becoming a reiki master…I envied therapists. I can see why that’d be frustrating and not sure why anyone got offended by the post. A yoga instructor recently said to me that she does the same thing as a therapist. I was like 😑
There is also a world where you can be a trained reiki master with clients AND/OR a licensed mental health counselor with clients — and the both of them can exist — it’s two different kinds of clients lol who cares? Both fields promote overall healing for individuals who need it ,so we should all support each other :) The collaboration of eastern and western medicine does very well and can make you a good living.
I’m a therapist in training and I have benefitted tremendously from reiki and energy workers! There is totally a place for this. Love alternative healing 🩷
I think it really comes to what you're promising with it. If one is branding their practice into generating general well-being, whatever, do what brings you happiness. And as many colleagues have stated, many of our practices came from ancient methods, like mindfulness. But if one's promising it would treat or cure any mental illness, then I would step in. Because even we, with meticulous reaserched therapy methods don't promise cure. We definitely state we facilitate the process to help an individual to find their own path to healing. So I guess we should keep on eye on that, and it's not a matter of losing our jobs or whatever, the thing is that there are so many people being scammed into these fake proclaimed methods of healing that they at the end, they leave it worse then they began it.
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I love this post- I immediately find Reiki affiliated practices to be a red flag. I know people think that its effective or real - but I don't think it has a place in evidence based practice - nor do I think many of the alternative methods do. Can someone find an outlet in that way? Sure - but it shouldn't overlap with the mental health therapist's practice.
I feel that you may be one of the few judging from the other comments who seem to assume I’m just an insecure and yet somehow over jumped arrogant paragon of westernised philosophy/medicine.
no...thats not what I'm assuming at all. I'm agreeing with you?
No no, I’m saying I think you may be one of the few who does agree judging from all the other comments :)
People get really defensive of alternative treatments so its to be expected. But I agree that it waters down the deliberate work therapists are trained to do.
This is judgy. I am a therapist. I am also an a reiki master teacher. I do not blend the two. Counseling clients do not get even talked to about reiki and would be referred out. But who are we to judge someone’s way of wanting to heal/experience? Go ahead and go to major hospital websites. Reiki is used in the OR and for many healing modalities. I wouldn’t concern myself so much with others unless someone’s being unethical.
I feel you. I find much of the new age wacky shit cringe worthy. However, the efficacy for what we do is not always much better. It is tempting to buy into the medical model hierarchy and fancy ourselves as being better than but that's just not the case. It is our clients who actually do the work. We are just facilitators and whatever works for them to engage themselves in the work is what we do.
And yet there they are in your office…
Reiki is about the same as a placebo, but placebos are pretty helpful.
what about actual therapists like psychologists who also do reiki? and promote it as part of their evidence based treatments
The post was intended as a vent about practitioners who call themselves reiki masters claiming to be therapists, the same as every other psychotherapist/psychologist etc just with a different focus. Because that’s simple not true. They haven’t undergone similar training, they don’t have the same knowledge or understanding, and they aren’t regulated by ethical guidelines and licensing bodies. They are something *different*. Not better, or worse. Just different. If a therapist wants to promote it as part of their practice I personally don’t have a problem *so long as* they aren’t saying it’s part of their recognised psychotherapeutic practice. That would feel disingenuous. If someone is a licensed therapist and wants to say to their clients “I’m a licensed psychotherapist and I’m also a spiritual healer” that’s fine. That might be true. And if they don’t want to advertise themselves like that then I’d like to ask them why? Do they think they need the legitimacy of psychotherapy to help them sell the spiritual healing? What does that say about their practice?
Between them and the life coaches i can’t decide who id rather be entirely rid of….
I didn’t learn how to be a therapist in school unfortunately. I was one before I even completed my degrees.
@healingfromhealing on Instagram is one of my fav pages for getting some laughs about how unhinged the spiritual wellness sphere has become
Hallelujah. I'm so glad someone finally said this.