Holistic Therapy
A bespoke blend of talk therapy, bodywork, breath-work, energy work, and other somatic practices based on the individual needs
Have you ever felt like your talk therapy is giving you a great intellectual understanding, but and not really connecting fully with the problem on the inside…?
Do you feel like you’re rehashing the same ideas, but not making proper contact with your pain points, and processing on an embodied level?
Conventional psychotherapy can help us logically understand our situations and help us find better ways to understand ourselves and frame our life situations (which is great!). However, our patterns are not just mental, and we store a lot of stress and tension in the body! Our complexes are often combinations of holding patterns with mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual content, so we can benefit from engaging with it from a more physiological lens, rather than simply a logical understanding.
With ‘holistic therapy‘ we have an opportunity to rebalance and realign the whole human, so that we can break these holding pattens and retrain our physiology to come back to its natural centre. Using somatic pathways such as breathing patterns, muscular tensions, and energetic blocks, in conjunction with mental and emotional techniques, to bring the body back to its natural alignment. So that we can feel as calm and comfortable in the body, as well as in our minds.
‘Holistic Therapy’ is a fast-track to regulating the nervous system and will therefore be especially helpful with any conditions related to an up-regulated nervous system (fight or flight) or for people under a lot of mental stress and fatigue, such as ADHD, Cenral Sensitivity Syndrome (CSS), crohn’s, fibro/polymyalgia, IBS etc. Relevant symptoms could include brain fog, stress, headaches / migraines, jaw grinding, fatigue, anxiousness, digestive issues, muscular tension, etc.
So whether you:
– Have a specific mental/emotional pattern which is disruptive to your life
– Wish to regulate your nervous system generally, OR
– Are simply interested in a more holistic, preventative / self-care ‘tune up‘,
When digging into emotional/mental patterns, this work can be gritty and uncomfortable. The work can involve sitting with the uncomfortable truths. Making contact with those ugly, embarrassing parts, moving through any shame and coming to acceptance, and eventually fully processing and letting go of any outdated mechanisms
We need a special bend of self compassion and encouragement, blended with direct and honest truth, even if it is uncomfortable. In a culture of enabling, avoidance and repression, being ‘called out on our bullshit’ and admitting the truth of our patterns can be uncomfortable. This is what is required to expedite the healing process, clear the ‘psychic debris’, and ultimately live more fulfilling and enriching lives.
What to Expect
Common Themes / Areas of work
- Relationships and Communication
- Workplace Conflict
- Dating Dynamics
- Lifestyle Analysis / Audit
- People pleasing / Healthy Boundaries
- Upregulated Nervous System
- Life transitions / shifting identity
- Confidence, Self-Worth, Identity
- Goals and Motivation
- Shame and Guilt
- Shadow work / unconscious beliefs
- Attachment styles
- Abandonment
- Negative Self-Talk
- Limiting Beliefs
FAQ
What is Holistic Therapy?
A type of therapy which looks at all aspects of the whole human. Rahter than strictly focusing on the shifting of mental patterns or physical patterns in isolation, Holistic therapy integrates physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual forms of well-being.
How does it differ from conventional talk therapy?
Talk therapy focuses on mental patterns., but the habitual patterns are also stuck in the body. Therefore, holistic therapy trains us to not only understand our issues and shift mental habits, but also teaches us to make shifts in our physiology so that we can process things properly, let go, and move through them on a somatic level. We store stress and have holding patterns in the body. The cognitive lens is only part of the overall therapeutic picture.
What would a session look like? What would it involve?
The content of any session will be heavily dependant on the individual needs. A typical session may invovle a sit-down face to face discussion, followed by a combination of somatic practices requiring. A session may involve any combination of the following types of exercises:
- Engaging talk therapy
- Breathing practices
- Energy Work (such as reiki style)
- Bodywork/Massage
- Somatic touch (specific tapping, drilling, stroking etc.)
- Bioenergetics (movement practice)
- Vocalisations / Humming
- Guided Meditations
- Guided Visualisations
- Hypnosis
- Sound therapy
Why do it? What can i stand to gain?
-If your goal is to process and heal from a particular repetitive pain point or pattern with similar emotional/mental content: This will assist in bringing the pattern to extinction, or a weaker position. In practical terms this means that the things that used to upset you and send you into a tail spin and drain all your energy will either not touch you at all, or be far less intense and long lived.
IThe benefit to the body can be:
The physiological benefits are wide-ranging and not limited to:
– mental clarity, less anxiousness, raised self-awareness and self control, more grounded and stable, and less frenetic energy, de-tensioning of the muscles, more energy, breathing and heart rate re-calibration…
Who is holistic therapy suited to?
If you have an issue or ‘pain point’ which is coming up regularly and continually and you can’t seem to shake it and/or make sense of it. These pain points and associated mental and emotional patters can be triggered routinely. If the same type of setting or situation is triggering you alot, then you will no doubt be burning alot of emotional and mental energy on this problem. Holistic therapy will allow you to process these issues thoroughly, and heal, so that these ‘pain points’ lose their charge and you no longer have to lose energy and time on these negative patterns.
Also, if you have a generally ‘upregulated nervous system’ and you body is in it’s sympathetic reactivity ‘fight or flight’, then this somatic work can be efficient in speaking directly to the physiology to calm the nervous system and bring the physiology back into relative balance and homeostasis.
What does good talk therapy look like?
Sometimes people can work with a psychologist for a long time, but still not feel like they are fully connecting with the issue. This is because a lot of psychology talks about the issue, instead of engaging with the issue. In my estimation it is the methods where we engage more directly with the issue, such as role play and talking from different parts of ourselves, that healing can be expedited. We are engaging with it, rather than talking about it from a distance. Techniques from Gestalt and Internal Family Systems (IFS) are modalities which are examples of more direct engagement with the issue. Good therapy makes internal change and facilitates real healing.
Get Started with Authentic Edge
Contact
(61) 404 292 194
andrew@authenticedge.com.au