The Role of Energy Psychology in Transformative Healing
Article Published for The Vital Creative Collection, Written by Charlotte Jade Askew
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I read a statistic the other day that sat me down.
Forty-two percent of Generation Z in the United States have been diagnosed with a mental health condition (more than any other generation; no author, 2022). I had to double-check what the age bracket of Gen Z is, because I can never seem to remember which generation is which. (I spent the longest time thinking I was a Millennial only to find out after quite some years that I’m actually a Gen Z.) Humanity’s fascination with categorising people will never cease to puzzle me. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Gen Z includes anyone born between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s — which is unhappily vague for a dictionary but seems to speak to the arbitrariness of labelling.
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The influence of tech.
My next thought was that Gen Z was also, perhaps not so coincidentally, the first generation to grow up (at least partially) with smartphone technology. I’m in the 1990s block of this generation, so smartphones didn’t come until later in adolescence for me, but I can remember receiving my first brick Nokia back in grade 8 and trying to access Myspace through the web browser on a screen the size of a fifty-cent piece. For those of you who never had the privilege of listing your top friends and picking your profile wallpaper, Myspace was the cool version of Facebook, before Facebook rose in popularity and Myspace very quickly became uncool and then disappeared entirely. Of course, by the time I reached Grade 12, the iPhone had been released and the rest is history, right?
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Increased awareness & willingness.
Now, I don’t blame smartphones and social media entirely, there are far too many variables to establish causality. Gen Z also experienced the pandemic, the current political climate, mass shootings, the cost-of-living crisis (we could go on, could we not?). It is also worth noting that Gen Z adults reporting fair to poor mental health could also just be indicative of their increased awareness of and willingness to discuss mental health (Bethune, 2019). But what I think is more important than why more people are experiencing mental health difficulties, is that they are.
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The opportunity.
Anxiety placed first in terms of the most diagnosed mental health experience, closely followed by depression, ADHD, and PTSD (No Author, 2022). Sixty percent of those diagnosed are on medication to manage the condition… and guess what percentage have been to therapy? Twenty. Twenty percent. I won’t go down the route of conjecture when it comes to why that number might be so low, only to say that the stigma is undeniably still alive and well.
There is an opportunity to shift the perception of what therapy can offer — and what it can be.
On a societal note, perhaps if we didn’t still think of therapy as going to lay on a too-firm white couch in a sterile office with mediocre décor, to spill our soul to a condescending man in a suit who deigns to tell us how to think, more people might consider it.
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We’re still figuring it out.
The latest American Psychological Association survey on stress reported more than 9 in 10 adults aged 15-21 (a massive 91%) disclose experiencing at least one physical or emotional symptom as a result of stress. Fifty-eight percent reported feeling depressed or sad, fifty-five percent lacking interest, motivation or energy, and only half said that they felt like they did enough to manage their stress.
Australia recently held R U OK Day? An annual, national day of mental health awareness on which Australians are encouraged to check on their loved ones. A heartening initiative that, for me, was another reminder that the truth is: A lot of us are not okay, regardless of our generation — and, typically, we don’t talk about it.
Collectively, humanity hasn’t seemed to be able to figure out how to be okay.
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The new kid on the block.
But there is a new kid on the block (well, relatively new; new in the sense that the field is finally being researched and popularised). That new kid is Energy Psychology. A group of therapeutic interventions designed with an exquisite combination of ancient wisdom and contemporary science.
Energetic Psychology works with the WHOLE person — body, mind, and soul — where previous therapeutic interventions have disconnected the head from the body in true Descartes’ fashion, treating the mind whilst neglecting the now unequivocal understanding that emotions and memories are stored (and experienced) in the body.
Energy Psychology offers mainstream access to healing that has, for the longest time, been experienced on the very fringes of what society deems appropriate and acceptable. Dismissed as “woo woo” nonsense initially, we have finally reached a point where evidence is the loudest voice, and the Energy Psychology studies are screaming. Ancient shamans, healers, sages, and witches knew that humans were more than just blood and bone, long before the technology was developed to show we essentially boil down to a fuzzy field of vibrating atoms.
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Disease and dissonance.
Research has now revealed that disease and dissonance — energetic incoherence — indeed shows up in the human energy field before it shows up in the cells of the physical body.
In a landmark study, scientists detected the body’s electromagnetic field and determined that there is a specific energetic signature for uterine cancer that was the same in every woman they studied who had been diagnosed with uterine cancer (Church, 2019). They then took a group of healthy women and studied their electromagnetic fields. Some of those women had the same uterine cancer signature, but no diagnosis or physical symptoms. The scientists followed up with those women years later and found that they had developed uterine cancer. The energy field predicted the physical disease.
We try to do everything physically, outwardly, to heal, but how often do we turn inward? How often do we consider our energy? How often do you think about your energy? Once a week, a few times a year, never? Your energy field is the blueprint around which matter (the atoms which make up your cells, and skin and every physical part of your body – what we think of as material reality) is organised. The recipe for creation…
and scientists are discovering if you change the blueprint (the energy field), you change material reality.
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Holistic reintegration.
Energetic Psychology uses several techniques, most of which are based on the ancient wisdom of the energy meridians and acupressure points in the body, to tap into the energy field and heal the unhelpful patterns and disturbances that have arisen there. Our emotional struggles, our stress, our anxiety, our mental health also begins (and is transformed) in this field. The challenges we experience in life, traumas, conflicts, slights, and avoided emotions, are remembered in our subconscious and stored in the energy field and body.
Transformative healing is the connection of mind, body, and soul in an experience of holistic reintegration. Reclaiming and releasing what has been conditioned, stored, and blocked and realigning to a new energy field, a new experience, a new frequency.
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On the cusp of a collective awakening.
Popularised techniques in modern medicine for mental health have for years focused on physicality. The brain without the body. Not anymore. We are on the cusp of a collective awakening when it comes to the healing potential of humanity. There is a shift toward accepting the thousands of studies that suggest we must heal our energy to heal ourselves.
So, there might be more of us struggling with our mental health, but this might arguably be the best time in history to be struggling. If you’re not familiar with energy psychology, I encourage you to investigate. Any of the books written by Dr. Dawson Church or Dr. Joe Dispenza will be a helpful place to begin, and if you’re looking to work with a healing practitioner who uses energetic psychology in their practice, you may choose to check out the list on the following website: https://eftuniverse.com/.
—Charlotte Jade Askew, In-House Writer at Casey Jacque
Instagram: @inner_chatter
References:
Bethune, S. (2019). Gen Z More Likely to Report Mental Health Concerns. Monitor on Psychology. 50:1. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/gen-z
Church, D. (2019). Mind to Matter: The Astonishing Science of How Your Brain Creates Material Reality. Hay House, Inc.
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.). (1999). Merriam-Webster Incorporated.
No Author. (2022). Survey: 42% of Gen Z Diagnosed with a Mental Health Condition. Retrieved from: https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/survey-42-of-gen-z-diagnosed-with-a-mental-health-condition/
