Holistic Gardner

I often get the question from potential clients, “What is holistic psychotherapy, anyway?”

My New York aunt insists that in New York, the word ‘holistic’ would not get me very far – there’s this perception that the translation of ‘holistic’ equals California crunchy-oat-bread-with-sprouts-and-avocado-eating, Birkenstocks-wearing, lefty-communist protesters… Or some such comparison. Maybe they think we’re all driving around in ‘68 VW Bugs hugging trees and singing Kumbaya.

I was listening to Wayne Dyer’s series of audio CDs “The Essence of Being in Balance,” which I found in a bargain bin recently. I had seen him on a PBS TV special, and thought he made some good points, so I went ahead, and needing a dose of balance myself, picked up the 6-CD set.

He is half  a “wise man” archetype, and half  “New Age guru.” The latter comes out when he makes emphatic points like, “I know the Universe is here to support us all,” that, even were it so, is a pretty presumptuous statement. But that annoyance aside, I was up, couldn’t sleep, and was listening.

Recently I watched Caroline Myss’ “Energetics of Healing” DVD. Myss is most known for her book Anatomy of the Spirit, and is renowned as one of the first practitioners to pull the mind, body, and spirit together and reach the masses.

In this DVD, her premise is that we have a set amount of energy coming from the Source to us everyday that is managed through energetic chakra centers. Each chakra manages a specific category of information. Good management of the chakras leads to well-being and equilibrium in your daily functioning, whereas poor management results in energy “leaks” that drain cells of life force and leave us depleted, tired, unhappy, with low self-esteem, and with unbalanced relationships. Taken to an extreme, these “leaks” lead to  illness  and disease.