2023-04-24 16:44:34
Two halfs
If you are interested in treatments other than CBT, the following holistic approaches may be of interest. These help one to perceive physical, emotional and soul aspects as well. The number of body-oriented therapies is endless, and the therapies mentioned here are only a part of what this world has to offer.
Also, for example, haptonomy, rebalancing, postural integration and creative therapies deserve attention. In a body-oriented therapy, the practitioner helps the client to get in better contact with his or her body.
Feelings, emotions and thought patterns can be set in motion in this way. This can help someone to find balance within themselves.
Sometimes something can remain dormant on an emotional level. And the emotional attachment to a “fallacy” may not always be relieved by labeling that thought as irrational and countering it with a functional one, as is done in CBT. But all that is whole has two halves, and one form of therapy, as far as I’m concerned, can stand side by side with the other.
1. Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) EFT assumes that negative emotions are caused by an energetic disturbance. Also known as ‘tapping’, it combines elements of cognitive therapy with acupressure – stimulating pressure points on the body.
Instead of inserting needles, as in acupuncture, EFT taps specific pressure points with the fingertips. As you do that, associate a sentence, the setup statement, with painful feelings and memories. In this way, emotional and physical blockages could be resolved. Millions of people worldwide practice EFT; in 2022 three million people downloaded the self-help instructions online.
EFT can be performed by a professional, taught to the client through a training program, offered as group therapy, and also used virtually – in apps and online classes.
In 2022, American researchers conducted a meta-analysis, comparing the results of 56 EFT studies. 4
The results showed a medium to large positive effect of EFT on psychological conditions such as anxiety, depression and phobias. In addition, EFT proved effective in improving professional and sports performance.
The researchers also mentioned the objective effects of EFT that are measurable in the hormonal system and heart function. No side effects were reported in any of the included studies. The effectiveness of EFT has also been proven several times in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.5
2. Gestalt Therapy (GT) GT is a holistic form of therapy that is mainly about what you feel and experience in your body, in the here and now. The contact with yourself and others is central to this.
As you develop, you learn ways of interacting with and relating to others. GT aims to restore the unwanted patterns. The therapist pays attention to nonverbal cues from the client, such as body movements, facial expression, and tone of voice.
For example, this form of therapy could help the client to adapt more flexibly and creatively to the environment. Because scientific research encourages reproducible facts, research on GT is likely to be scant; every session is different with this therapy and gives a unique result. This is related to the experiential and experimental nature of the therapy.
Nevertheless, a review article was published in 2019 that confirmed the effectiveness of GT from eleven scientific articles.6 In the studies, the form of therapy led to improvements in self-development, social life and depressed feelings, among other things.
3. Acupuncture Acupuncture comes from traditional Chinese medicine and is thousands of years old. It is a medicine recognized by the World Health Organization. Within this method, body and mind are regarded as a whole: mental and physical developments constantly influence each other.7
To achieve a therapeutic effect, needles are placed on acupuncture points. The imbalance in someone’s energy system is eliminated in this way. In a meta-analysis the results of 29 studies from America, China and Korea were combined.8
The results show that acupuncture can significantly reduce the severity of depression. This effect was maintained when acupuncture was compared to placebo acupuncture or used as an adjunct to drug therapy. The researchers encourage further research because questions remain about the optimal form of acupuncture – the amount and frequency of sessions, the role of lifestyle advice and the level of patient involvement.
#Cognitive #Behavioral #Therapy #Medical #File