Disclaimer: This is a “stream of consciousness” post designed to encourage open discussion about therapies, be they evidence-based or anecdotal.

Always remember to research any therapy you are interested in experiencing or studying. Don’t just take my word for it (not that you will get my word per se but you may get a slant or a slice of my opinion, which is just that).

It seems there are very divided camps in the therapy world. Like the “spiritual” versus the “rational”, the “evidence-based” versus the “anecdotal”. I maintain to some degree “it doesn’t matter”. If someone is charging a LOT of money for something, it doesn’t make it right or wrong; it is YOUR choice what you do with YOUR money… but are you always fully aware of what can help and what certainly won’t help? To a degree you won’t really know until you’ve tried the therapy you’re interested in and additionally many therapists are trained in a great number of modalities so that they can get the best outcome for their clients. As most well-qualified therapists will explain, it is the therapeutic relationship that will ensure the best outcome. Occasionally I have heard people say that their last therapist was “crap” or “not that good” and my take will be perhaps you just didn’t get along; so that therapist may well have been perfect for someone else.

Sometimes you don’t have all the information you need to make the right choice and then it is your responsibility to do the research. Some vulnerable people can fall prey to charlatans and this has the potential to truly mislead and cause damage. If that particular therapist does not practice evidence based therapy, or is not a member of a professional body, doesn’t have professional indemnity insurance then perhaps it’s worth considering the ethics of that particular therapist or healer and AVOID.

Clearly the main body of evidence based therapies encompass the following:

Psychotherapy – encompasses the majority of “talking-based therapies” as below, but some argue it’s a “deeper” form of counselling and takes longer to study as a result which was my experience.
Counselling (See Mick Cooper’s The Facts are Friendly)
Hypnotherapy (read Adam Eason’s – evidence based hypnotherapist – blogs)
Emotional Freedom Technique

Many more evidence-based “talking” therapies come under this banner and include:

BWRT® (See here for evidence)
Behavioural therapy
Cognitive analytical therapy
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
Dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT)
Family therapy
Gestalt Therapy
Person Centred Therapy (PC)
Psychodynamic Therapy (PD)
Transactional Analysis (TA)
Mindfulness

CBT is more often practised under the NHS as part of a treatment plan as is supported by research; however CBH (Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapy) is reputed to fast track CBT through its hypnotherapeutic delivery)

Other, more esoteric therapies or healing modalities, which can include:

Matrix Reimprinting
Reiki
Emotion / Body Code (trapped emotions? We probably all have those!)
Matrix Energetics (ME)
Access Bars
Angel Healing (Angelic Reiki, Angel Card readings)

Can be viewed as pseudo quackery and have little or no evidence whatsoever to back them up, bar anecdotal. This doesn’t necessarily make them wrong; after all, there is some evidence for the placebo effect! If you believe something will work then chances are it will.

How much does it matter?

Clearly it matters if vulnerable people are drawn into these methodologies and are shortchanged or the condition is made worse. At best many may feel more relaxed and better able to cope with life’s tribulations, at worst who honestly knows?

Perhaps there are many areas of life where one can part with a lot of money and feel shortchanged, having put their faith into another person, not just therapy. We believe the promises we are told, we believe people around us who have life experience … how do you choose the right intervention for YOU?

I believe what matters is that people are heard, acknowledged, listened to and validated if necessary, but what also matters is taking personal responsibility for your life and making effective changes to smooth our existence in life. Sometimes this is a matter of in depth research combined with education, experience and being completely and fully conscious as to how we feel about things that we experience.

One day I heard the words “Access Bars” mentioned; it was a bit like the time I first heard EFT mentioned and my reaction was similar. Brush over it, and it will go away soon.

So imagine my intrigue when another few years passed on, and I attended the Swindon Pop Up Business school where I plonked myself in a chair next to a lovely lady who happened to mention “Access Bars” again to me. My reaction – again, almost as evolved as those years back was to say something like “how interesting” and we had a very short discussion about it but I confess I did not take an awful lot in but my curiosity was piqued. We discussed many books that we had in common currently on our bookshelves and exchanged a few bits of personal information and later that evening we connected on Facebook.

I thought a little of it as time when on.

One day on facebook I thought I saw my friend indicate an interest in an event; (latterly it seems she thought I’d expressed an interest – but the mystery shall remain). The event was entitled “Yumminess with Bodies“. Well frankly, with a title like that I had to check it out – I mean, “weird stuff”, right?

Guess what, it was Access Bars popping up into my conscious energy sphere, or at least I was allowing it to. This time I sat up and looked into it further. The event clashed with running club, but hey, I can always make up the running later. Pizza too, and with my ketogenic diet (no bread, grains, nothing high carb) it was going to have to be one of those “weekday exceptions” in order to survive with some food. My accompanying friend offered to save me from this fate by eating my portion but I suggested I would save her from excessive weight gain by denying her that supposed privilege.

Next was to “panic” about how far away this event / workshop was and allowing sufficient time to crawl to Bath during rush hour. I did this and we arrived about 15 minutes early which was a bonus as I’m often attempting to travel at warp speed (my friend’s wording, I confess).

We were greeted by our host, Ruth Bartleet who hugged us enthusiastically and welcomed us to the meeting, held at the wonderful Castle Farm Cafe where the preparations for pizza and salad were underway. The garden is a beautiful peaceful space with tables and chairs and a little shop selling some wonderful organic produce.

There were about 20 people there, predominantly female but there was a notable male presence which can be unusual in the therapy world as many may testify.

A brief introduction preceded the invitation to lie down on one of the couches to “receive bars” or “have the bars run” and as mine were being done, a short explanation of each point being touched was given. I could have closed my eyes but chose to keep them open as we chatted to introduce ourselves and talk about the Bars and how they can help change lives or perspectives. The different points can refer to different parts of where energy or baggage is stored.

Prior to this event, I had checked out some videos on Access Bars and many of them said similar – that it was the one thing that worked, that remained, that helped clear head baggage. I then found this video on youtube that featured both Gary Douglas (founder of Access Bars) and a neuroscientist (Dr Jeffrey Fannin) who cited brain scans before and after Access Bars were run which showed a notable positive change – arguably similar to reported brain scans on people who meditate regularly.

So whilst my personal “jury” and “conventional, rational, evidence-based psychotherapist” in me may be still out slightly, I have to report that my head (which was aching and heavy in the days leading up to the session) feels clearer, more grounded and able to write this blog!

Testimonials verbally given at the event were amazing; as I have always had one foot in the “esoteric” and have myself given card readings and sense energy all around, this healing modality did very much speak to me. It was also interesting to hear the different opinions with regards to Reiki compared with Access Bars in that the latter seemed more of a permanent way of locking in personal change. My Reiki therapist would insist that I must “let go” and yet on reflection that “letting go” doesn’t feel right for me in that the baggage I seem to hang onto informs my work. But I can permit it to not affect me any longer. Perhaps that’s a new thought for me?

The Access Bars are 32 bars of energy that run through and around your head, storing the electromagnetic component of all the thoughts, ideas, attitudes, decisions and beliefs that you have ever had about anything. There are bars for Healing, Body, Control, Awareness, Creativity, Power, Aging, Sex and Money just to name a few. Each thought, idea, attitude, decision or belief that you have fixed in place solidifies the energy and limits your capacity to be generative in that area. The purpose of a Bars session is to clear those points and to invite people to receive. Receiving instead of doing, doing, doing.

Like magic, it is not about what you do, it is about changing the energy of how you are functioning in life that allows change to show up without effort and with great ease.

Have you ever tried to talk to someone who has their mind made up about something? Is it like trying to get through a brick wall? That’s because it IS a wall, an energetic wall. Every time you take a point of view, you create another wall.

For example, if you say “I’m never doing that again!¨ that decision stops the energy and limits what you can receive. Does a decision like that create more choice in your life or less? Would it create an impact on your body? Fortunately, this can be changed easily and quickly. By running energy through these bars, the barriers dissipate and the electromagnetic charge is released. Releasing stuck energy is like deleting old files off your computer. You have more space to create something new and wonderful with more up-to-date tools!  [taken from this website]

I am hoping to attend a full workshop and perhaps even deliver the “Bars” to others. After all, having bought a couch about five years ago and never used it with any clients, perhaps it’s time.

Obstacles arise right away because there is no single or precise definition of what the subconscious mind is. Almost every form of therapy or philosophy has its own definition and while many are similar enough that we can all use the term and know what we mean, they do not all agree.

In fact in the beginning when the term ‘unconscious’ was first used by Freud it was considered a dark place where things best not disturb where place. Over time the definition changed until new age and self help industries started to use less complicated definitions and a more positive slant on the term Subconscious Mind.

Whatever definition is used for the sub conscious mind, it should be clear that it is a metaphor to explain in simple terms an extremely complicated and little understood aspect of human behaviour. The Subconscious in its simplest terms can be considered that part of you that is outside of your conscious awareness that creates automatic programs (Beliefs, Behaviours & Attitudes) to make life for you easier to operate in without having to place too much focus and attention on everything you are doing

What the Subconscious mind is not and can not do

The Sub Conscious Mind is not a metaphysical aspect outside of the physical structure of the brain. We do know that all of the aspects that have been studied show real activity within the brain. That means everything we know thus far has a physical aspect of neurological activity – nothing has yet to be attributed to anything outside of the physical world that can be measured, even if the subconscious activity is not present to your conscious awareness.

Unlike many claims of the self-help community, the Sub Conscious mind is not an all-powerful entity that can accomplish everything. Many people will claim in their explanation for the subconscious mind that it does ‘everything’ you are not aware of, this is just not the case. For Example the subconscious is not responsible for your breathing or ability to walk – these are functions of the autonomic nervous system. The Subconscious will not make you grow taller, change your eye colour or cure cancer it works in the realms of belief, behaviour and attitudes.

What does the Subconscious mind do? And how does it decide?

If we accept the metaphor that the Subconscious mind is a part of you, the part that takes care of making life easier for you by creating automatic behaviours and reactions to events in your everyday life; then the next question is how exactly?

There are a few basic ways the Subconscious mind determines how to create automatic programs for you

1) Previous life experience (This includes the beliefs and customs of your parents, culture, social groups including any religious beliefs)
2) Current life experience (This includes any new skills and abilities you study and learn, the values and beliefs of new groups and social connections and self-initiated attempts at creating change)
3) Listening to the instructions you give it during your Self Talk and thoughts

So who you are at an unconscious level is a combination of how you were raised (childhood impressions in a developing brain are hugely influential), what you do on purpose to grow as a person and the 60,000 odd thoughts you have a day that you never pay any conscious awareness too. Your subconscious mind will take all these confusing and conflicting ideas and concepts on=board and attempt to create some form of coherent automatic response.

How does your Sub Conscious apply its programmes?

Have you ever brought a new car or an item of clothing and all of a sudden you notice the same thing everywhere? Your mind and focus just seems to zoom in on the same car or shoes that others have. Your mind works in a similar way, its job is to answer the questions you ask yourself (see following section) and it does this by highlighting experiences that support the beliefs and questions you are asking for solutions too. It will then trigger off an emotional response it thinks is appropriate to have for this experience

How you create new Subconscious programs

Sub Conscious responses can be expressed in many ways, as a feeling or emotional response, as an automatic behaviour, as habits or ticks and as both empowering and un-empowering reactions. The responses may be  contradictory to each other, and most confusing to most people can be the opposite of what it is they want to be!

Your Self Talk – answering the questions you ask

You have around 60,000 thoughts a day, including self-talk, creating images and experiencing emotions. That’s 3 a second! And almost all of the time this self-talk is created by your sub conscious and rarely makes it to your conscious awareness.

For example you make decisions all the time, do you take the stairs or lift? Do you run the orange light or stop, do you eat now or in 5 minutes time, do you go to the bathroom now or wait another 5 minutes. Yet at the end of the day, almost nobody can remember 5 conscious thoughts they had during the day

Worse still is that 90-95{0420f535ce615780036d97fb0e48496e457086dc60a6d0fc56706f61c82d85a3} of the time we are asking ourselves or telling ourselves un-empowering questions and statements. We are asking ourselves the wrong questions. Your Subconscious mind then goes about creating automatic beliefs, attitudes and behaviours to make life easier for you by answering these questions. Then it will draw your attention and focus to life experience that supports the answers to the questions you’re asking.

Questions you ask Subconscious Auto Response
“Why can’t I stop eating” Gives you a feeling of craving something you spot out of the corner of your eye
“Why can’t I lose weight” Comes up with feelings of being tired or lazy and justifies certain behaviour you have or avoid
“Why don’t I have any good friends” May interpret a look from a friend as contempt or embarrassment or give you a feeling of betrayal at an action someone does
“Why am I so alone” Manages to talk yourself out of going out and making an effort to change by reminding you that you are shy or don’t enjoy socialising
“Why do I always act this way, I hate that I always do this” Draws your focus to events that trigger off the reaction, and then allows you to mentally beat yourself up for doing it and makes you feel bad

Recap

1) Your Unconscious mind tries to make life easier for you by giving you what you want.
2) It knows what you want by the type of questions you ask yourself
3) The types of questions you ask yourself mostly focus on what you do not want
4) We never pay any conscious awareness into changing what we tell ourselves

How to change your Sub Conscious Programmes

The key to changing these automatic behaviours and beliefs is to effectively communicate with your Subconscious. The fastest and most effective methods are to use therapy especially design to work with it, such as BWRT®, Hypnotherapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). But you can make some changes (albeit slower to take effect) by using Affirmations or Mindful Awareness

Affirmations

Affirmations are statements of positive intent as if they are already occurring. Affirmations are an attempt to counteract all the negative self-talk with how they would rather be instead. Most people are familiar with affirmations but some of the most common mistakes are

1) To focus on the behaviour you do not want.
2) To make the statement in a future tense not the present

For example, “I don’t want to smoke” should be “I am a non-smoker”; and “I don’t want to eat chocolate” should be “I only eat healthy food”. Some people find Affirmations difficult because what they are saying is not true, and they feel like a fake using them. That’s fine, if the affirmations were true you would not have to be making them. Affirmations are a deliberate attempt to brainwash yourself into a more empowering set of automatic programs. Subliminal Messages are a form of affirmations given at a sub conscious level avoiding these feelings, and allowing change without too much conscious effort.

Mindful Awareness

Mindful Awareness is the ability to actually make yourself consciously aware of the types of thoughts you are having. The beauty of this approach is that when you notice a negative thought you can immediately counter it by saying to yourself “Cancel that what I mean is …” and insert a positive affirmation. The skill of Mindful Awareness is one of the best self help and personal development tools you could possibly have. It allows you to become aware of and take charge of your self talk. It allows you to determine how you will program your sub conscious mind rather than allowing it to make the decision for you.

Do you know what it feels like when people constantly tell you to “let go” of your struggles?

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