Clinical Case Studies in Energy Psychology

Many leading doctors and psychologists now speculate that unresolved trauma is responsible for many of the chronic diseases of Western populations. The body learns and then defaults to a maladaptive reaction to stress and becomes unable to maintain normal homeostasis. Trauma also leads to dissociation as a survival mechanism and a splitting of the psyche. Shamanic healers have had their own way of dealing with trauma, which they call “soul loss,” for hundreds of years. One of their techniques is the process of soul retrieval, in which they journey into the “underworld” to access the “lost soul part.” Accessing and using altered states of consciousness is now gaining credibility through the quantum physics of non-locality and its many scientific spin-offs, including work with near-death experiences and holonomic brain models. This article reviews the current thinking on trauma and non-locality; describes how soul retrieval can be used to help effect a rapid change in the long-standing limiting beliefs held by distressed clients, assisting them to regain a sense of purpose and direction in their lives as their psyche becomes more complete; and relates ancient shamanic concepts such as soul loss to modern psychological concepts such as dissociation.