By Peta Stapleton, Associate Professor of Psychology
In recent years, the field of psychology has witnessed the emergence of a fourth wave in therapy. These innovative approaches include therapies that integrate the mind and body in counselling settings and include a somatic (body-based) element.
The therapy field appears to have shifted from focusing on "What is wrong with you?" to "What happened to you?" Combining the fields of neuroscience/neurobiology, mindfulness, and cognitive, these fourth-wave approaches offer a multi-pronged approach to meet the needs of clients. It appears these new approaches integrate well with other methods, although they appear faster than traditional talk therapy.
While the field began with evidence-based treatments such as Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing (EMDR), energy psychology has emerged as another modality with growing evidence. In particular, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), which combines elements of cognitive and exposure therapy with stimulation of acupuncture points, has been found to be efficacious for a range of psychological and physiological conditions, such as post-traumatic stress, trauma, pain, phobias, weight issues and anxiety and depression. The research base shows few treatment sessions are required, treatment is effective whether delivered in person or virtually, and symptom improvements persist over time.
Other energy psychology approaches emerging with evidence include Thought Field Therapy (a precursor to EFT that also uses acupressure stimulation), and Havening, which uses touch, eye movements, and other sensory inputs. Havening focuses on self-compassion, kindness, and self-care and, like the other approaches, is self-driven and applied.
FORMS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY
600
The number of identified psychotherapy modalities, many of which have little research to validate them
ENERGY PSYCHOLOGY
Top 10%
Energy psychology has more published research than 90% of psychotherapy modalities
PUBLICATIONS
320
There are now more than 320 publications on tapping or EFT, an energy psychology technique
EFFECTIVE
99%
The percentage of studies which indicate effectiveness of tapping
Why are therapists including body-based elements in therapy?
Therapists, counsellors, psychologists and similar professions are increasingly incorporating somatic, body-based elements in psychology for several reasons.
1) Somatic approaches recognise the connection between the mind and body and aim to address mental and physical issues simultaneously.
2) These fourth-wave approaches are grounded in the belief that the mind and body are interconnected, and that healing/recovery can occur by working with both aspects of a person's experience.
3) Somatic approaches have shown promise in the treatment of trauma-related disorders. It focuses on changing the interoceptive and proprioceptive sensations associated with traumatic experiences, and appears to result in lasting change.
4) Somatic additions in therapy take a bottom-up approach to recovery, starting from the more "primitive" brain structures and their embodied reactions and working upwards towards higher cortical systems (usually used in talk therapy).
5) These approaches appear more rapid to achieve outcomes than traditional talk therapies, and it may be that as modalities such as energy psychology help individuals gain awareness of their bodies, they are able to change reactions, release tension, process emotions, and develop a sense of safety and grounding in their bodies.
6) Finally, these approaches are complementary to traditional talk therapy. By integrating body-based interventions, therapists can help clients access and process experiences that may be difficult to verbalise.
How I found the fourth-wave approach
Graduating with a traditional psychology degree in the early 1990s, I felt called to the field to help others. I started to specialise in eating disorders and was conducting weekly, free support groups and individual sessions, and I started teaching at university. But something was missing.
No matter what I used from my clinical training, my clients weren’t improving nearly fast enough, and I was starting to feel like a failure. Granted, I was still young and green as a therapist, but I was disillusioned that these sufferers were being left out in the cold by the field because “nothing worked” for them. It was at this stage that a colleague reached out. He had come across something that he thought would help. It was EFT. I was sceptical at first but saw outcomes in my clients almost immediately and was curious to learn more.
When my job description changed at my university around the early 2000s, I found myself in a position where I had to conduct research. For my first clinical trial, we offered the general public a free four-week (eight-hour) program to learn EFT for food cravings, and I demonstrated the technique on air with a reporter and his chocolate muffin.
Well, the telephones went wild. We received over 4500 calls and e-mails from around the country with people wanting to join. The rest is history. I have now spent more than 15 years conducting research on EFT and other body-based modalities for weight loss, chronic pain, depression, quitting cigarette smoking, exam anxiety and more.
I look back, and I believe what helped me most was staying open and curious as to what could assist my clients.
“I was sceptical at first but saw outcomes in my clients almost immediately and was curious to learn more.”
