A peer recently recommended the book, The Others Within Us: Internal Family Systems, Porous Mind, and Spirit Possession by Robert Falconer.  I was struck first by the fact that Robert Falconer was willing to put his name on a book covering this topic and second by the fact that the founder, Richard Schwartz, of Internal Family Systems (IFS) wrote the forward for this book.

Needless to say, my curiosity was captured.  This seemed like a bold move to talk about spirit possession and a popular evidence-based therapy in one place.

Within the first sentences of the forward, Schwartz writes about his fear of this book being published and his fear of having IFS discredited. At the same time he acknowledges that sometimes parts aren’t parts, they are unattached burdens (UBs). Falconer also names some of his fears, and also saw so much value in having conversations and sharing knowledge about this topic.

If you’ve worked in the energy healing world, you may have come across UBs described with different language.  In the Barbara Brennan work these were seen sometimes as objects in the field and sometimes as entities that were not of the person you were working with.  In many cultures they could be acknowledged as Jinn, Spirits, Guides, demons, and so much more.

Schwartz writes about clients with suicidal parts that weren’t parts at all – they were UBs that had no current connection to a person’s life. These were things that got attached at some point in their life, sometimes with no clear reason or explanation. When he helped a person remove this UB, the suicidal symptoms disappeared.

A Personal Story

When I started out in my energy healing journey, I eagerly joined Reiki shares (Reiki practitioners getting together to trade services for free), read about different types of energy healing and started on a journey with another energy healing school.  

In general I found Reiki to be positive. It helped regulate my nervous system and it didn’t ask practitioners to go too deep. Issues only showed up when practitioners started to do their own thing beyond Reiki.  For the other energy healing approach I was studying, when it came to UBs, there was usually an aggressive approach. Find the object or entity with someone’s biofield and remove them.

During an energy healing, when someone tried to remove something from my field, my body started shaking. I tried another energy healing with the same approach and had the same experience. When I asked why this was happening, no one knew why. Ultimately this was an impetus for me to leave that program and join the Barbara Brennan School of Healing – it was a 4 year program created by a physicist/energy healer.

During the second year of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, we focused completely on the 4th level of the biofield (sometimes referred as the astral realm) and the 4th chakra.  We learned all about objects & entities. When someone worked on me, he was able to see the object that previous practitioners had tried to remove and as he named what it was, I could understand why it wasn’t going anywhere. It was related to something big in my life experience. It stayed with me and I was able to be with it in a different way.

The Barbara Brennan School taught us to bring compassion & curiosity to a UB and then determine whether it was time for it to leave or if it needed to stay for now.  For me, I needed to keep the object within my field. With others, I’ve seen profound changes when these are removed.

The IFS approach also uses the same approach within the therapy context: anchor in Self & bring compassion & curiosity to the UB before helping it shift out of a person’s system.

This book

I’ve just gotten this book, but I am thrilled to learn more about UBs and that an evidence-based therapy would talk about this so openly.  Have you noticed any other cross-overs between the therapy & spirit worlds in public ways? I’d love to hear about them.

I also loved that Richard Schwartz wrote the forward. Even as I start to share more about bridging psychotherapy & energy healing, I’ve also had those parts of me that are fearful about saying it all out loud. It’s inspiring for me, because Schwartz has a lot more to lose than I do, and I feel grateful that he dared to put his name on such a book.  Schwartz & Falconer write about how for many years working with UBs was know within the training & IFS community, but it wasn’t talked about loudly due to the stigma it could bring.

After years and years of examples of working with UBs across cultures, Falconer decided to write the book because it offers a perspective the western world often tries to minimize & ignore: the spirit world.

At the same time, I’ve also experienced the benefit of saying it out loud – I’ve created an authentic private practice that excites me and I attract ideal clients who I enjoy working with.  

Starting to Imagine a Practice with Energy Healing

While reading this book I was struck by how both Falconer & Schwartz allowed themselves space to experiment & make mistakes in psychotherapy without holding themselves rigidly to having only one way that IFS could be done. Their driving question was, “What works for people?”  Family Systems therapy didn’t fully work for Schwartz so he created IFS. The model within IFS of “everything is a part” didn’t fully work so they started to create space for UBs.

You might not know in this moment how you would like to blend energy healing into your practice, but where do you think it might help the clients in your practice? Intuitively where might you start? What if you don’t have to figure it all out right now?

Falconer writes, “{work with UBs} does not fall into neat categories; there is something uncertain, perhaps even mysterious, about the process. When I asked the primary therapist why he had the UB circle her that way, he said that was purely intuition and he trusted his intuition” (p. 39).

One of the great things about therapists blending energy healing is that for therapists,  ethics, client-centred approaches & knowing your scope of practice are all important.  My background as a psychotherapist has helped me discern when to decline working with clients. Over the years I’ve also gained experience knowing my strengths & limitations when it comes to energy healing.

Sometimes I get referrals from people who have issues with UBs that are WAY out of my comfort and experience level. These are often individuals where my intuition shouts at me to refer this person onward.  I’m not ready to work with any type of UB that comes my way.

The way I blend energy healing & psychotherapy has shifted over time too. I have learned and continue to learn so many things on this journey.

If you can spend some dreaming about where you might start to blend these worlds. How might your intuitive gifts & energy healing skills support our psychotherapy clients?