"Mind/Body Medicine and the Human Energy Field" excerpt from Alternative Medicine, The Definitive Guide

The following excerpt has been reprinted with permission from Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide (Second Edition) by Burton Goldberg.

Mind/Body Medicine and the Human Energy Field

According to Janet Hranicky, Ph.D., Founder and President of the American Health Institute, Los Angeles, California, our thoughts and emotions have a direct impact on our energy level and on the bioenergy field that surrounds our physical bodies. "In traditional psychiatry and psychology, we are still in a disease model where our focus is on alleviating symptoms," Dr. Hranicky says. "In mind/body medicine, however, if we have patients focus on their problems, dissatisfactions, fears, etc., we tend to see at an energetic level that their energy goes down as they focus on what's not right in their lives. The focus in mind/body medicine, therefore, must be to strengthen the conditioning of the mind to pick a 'better' thought that feels good, rather than to spend extensive time on childhood problems, for example. This doesn't mean that there are not appropriate times to address problem resolutions. However, in mind/body medicine, energy is paramount. It takes energy for the body to heal. Excitement and passion produce high energy states, whereas hopelessness and pain create low energy levels, and fear and anxiety tend to create chaotic energy patterns."

Dr. Hranicky points out that in the conventional model of medicine, patients are usually referred to psychiatry if they display emotional distress. "Their psychological consultation is viewed as a separate issue and is not taken as an essential component of their diagnostic work-up," she says. "In mind/body medicine, emotions are viewed as indicators of the person's state of consciousness, which has everything to do with the bioenergy field. Disturbances in the bioenergy field reflect disturbances in one's consciousness and these disturbances precede the development of illness. We know, for example, that disturbances in the bioenergy field occur weeks, months, and often years before disturbances occur in the cells and tissues. In the same manner, changes in consciousness shift the bioenergy field, which then alters the course of the disease. Spontaneous remission, for instance, has to do with disturbances in physical matter such as tumors disappearing, often quite quickly, when healthy shifts occur in the strength, coherency, and flow in the bioenergy field."

Research by Dr. Hranicky and others in the field of mind/body medicine indicates that although there are numerous therapies that can be used to address physical or mental/emotional health conditions, if the patient's consciousness doesn't change during the course of treatment, the results achieved usually don't hold. Mind/body medicine, therefore, is ideally suited to facilitate such changes in consciousness and, correspondingly, the bioenergy field, due to its ability to positively shift habitual patterns of limiting negative mental/emotional behavior.