Hemi-Sync® Journal 1992-1 (Winter)

--- PAGE 1 (OCR) --- Journal Winter 1992 A Publication of The Monroe Institute Professional Division IN THIS ISSUE HEMI-SYNC AS A SUBTLE STARTING POINT IN EXPERIENTIAL PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH INDIVIDUALS WITH CANCER. . Fear and anxiety surrounding a diagnosis of cancer must be dealt with before an individual can begin healing at all levels. Howard M. Schachter reports on the theory and practice of Hemi-Sync as a tool to support wellness. HEMI-SYNC AS AN AID IN RECOVERY FROM . iv counseling and education in body-mind integration, offers three client reports on accelerated recovery from surgery. DESIGNER SOUND Dean Lusted considers the value of auditory versus visual or multisensory stimulation to achieve specific, predictable responses, and discusses the efficacy of the “Monroe Effect.” v LETTERS. : Richard Meadows writes about the use of Hemi-Sync in the treatment of clients with severe personality disorders. HEMI-SYNC AS A SUBTLE STARTING POINT IN EXPERIENTIAL PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH INDIVIDUALS WITH CANCER by Howard M. Schachter, PhD Howard Schachter is a clinical psychologist specializing in indi- vidual psychotherapy and psychosocial oncology. In addition to his private practice, Dr. Schachter is a part-time professor with the University of Ottawa School of Psychology, and with the Institute of Pastoral Studies, University of St. Paul, Ottawa, in Canada. In this article, he discusses the implementation of Hemi-Sync to stimulate a relaxation response with clients engaged in experiential psychotherapy. INTRODUCTION In accordance with the experiential perspective on psychothera- peutic interventions, healing is made possible when the client lives out, in the here and now, whatever “experiencing” is revealed in the therapist’s presence to be most pressing and significant.’ An “experi- encing” is defined as a cluster of bodily feelings plus associated behaviors relative to a given event. Moreover, this perspective as- sumes that healing is a process of “wholing,” or making whole, and involves the emergence of unactualized (often unconscious) personal or transpersonal material which requires integration? Wholing is accomplished when the client is able to actualize, or “own,” the emerging material as part of himself in the present and thereby effect integration. The therapist's role is to invite the client to 1) live out fully that part of him- or herself in a form that feels good, or at least acceptable, on a bodily level, and then 2) rehearse for the extra- therapy world its actualization in a socially acceptable fashion.’ However, the experiential approach can often be quite terrifying as the client begins to face those feelings and behaviors which require integration. As a result, many clients refuse the opportunity to begin work, Their reasons for refusing may be fear of feeling a particular way, or feeling anything at all, especially in an intense manner. Often, clients argue that this “feeling stuff” is silly, evincing a terror of losing or surrendering control to parts of themselves that are struggling for expression.’ In some cases, clients may simply refuse to look at any thing, person, or event which evokes strong, disharmoni- ous (“bad”) feelings. 'Grof, 1988; Mahrer, 1989; Sprinkle, 1985; Watkins, 1978. ?Assagioli, 1965; Grof, 1988. *Mahrer, 1989. ‘Mahrer, 1978. *Mahrer, 1978, 1989. © 1992 The Monroe Institute Route 1, Box 175, Faber, VA 22938-9749 804/361-1252 --- PAGE 2 (OCR) --- HEMI-SYNC™ JOURNAL Therefore, a method was sought which could enhance the client's ability to relax while in the session, as well as to relax his/her defenses against experiencing anything frightening or alien. It was assumed that such a method might 1) help the client transcend his/her fear of those threatening parts of self (the inner potential), 2) foster integra- tive work within the session, and 3) increase the likelihood that the client would return for another session. Considerable fear, pain, and suffering arise when clients who are living with cancer are asked to relate to their disease. This fear of alienated parts of oneself is especially true in experien- tial psychotherapeutic work with people who have cancer. Consider- able fear, pain, and suffering arise when clients who are living with cancer are asked to relate to their disease. It has been discovered through experiential psychotherapy that clients with cancer project onto their cancer the qualities of an inner, unlived experiencing that cannot or will not be integrated into their lives. The unexpressed experiencing will emerge if the client is able to establish and intensify a relationship with the cancer.* Not surprisingly, and due to projec- tion, the client then perceives and experiences the cancer as doing to her/him whatever s/he cannot live out in the external world (a dynamic known, in Gestalt therapy, as the retroflection hypothesis). Therefore, the client is encouraged to establish an explicit, feel- ing-based interaction or encounter with the disease in order to integrate and express the inner experience, of which the cancer is its manifestation, and in a way which promotes actualization and well- ness rather than illness. From this perspective, healing involves harmonizing the relationship between the client and his/her cancer, with its qualities as perceived by the client. This therapeutic approach has also been found to impact the cancer physiologically by bringing about a change in its oncologic status and, in some cases, remission.” The possible mediating role of the immune system in bringing about these effects is suggested by data which show that 1) there is a relationship of covariation between immune dysfunction and experi- ential inhibition, and 2) immunoenhancement can occur when the inhibited experiential material is expressed® in a way similar to the methods ascribed to experiential psychotherapy.” Aproven tool for evoking the desired relaxation effect is the use of standard relaxation techniques during hypnotherapet luction.”” However, many people are just as alienated by the use of hypnosis as they are by confronting an unintegrated experiencing. Clients have remarked that both situations require surrendering control—to the therapist in hypnosis and to the unintegrated experiencing in experi- ential therapy. Consequently, a small pilot study of two cases was initiated to try an alternative brain/mind entrainment approach to relaxation that is relatively unobtrusive. The Hemi-Sync process was familiar to the therapist as a benefi- cial method of calming individuals while at the same time stimulat- ing the opening of channels through which unintegrated experiential material could begin to be expressed." Therefore, it was decided to use this means when beginning experiential sessions with clients who evinced a fear of some inner material. Tape two of the Discovery album from the GATEWAY EXPERIENCE, Introduction to Focus 10, was introduced with the clear understanding that, at worst, the client would benefit from the relaxation response fostered by listening to the tape. At all times, healing was the primary objective. For the “Mahrer, 1980; Schachter, 1990. "Mahrer, 1980; Schachter, 1980. Pennebaker, 1990. *Mahrer, 1989. “Rossi, 1986; Rossi & Cheek, 1988. “Schachter, 1991, unpublished data. reasons cited above, individuals with cancer were selected as good candidates for inclusion in the pilot study. The focus of the study was on the experiential impact of a particular therapeutic intervention which included the Hemi-Sync technology asa component. The qualitative data from the two clients’ initial sessions are reported here. However, it is appropriate first to clarify the premises within which the data are conceptualized. The experiential significance, or meaning, of a thing, person, or event is a function of the qualities it possesses. These qualities, when perceived or noticed, stimulate in the perceiver a certain response, or experience. Therefore, the experiential significance is formally de- fined by whatever cluster of feelings and behaviors is lived out by the perceiver when he or she is relating to a thing, person, or event. In this way, the experiential significance of oneself and one’s cancer is perceiver-referential. Further, this view suggests that the perceptual unit of under- standing and describing an event is a systemic “fit” of the available, perceivable information and the lived-out experiencing of it. This fit captures the spirit of the dance of experiential significance between the perceiver and the perceived. METHOD Clients Experiential significance data were obtained from a thirty-eight- year-old male and a fifty-five-year-old female, each diagnosed with cancer. They qualified for the informal study because, when invited to close their eyes in their respective individual sessions and look at and describe their cancers, each refused to do so. Procedure Once each client had refused to encounter the cancer, the ther- apist suggested that s/he relax instead, and that work with respect to the cancer would only be done after listening to a tape that would likely help establish calm and relaxation. The instructions given to the clients were to listen to the tape on a Sony Walkman™ with stereo headphones while sitting in a recliner, go with whatever feelings and images the exercise might evoke, suspend their disbelief if possible, and not censor any feelings or images that might arise. They were to signal the therapist at the end of the exercise, keeping their eyes closed. At the signals, the therapist asked them to describe their experiences with the tape, and to look at, describe, and interact with their cancers, RESULTS Both clients described their experiences of the tape as one of increased calm and relaxation, although each recounted having been somewhat apprehensive at the beginning of the exercise. They attrib- uted their anxiety to the fact that they were unsure about what was going to happen. After allowing the exercise to progress, and putting those and other concerns into the Energy Conversion Box, they said they began to feel more comfortable. They reported that their calm feelings deepened during their respective sessions. Following the tape session, both clients were more willing to look at their cancers than they had been before the Hemi-Sync experience. Images and feelings related to their cancers bubbled up reasonably easily. The data from each client will be presented separately. The male client reported perceiving a dragon with characteristics described as unrelenting, burning (with fire), mean, and angry. Moreover, the client experienced a fear of being consumed (the surface, or operating, experience). In particular, the dragon was perceived as being able to burn the client at the site on his scalp under which his tumor had been discovered. ‘The experiential significance of the relationship with the dragon/ cancer was that its qualities stimulated the experience of being consumed by fire. Not surprisingly, the client felt threatened and backed off from his interactions with the dragon. When cajoled by the therapist to return to this encounter, and upon the client's agree- ment to allow his surface experience to intensify, a new experience emerged within the relationship. The client began to feel very angry, --- PAGE 3 (OCR) --- Winter 1992 unrelenting in his pursuit of the dragon, and felt as if he could destroy the dragon by burning it with fire breathed from his own nostrils. Ina sense, he had become his dragon, or cancer. Thus, the dragon/cancer not only afforded the client a surface experiencing, but at a deeper level it was also an appropriate target for the client’s inner experience of being the cancer/dragon. In subsequent therapeutic work, the client was permitted to begin to live out this experiencing in session. He also began to entertain the