Episode 150 Psychotherapeutic Reiki and Holistic Counseling: Interview with Jodi Silverman

Oct 25, 2023

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What is Psychotherapeutic Reiki and how can it complement holistic counseling? How can combining these therapies promote emotional and mental well-being?

MEET Jodi Silverman

Jodi is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Reiki Master/Teacher. Her psychotherapy practice, TheraChi Healing, is a holistic integrative healing practice with the goal of holding a safe space for people’s healing, learning, and growth. As a fellow human and a consciousness guide, she is passionate about supporting people in their journey to find meaning, purpose, and connection in life through learning to trust their own intuition. She does this through a variety of psycho-spiritual and transpersonal approaches including psychotherapy, energy healing, and embodied mindfulness. She considers herself to be an integrative practitioner. Jodi also recently launched a new arm of her business, Journey with Kindred Souls, through which she offers courses, coaching, and community for the Spiritually Curious. Jodi’s podcast, The Spiritually Curious Therapist is a platform through which Jodi explores the intersection of spirituality and mental health, particularly how healing practitioners integrate the two. 

Find out more at TheraChi Healing and connect with Jodi on Facebook

Journey With Kindred Souls and Journey With Kindred Souls Facebook

Join her Facebook Group and listen to The Spiritually Curious Therapist 

IN THIS PODCAST:

  • What is Reiki? 8:40
  • How does reiki work when dealing with trauma? 14:17

What Is Reiki?

  • What is the difference between traditional reiki and psychotherapeutic reiki?
  • What does a reiki session look like?
  • How can reiki be done from a distance?
  • What does a psychotherapeutic reiki session look like?

How Does Reiki Work When Dealing With Trauma?

  • 4 tasks of psychotherapy
  • What is corrective memory?
  • What are the ethical concerns when using reiki and touch with clients?
  • The importance of using trauma-informed language
  • The benefits of psychotherapeutic reiki
  • How to find a Reiki provider

Connect With Me

Instagram @holisticcounselingpodcast

Facebook

Join the private Facebook group

Sign up for my free email course: www.holisticcounselingpodcast.com

The Art of Breath: How to Integrate Breathwork Techniques for Effective Therapy Sessions with Chris McDonald, LCMHCS

Rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

Resources Mentioned And Useful Links:

Find out more at TheraChi Healing and connect with Jodi on Facebook

Journey With Kindred Souls and Journey With Kindred Souls Facebook

Join her Facebook Group and listen to The Spiritually Curious Therapist 

Psychotherapeutic Reiki: A Holistic Body-Mind Approach to Psychotherapy – Revised and Expanded Edition by Richard R. Curtin Jr.

Transcript

Chris McDonald: Are you curious about the use of Reiki in a traditional psychotherapeutic setting? Are you concerned about the ethics of it? In this episode, we're delving into the transformative world of psychotherapeutic Reiki. Stay tuned as we explore the mind body spirit connection, uncover the benefits of this holistic approach, and navigate the ethics around it.

Get ready to unlock the power of energy, healing, and traditional therapy combined. It's a journey of healing you won't want to miss on today's episode. This is Holistic Counseling, the podcast for mental health therapists who want to deepen their knowledge of holistic modalities and build their practice with confidence.

I'm your host, Chris McDonald, licensed therapist. I am so glad you're here for the journey.

Welcome. To today's episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast. I hope your week's going well. Our guest today is Jodi Silverman. She's a renowned expert in the field of psychotherapeutic Reiki, which I was so excited to hear that this even existed. She is someone who has spent years harnessing the power of energy work to enhance the therapeutic process.

She's a licensed clinical social worker and a Reiki master. She owns a practice called Therachea Healing. It's a holistic integrative healing practice with a goal of holding safe space for people's healing, learning, and growth. Her podcast, The Spiritually Curious Therapist, is a platform through which Jodi explores the intersection of spirituality and mental health.

and particularly how healing practitioners integrate the two. Welcome to the podcast, Jodi. Thank you.

Jodi Silverman: Thanks for having

Chris McDonald: me. So can we start with letting the listeners know what initially drew you to the world of psychotherapeutic Reiki?

Jodi Silverman: So that's a, that's a great question. And I have to go back a little bit in order to fully describe how I landed here.

I've been a social worker for, oh, close to 30 years now. And most of my work over the years has been in positions such as child welfare, community behavioral health, working in schools, working in homes. And throughout that time, I've always been a seeker and have found, um, my own spiritual practice in doing things that are kind of outside of the box.

And so I actually fell into Reiki before I started a psychotherapy practice, even though I was a social worker for, for many, many years leading up to that. And I fell into Reiki in 20, I think it was 2013 on the lovely island of Maui. And yeah, it was actually pretty cool. We were, we were there for vacation, visiting, um, some friends and.

One of the people who we were visiting happened to be a Reiki master, and I didn't know, I had no idea what this was, but somehow my husband knew, and he suggested that I ask more about it, and I ask about being trained in it and being taught, and so I broached the subject, and she said, sure, we'll take an afternoon.

And we did, and I was attuned to the energy on the island. It was a beautiful thing. And for the rest of the time there, I was just kind of playing with the energy and just loved being in that space. And so I came home and I found a, another Reiki master here. I live right outside of Philadelphia and I started my journey through all of the Reiki levels up to Reiki master.

And at that point, I was really kind of embracing Reiki. I was still doing my social work on the side. I was thinking, Oh, maybe I'll open up a Reiki practice because I love doing it. Practicing on myself, practicing on friends and family. I look back at some of my Facebook posts from that time and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I was like deep into this.

I was like, anybody, anybody, anyone want Reiki, I'll do it for free. Yeah, I'll do it for free. So I just, I was really, really loving it. And so what ended up happening at that time is I connected with a friend of a friend who was a therapist and um, I was doing some Reiki for her and it was such a powerful experience.

She asked me to come join her in a training that she was doing for some of her clients. So I was there for the entire training, participating as well as providing Reiki to the clients throughout the training and in a group setting. And as I started to continue to do this, and I was doing it out of my home, I realized I needed more space.

And I asked this particular person if I could sublet her office. And she asked if I would like to come work for her in her practice. And I was like, well, doing what exactly? And she suggested psychotherapy. And I said, well, And I thought for a minute, and it was one of those like moments where everything just seemed to line up, even though that wasn't the direction I was going in, it felt right.

And so I started working in her practice as a psychotherapist under her tutelage. And I, while I continued to do Reiki, it kind of took a backseat for a while. And sometimes I would like drag my Reiki table into her office and I would. Offer it to clients or to her clients, or I would do some on the side, but for about eight years, it really kind of took a backseat and then coming out of the pandemic, I shifted away from her practice and opened my own.

And 1 of the requirements was that when I found an office, it needed to be big enough for my Reiki table because I was tired of dragging it in and out. and up and down. Yeah, it's heavy, right? It's big and it's heavy and it takes up like the whole trunk. And it's like, so, and, and I knew that was part of the reason why I wasn't doing it, even though I could do Reiki with folks in chairs, which, which I have done as well as long distance Reiki, which I have done.

But I, something about having a Reiki table in the office was important to me. And so I did that. And, and so here I am. Psychotherapeutic Reiki came to me actually somewhere in that process. I, I must have been googling reiki and psychotherapy, and I stumbled across Dr. Richard Curtin's book, psychotherapeutic Reiki, and I bought it and I had it, and I read it and I, I, it's like dogeared and there's post-it notes everywhere, and somehow it got put aside and I totally forgot about it until a year ago.

A woman from Canada contacted me looking for supervision in psychotherapeutic Reiki, and I, Oh, it came back to you. It came back to me. Yeah, totally came back to me. And I responded to her and said, well, I don't think I could supervise you, but I'm happy to do. Peer supervision because I'm just starting to get back into this.

I'm using Reiki in my practice and I would love to have somebody to talk to about it. And so the two of us connected and we've just really exploded from there, um, in terms of our own practice and how we use Reiki in our practice. But we've also started a Facebook group for clinicians who are interested in using Reiki in their practice.

And we've had quite a number of people join. We have peer supervision every month. And actually Dr. Richard Curtin, who wrote the original book, he participates in our peer supervision quarterly. He's now retired and he's wonderful and

Chris McDonald: terrific. This is so exciting to see this path and how like you put it away, but it keeps coming back.

It's like the universe is finds a way, doesn't it?

Jodi Silverman: Absolutely. And I think if I'm looking, I was thinking about this earlier today, if I take a step back and, you know, look at it from my observing self, a lot of these things had to happen in order for me to be where I am. Today, and I think that that's going to continue because I, I can get really, yeah, like really anxious about like wanting things to happen now.

And I just have to remember that this is a process and it's unfolding. Yeah. And, and it does, it keeps coming back. It's amazing. Oh,

Chris McDonald: I love, but it's just so exciting to that, that things are evolving, that holistic modalities are really getting out there more, and there's more therapists open to using that.

Cause I feel like this can lead to a revolution of holistic practices that can really transform and help clients so much more.

Jodi Silverman: Absolutely. And, and Richard wrote his first book in 2012. He revised it in 2015. So, and he had a group of folks who was doing this work as well. And, and as he tells it, you know, this book kind of came through him.

Um, and he really, he really learned we had a, we had a supervision last week and what came up is like, he really learned to follow the Reiki. And that's part of how this practice unfolds, right? Like that Reiki is kind of taking the lead and it has its infinite wisdom. And we have to like sit back and just trust that things are going to unfold for us.

And that's what a session kind of even looks like is that we follow the Reiki and allow things to unfold for folks. So

Chris McDonald: let's rewind for a second for any listeners who may not. know what Reiki is. Can you back up the truck? Talk about what is Reiki and then how is it, how is psychotherapeutic Reiki different from traditional

Jodi Silverman: Reiki?

Great question. So Reiki is a Japanese energy healing technique and So it gets complicated, right? So there's this whole history where it was discovered. They say discovered, maybe rediscovered by Makawa Sui in 1922. And what he really developed was his own system of Reiki that has now evolved to become what we now know as Western Reiki here in the state.

It's a whole other podcast to go into the history of that, but anybody can Google it and look it up. What it looks like here in the United States now is really a relaxation. and stress reduction technique and you can find Reiki practitioners almost anywhere. A lot of massage therapists use Reiki these days.

You can also find Reiki in yoga studios. Um, it's something anybody can really learn and everybody has the ability to do Reiki. The thing that makes Reiki a little bit different from other kind of hands on healing techniques is that it is something that is passed on from a teacher to a student. And so it's not something you can, you can read books and learn about Reiki, but in order to be a Reiki practitioner, you have to be attuned to the energy, which basically means that a teacher works with you to open up your energy channel so that you can sense into the energy and basically become a channel.

And so what a Reiki session typically looks like is as someone receiving Reiki, you might lie on a massage table, fully closed and the practitioner. Lay either lays hands on or gently or or above in your energy field and channels the Reiki energy through them through the chakras in the palms of their hands to the person who is the recipient and that can be done in person.

It can also be done long distance because energy doesn't know space or time. And so with intention and the proper training, we can send Reiki long distance as well also into the future and the past, which is Oh, I

Chris McDonald: didn't know that. Yeah.

Jodi Silverman: Interesting. So I could send like Reiki to like, I sent Reiki to this interview before it happened.

Thank you. I feel it.

Chris McDonald: Okay. So if you have something that coming up that stressful, you can send Reiki to that. Absolutely.

Jodi Silverman: A hundred

Chris McDonald: percent. I'm trained in level one. That's as far as I got with it. But yeah, it is powerful,

Jodi Silverman: isn't it? It is really powerful. And I find even when I'm doing long distance and the way I usually do it when I'm doing sessions is I either have the person on the phone or I might even have them on zoom and I set the camera up so that they can see the table.

I pretend that they're on the table and just kind of go through whatever hand placements I might do if they were here. And it is super powerful. I mean, people really feel it and they benefit from it even at a distance.

Chris McDonald: So the psychotherapeutic reiki. So how does that, how does that work in a session? So I know typically a, you know, therapy session, you say hello to the client, have them come in, maybe get started, tell me about your week, something like that.

But how do you go from there?

Jodi Silverman: Yeah. So what, what's really great about psychotherapeutic reiki is there's all sorts of different ways that you can use it. One way of using it that's really simple is that, you know, Somebody comes in, how was your week? How are things going? You do your check in and then the person gets on the table and you just conduct the session like you normally would while giving Reiki to the person.

And what we do know, so there's a lot of research being done on Reiki. There's the Center for Reiki Research that is international and is kind of compiling, also doing research, but also compiling research on the uh, effectiveness of Reiki. And one thing that has become really clear is that there is a definite shift in the nervous system, like a down regulation from a sympathetic state to a parasympathetic state.

And so if you think about what our goal is when we're doing psychotherapy and somebody comes in and they're experiencing anxiety or they're, you know, they're experiencing symptoms that are looking like agitation or hypervigilance, having them laid down on the table and receiving Reiki while they're talking through whatever it is that's coming up.

for them for that day, for that week, what, whatever the goal of the session is allows them to just kind of settle in and, um, and go a little bit deeper than they would normally go. And some of those memories and thoughts and beliefs that are hidden deep in the subconscious start to crop up because the person is in a relaxed state.

And you wouldn't necessarily get to that if they're just sitting in, you know, on the couch across from you, you can also just beam Reiki. And I was doing a lot of that. Initially where I'd be sitting in my chair, they'd be sitting on the couch. And I was nervous about inviting people to get on the table.

So I would just being Reiki from, you know, where I was sitting, um, we, again, we were talking about this last week, you know, once you're attuned to Reiki, and if you're using it for self care on a regular basis, it is always in the room with you. And so some of it is just intention setting that the room is filled with Reiki.

And people come into my office and I mean, I love my office. It's really comfy, but it's nothing special. And they're just like.

Like there's just like a physical, like you can see someone's body just relax as soon as they step in. So that's one really simple way of using it. Richard in his book, he goes through what he calls the tasks of psychotherapeutic Reiki. And this also kind of came through him and came out through the work that he was doing.

And he started off with four tasks and then added a fifth one. And they really do follow your typical, let's say, trauma informed treatment. So the first task is practicing presence. So really helping somebody be present in their body. And so you might even do a body scan while someone's sitting on the table and, you know, using Reiki and going through all the different body parts and having people check in with each part, feeling into the energy.

So that's task one. Task two is connecting body. and mind. So this is kind of like your focusing or somatic work, you know, what's coming up for you right now. Where do you feel that in your body? And like kind of sending the Reiki to those parts of the body where they're feeling whatever distress they might be feeling and have them kind of feel into that.

And is it changing? What are you noticing? The third, which is the one that he added is heart centeredness. So this is where we do a lot of self compassion and sending love and heart. chakra energy to the parts that are in distress. And then we do some releasing techniques. So this is where we release the energy or the, the distress or whatever someone's feeling in their body.

And then we install a corrective action. So this is where we might start talking about, um, affirmations or mantras or corrective memories or things like that. So there's all sorts of ways to use Reiki.

Chris McDonald: Corrective memory. What's that?

Jodi Silverman: So if somebody, so if somebody is having one of the things that somebody is working on is a traumatic memory.

And let's just say as you're doing the work, part of what comes out is the fact that they felt really helpless in that moment and powerless in that moment. And so while doing Reiki and depending on what the memory is and where it's showing up in their body, but let's just say you're on there. Okay.

solar plexus and on their brow chakra. And then you say, well, if you could do things, if you could go back and do things differently, what might that look like? And then you have them talk through a new and different way of working through whatever that event was while doing the Reiki and installing it into their energy system.

That's fascinating. Yeah, it's really, it's real, real powerful work. Going

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Chris McDonald: And I know with Reiki, some providers, like you said, use touch, others don't. So how does that work with the ethics of our profession?

And cause I know some licensures, you're not supposed to touch clients. And how does that work? Yeah.

Jodi Silverman: So that's a great question. I, um, when I'm working with my psychotherapy clients, I mostly 99 percent of the time hover. So I'm really not touching people a whole lot, partly because I can feel the energy much better when I'm hovering in the energy field than when I'm touching.

Um, I know one of my colleagues, she might touch, she touches around the head and around the feet, but not around the body. Of course, all of this is with permission, explicit permission. ongoing permission and a lot of conversation. My colleague and I also, we did do an ethics ethics on touch and psychotherapeutic Reiki training, which I do have available if, if people are interested for purchase on my website, but it comes up a lot.

And a lot of the people who join our Facebook group, that's, that's one of their biggest questions. Like, how do we do this ethically and in researching? For that training that we did, we found that there are quite a number of psychotherapy practices that use touch. Reiki is not the only place. So when you're talking about psychodrama, uses touch.

Gestalt therapists use touch. Somatic therapy uses touch. So this idea of, and I go into it more in the training, like this idea of therapists using touch or not using touch is somewhat controversial. And I would say for anyone who's listening, the most important thing is getting permission from the person, creating a safe environment.

talking about it, asking all along the way, and certainly staying away from certain parts of the body that might feel a little bit more controversial than

Chris McDonald: others. And I'm sure part of this is, is using trauma informed language, I'm guessing, and A hundred percent. Be really cautious with that because I could see that some, especially some clients I'm thinking of that they already don't like touch.

And so that I'm sure for some people that are really hypervigilant that may not be therapeutic to touch them.

Jodi Silverman: A hundred percent. And choice is first and foremost, and we talk a lot about that in the training where we do give people choice a, whether they even want psychotherapeutic Reiki versus regular talk therapy.

I can beam from the couch. You can sit in a chair. Or you can. Lie on the table. You can have your eyes open, closed, blanket, no blanket. So there's a lot of leading up to it in terms of creating safety for folks. And also, you know, trusting your intuition. As you mentioned, there are some people who just aren't appropriate for psychotherapeutic Reiki.

No matter what. Um, and you have to kind of use your intuition around that. If you're feeling uncomfortable, I think that's also important. If you're feeling uncomfortable with it, then it usually means that it's not a good match.

Chris McDonald: Not a good match. Yeah. So really tuning into yourself, what's coming up for you as well.

So being the mindful therapist, exactly connecting. Yeah, I imagine. So is there any other ethical concerns that you've learned along the way with this?

Jodi Silverman: Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people, what comes up, Is the whole idea of, you know, energy work and psychotherapy and is there a blend? And do you have to separate those two things out?

And we've had many, many, many discussions about this. And, you know, I think a lot of it depends on, on who you talk. To people have strong opinions one way or the other. A lot of people are in between. And at the end of the day, I think there are a couple of things to consider. You know, one is, and I do talk to people about the research, right.

And some, some of this is exploratory. I mean, we know that, like I said, we know the research shows that Reiki down regulates the nervous system. We also know that Reiki helps improve mood and decreases people's stress. Do we know exactly how it works? Not quite yet. You know, do we know exactly what, what's happening inside the body or even in the energy field?

Can we actually see it? No. And so there is an element of faith and trust and I've had a lot of people who come in and don't even know what Reiki is and they see my table and they say, you know, what's that? And I said, Oh, I do, you know, psychotherapeutic Reiki. If it's something you ever wanted to try, you know, we can talk about that.

Oh, yeah, I guess I'll give it a try. You know, I don't, you know, it sounds good. And so I might do like, just like a five or 10 minute, you know, practicing presence and they are like, they, they leave like, Oh my gosh, what just happened there? Like, this is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And, and what it really combines what we're trying to do in terms of working with people, getting into their subconscious, bringing up thoughts and emotions and feelings, and then releasing them.

And we know that these things live in our energy system as well as in our emotional bodies and our cognitive bodies and in our physical bodies. And so why are we not treating the whole thing? You know, why are we not being holistic as, as psychotherapists, you know, we're only working on, on the mind and then people are walking out and not getting the full experience.

Chris McDonald: You're speaking my language. I think it's. You know, as, as you were talking, I was thinking too, like, I think this is blazing a new pathway for psychotherapy, moving more towards combining the integration, because I think often just one way of doing therapy doesn't work in the long run. Right. But I think, like you said, combining this.

And it doesn't have to be Reiki, it could be other things, but using more than one thing I think can really, that's where you find the most effective healing. I know I do because I am so integrated with what I do. It's just amazing. I teach clients, you know, yoga and how they can use that as a coping skill and, but it's, it is using the physical body, the spiritual body, the.

Every part of them, right? It's just, there's, there's gotta be more to, to really have that impact on clients, especially with trauma. I know I see a

Jodi Silverman: lot of trauma. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I see a lot of trauma too. I, most of the folks that I work with, my specialty is interpersonal betrayal trauma, um, across the lifespan.

So everything from complex childhood. Post traumatic stress all the way up through, you know, people who are, you know, leaving abusive relationships and things of that nature. And so people come in with a lot of stuff in their system and a lot of blockages, a lot of limiting core beliefs that, you know, started in childhood that just keep getting reinforced and reinforced and reinforced that create these.

patterns of stress. And so to talk about it from a cognitive perspective is one thing, but when it's not released from all the way down, like in the body and in the, in the energy field, it just keeps coming back. It just keeps coming up. And so it's a beautiful thing when, you know, someone comes in and they have a couple sessions of psychotherapeutic Reiki and, you know, three weeks later, all of a sudden they're like, doing something and they're, they're telling me, Jodi, I, you know, a month ago, I never would have done it this way, or I never would have thought this, or I would have been so stressed out, or I would have been, you know, fawning or people pleasing.

And, and I could care less, you know, now, like, I don't know what happened. Is it bad that I don't care? I'm like, yeah, I mean, it's, it's pretty significant in terms of how quickly people shift.

Chris McDonald: Because it sounds like you've already seen a lot of success

Jodi Silverman: with this. I have, again, you know, I think that the So a couple of things happen, right?

So like, I also consider myself to be a relational therapist and I think the relationship is super important. I think it's important for your clients to trust you because they're not going to heal if they're not in a trusting therapeutic relationship. And when you combine that. with the Reiki and with the energy and what that feels like.

And I don't know if you know, if any of your listeners have had like a typical Reiki session, if you were to go to a massage therapist or to a yoga studio, typically, you know, you're pretty silent for most of it. I know when I get Reiki, like I'll go in and out of consciousness and I'm like kind of floating and you can kind of feel the energy moving through you.

But when you're involved and the Reiki's Flowing through you and you're engaged and you're moving things intentionally around while the Reiki practitioner is also moving things around. And the two of you could be like, Oh, do you feel that right there? Oh yeah. I feel that right there. Oh, I just felt a huge release.

It just went from my left side to my right side. I'm like, okay, let me go to your, so it's just, it's this, the collaboration and the working together again, especially for people who have experienced relational hurts throughout their life to have somebody on their side, working with. them. I'm like, I'm just getting like all talking about it.

It's just, and I think that's, that's almost as healing as the actual intervention, maybe even more so.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, though, I think that we forget a lot too, that the relationship is key and having those connection with, with who you are as a therapist can make such a powerful difference. And I just got to share an experience I had with Reiki with massage.

Now there was no therapy involved, but it felt like there because I was on a retreat and I had this, and I had never done this before with a combining both of them. I got to tell you, I have never been so relaxed in my life. Like almost. Bad because I, I could barely walk the lady's like, are you okay? I'm like, I don't know.

She sat me down. It was really cool place. Um, at Hendersonville, North Carolina. And it's like, they had this garage door that was open. You could see the fields and the horses and birds were saying it. It was the most. beautiful experience. Horseshoe Farm, by the way, if anybody wants to go, I highly recommend it because there was something about massage with the Reiki.

So I'm guessing with therapy to combine that, it's just, there's got to be that extra, I don't know what the word is, umph, I guess to help with healing. A hundred

Jodi Silverman: percent. Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Chris McDonald: So if somebody was interested in getting this psychotherapeutic Reiki, how do you find providers?

Jodi Silverman: That's a great question because there aren't that many of us who are out there.

Most of us who are combining this. So, so what I found were a couple different things. I found some folks who, who are psychotherapists and also do Reiki and they keep them and they split them up. So some folks even have like their Reiki table in a separate room. And so you would come in and you would have your psychotherapy session and then you would do like a half hour Reiki or vice versa, but not necessarily doing the two of them together.

I'm finding more people doing the two of them together, probably because I'm trying to build this community. So people are finding me, but not too many people are. out there advertising this because there is still, you know, there's some stigma around this. And there's definitely folks who are out there like, you can't do that.

How are you doing that? That's, you know, that's not okay. We're not allowed to do that. You better make sure you have, you know, this or that, or, and it needs to be separate. And so I've heard a lot of those things where people are afraid to kind of put themselves out there as a psychotherapeutic Reiki provider.

I decided, and some of this was my journey through ketamine assisted psychotherapy, which I'm kind of involved in. I'm not necessarily a practitioner, but I'm very much a supporter and working with folks because I see Reiki as like a step to that or a step down from that, especially that's a whole other episode.

But in doing my own training and research in ketamine assisted psychotherapy, I thought to myself, I'm like, you know, There are therapists out there who are having people take ketamine in their office and doing journeys, which is fine, but if they can do that, I can do Reiki and I had this like aha moment where I was just right around there is when this person from Canada found me.

It was like. Divine timing because I, you know, it's like when people are jumping on this bandwagon, you can't tell me I can't do energy work in my office when we're, you know, going down the psychedelic route. So I just decided I was going to take that leap. As far as to answer your question, I honestly don't know.

People can certainly contact me. And if people, you know, if folks are looking for me, you can find me at Thera Chi. Healing dot com t h e r a c h i healing dot com. I licensure wise, I can practice. I'm in Pennsylvania. I'm also licensed in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Florida. But I have this Facebook group, lots of people who are curious and interested, some of whom are practicing.

And so I can always reach out to the community there. If folks are

Chris McDonald: interested. Oh, that's great. We'll have that in the show notes too. Yeah, that would be helpful to have that option too. What advice would you say to other therapists who might want to be trained in this and start this practice?

Jodi Silverman: So I would say join our Facebook group.

So it's Psychotherapeutic Reiki for Clinicians. is the name of the Facebook group. And if, again, if you can't find us, just email me or go to my website and I will direct you there. So that's one place to get some support around doing this. Certainly by Richard Curtin's book, it's called Psychotherapeutic Reiki, a holistic body mind approach to psychotherapy.

That's a really good introduction to what psychotherapeutic Reiki is. Um, and you know, make sure you get obviously your training. My colleague from Canada and I are starting to talk about putting together a training for folks. Yeah. So I'm really excited to do that because we'd love to get more people trained and, you know, trust your intuition.

I think. You know, we were talking about this in our supervision group, like, and, and like you're saying, I think this is the way of the future. And I think also there are more and more folks out there. We talk about people, you know, people's vibration and folks vibrate on a higher level and the way in which we are evolving from a spiritual perspective.

And I think there are more and more folks out there who need us. They need clinicians who understand energy, who understand what it means to be highly sensitive, what it means to take on other people's energy, what it means to be able to see beyond the veil. And, you know, one of the things that I have heard is folks have found me.

I think they see that I do Reiki and they get a sense that I'm open to the spiritual awakening experience. experiences that people have, and they're scared to go to other therapists because they're afraid they're going to be diagnosed as, you know, schizophrenic or psychotic or having a break of some sort.

And so the, you know, the world needs us. And so if this is your calling, do it, you know, do it, do it ethically, you know, you know, make sure you crush your T's and dot your I's and reach out for supervision and support. Like I said, we do have that supervision group. We meet once a month. And Dr. Curtin joins us quarterly.

But, um, but don't be afraid to put yourself out there. The world, the world needs you. Yes.

Chris McDonald: We need more healing and especially the integrated, but I want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Jodi.

Jodi Silverman: Thank you for having me. This has been a pleasure. Thank you.

Chris McDonald: Awesome. And listeners, thank you for tuning in today.

That brings us to the end of another episode. So be sure to tune in next Wednesday when another episode drops. And if you're a new listener, I want to say welcome. And as a listener, you have access to my free nine part email course, how to build confidence as a holistic therapist. In this course, you'll explore different holistic modalities, how to boost your confidence and how to manifest your holistic practice.

You also get bonuses, including a free script to teach a yoga asana and journaling prompts to guide you through. Go to hcpodcast. org forward slash holistic therapist. That's hcpodcast. org. forward slash holistic therapist. And once again, this is Chris McDonald, wishing each one of you much light and love till next time.

Take care. Thanks for listening. The information in this podcast is for general educational purposes only, and it is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are giving legal financial counseling or any other kind of professional advice. If you need a professional, please find the right one for you.

The holistic counseling podcast is proudly part of the. Sitecraft Network.

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