Why I use both breathwork and counselling in my private practice.

In both breathwork and the humanistic approach to therapy, there lies a fundamental trust in human beings. What we are trusting in is something called our “actualising tendency”- the innate drive and motivation towards growth, progression, and the evolvement of the person. Every human being has this. Sometimes it might seem as though we are self-sabotaging or going against our best interest, but these are signs that somewhere within our psyche we have gotten confused, conditioned, or stuck in a stage of development. Never the less, our actualising tendency is doing what it thinks is best for us with the programming it has had and the conditioning it has received.

Let’s give an example: if in childhood every time you expressed a need, you were met with a dismissive tone or the cold shoulder, you may have learned to silence yourself. You might have unconsciously learned that to say what you want and need ultimately leads to rejection, so you stay quiet and learn to meet your own needs- or live in the discomfort of never feeling fully accepted. Fast forward to adult hood with this unconscious programming still intact, you might struggle in relationships with effective communication, you might have a tendency to never speak up for yourself or to end up with partners who are dismissive or rejecting of you. This pattern only feeds the belief that to speak up or say what you want will ultimately lead to rejection, so your relationships might not feel like a safe and life enhancing place. The actualising tendency, doing what it thinks is best for you, keeps you from speaking your truth or asking for what you need. And still, you somehow end up with the same kind of dynamic in relationships.

When we detangle the ways in which we’ve been conditioned and move the internal blocks in the way of our actualising tendency, it is free to move us towards what is best for us, towards growth and development, and towards the life that is meant for us. We can allow the underlying flow of movement towards constructive fulfilment of our inherent potential.

Breathwork and counselling are two very powerful and effective ways that we can do this.

The altered states of consciousness that become available through breathwork give rise to what is stored in our unconscious and releases what is held in the body through stress, repressed emotion, and trauma. Through breathwork we put pause on our defensive, logical, rational, and repetitive mind, and allow to the surface what we need to heal. We let go of the part of our mind that wants to control everything, the part that is keeping us stuck and scared, and we encourage the deeper aspects of our minds and bodies to come to the surface of our awareness for healing. What we do in breathwork is get out of the way of our actualising tendency. Subtle and previously unavailable material that has been stored within our minds and bodies become available to us consciously, where we can process and move through what needs healing.

Breathwork can bring about huge internal shifts which is why I incorporate counselling. Through the therapeutic work together we can make logical sense of ourselves, our lives, our history, how we have ended up where we have, and re organise our internal frame. Counselling can be greatly integrative and relationally healing, piecing together lost parts of ourselves and verbalising what has come up for us and what we’re moving through. We are held in the therapeutic container by someone who can support us in making sense of our internal world. This type of breathwork isn’t down regulating, it can take you to your most primal state. It’s messy, it’s raw, it’s real. It’s a full body, visceral experience that re programmes your entire nervous system. Your breath holds information your mind has kept ignoring, and when you step into intentional activation of it you can discover new layers of yourself. Within the therapeutic connection you can make a deeper sense of safety to your self, your deepest parts of you.

It seems to me that the way healing is offered in general, only addresses one aspect of ourselves, either we go to sematic healing- healing of the body, whether thats through breathwork, or release through touch or another embodied practice, or we go to therapy which addresses our minds and memory but leaves out the body. We cannot get full sprectrum healing when we leave out either of these crucial aspects of ourselves. Our mind is conencted to our nervous system and our nervous sytem directly connects to our minds.

We need both the top down approach (talking therapy) AND the bottom up approach (breathwork or other body based practices). When we incorproate both of these within our journey of development and self understanding we gain the best chance of full spectrum, life lasting healing.