Energy Medicine

James L Oschman has written a wonderful book on energy medicine, with a demanding subtitle - The Scientific Basis. He belongs, as many of our members, to an important group of new scientists who have the courage, not only to challenge the old paradigm but also to build a solid and comfortable bridge between the old and new world views, for others to pass the crossing safely. James shows us how known data and knowledge from the old paradigm can run through a change of the second order, the thinking patterns change all together and therefore the conclusions, and we end up on the other side of the bridge. In a new context information transforms and many readers will find a new context within the constructs of this book. With a long standing career in science and biology and an impressive bibliography with a large number of journals included, among them Science, Am. J. of Physiology, Tissue and Cell, just to mention a few, on the one hand, and a great deal of experience and publications from the CAM field on the other, he is an inspiring source for anyone interested in the CAM area. The book is also of great importance for psychotherapists who want to leave the traditional walking-head-theory, that the psyche and mind is situated within the brain, and include a deeper understanding as well as an explanation for many phenomena we experience clinically. For example, the body memory or 'somatic recall'(p159) is easier to understand after reading the book. Anyone working with bodies has something to get from his creative ideas. It is easy to follow his train of thought and the internal logic in the discourse, even though he grasps over a wide range of energy phenomena, from the cell level to the cosmic, and include many different clinical CAM methods. Those interested can easily go deeper through a detailed reference list. James is also in good company. Candace Pert writes the foreword. She states that James has written '…a breakthrough text which maps out an elegant theory of the human body and how it is impacted upon by energy medicine.'. I fully agree. We do get a scientific basis for energy medicine, rooted in mainstream but leading to the other side of the river where new findings can be discovered and used. James matches his demanding subtitle well. The reader passes through the field from a historical perspective over James' interpretation of the functional human body to the clinical aspects of different energy medicine work. In the first chapter, he gives the reader a context and understanding why traditional medicine reacts so strongly to the idea that the human body's energy systems can be seen as much more than a diagnostic possibility, like ECG or EEG. In 1884, ten thousand doctors used electricity every day in their clinical work. However, in 1906 electrotherapy was declared unscientific by the US authorities and disappeared from the clinical work as a method of treatment. This is still a great academic handicap for the CAM or TCM, Traditional Chinese Medicine, practitioner in the West who sees the body as an open, interactive energy system of sub-systems. The chapter gave me as a body psychotherapist a deeper understanding why the Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich is still treated unfairly by the scientific, medical and psychotherapeutic communities. For a period he was Freud's favourite disciple and is often referred to as the father of body psychotherapy and energy psychotherapy. The next three chapters map the territory and contain an exciting presentation of James' theory about the body as an energy system. How and why it works as an integrated whole and open system. One of his foundations is the 'living matrix'. All systems of the body are covered with connective tissue, which forms a structural and energetic continuum from the surface to the innermost part of the cell. Any movement of the body, pressure or touch to it, creates very precise bioelectric signals, which can travel through the body's semiconductor, the connective tissue. Even very weak electrical signals can be received and transported through the system. Research has shown that the cell is not a bag of molecules, sharply marked off from its surroundings as it was presented to me during my medical training years ago. All subsystems in the body are open systems and they are all interconnected. James explains very logically why hands-on therapists touch not only the surface of the skin but also communicate with every nook and cranny of the body through the structural and energetic continuum that the body is. Most hands-on therapists, somatic or psychotherapeutic, have all been surprised by patient's reactions to touch, at least in the beginning of their career. How one part of the body is touched and another is reacting. How long forgotten emotions and memories are pouring out from the unconscious. Thanks to James, we have now got a scientifically well-based hypothesis to work with and to develop further. He presents data that might interest hands-on therapists and healers, for example. These chapters alone justify the cost of the book.. But there is more to come. Well grounded, we now meet different energy methods in the following chapters. Acupuncture, polarity therapy, therapeutic touch, magnet therapy, homeopathy and vibrational medicine. He discusses healing energy and how '…particular repair processes are triggered by the information contained in signals of specific frequencies.'(p. 88) He then gets deeper into the theoretical discussion about what I would call the living systems self-organizing and the energetic relation between therapist and patient as well as the interaction between the sub-systems of the two bodies. It is a known fact that some personal problems cannot be solved through words alone, by making traumas conscious or by ecstatic releases through for example screaming and violent body movements. The latter can in fact be seen as a resistance to change. James puts forward a hypothesis that corresponds to my own theory and experience. One has to go beyond the psychic structures or constructs and give the patient a chance to rearrange the underlying energy patterns to create a change. The same principle is valid for somatic recovery as well. This is the important self-organising process we all need to develop personally. Even though he is more oriented towards somatic methods, particularly Rolfing, psychotherapists can get a much better understanding of their own work by reading Energy Medicine. The human being is the only species that walk fully erect on two feet. From an evolutionary standpoint, we must have gone through a long process while adapting to this way of life. There are researchers I have talked to who believe that this process was very important for the development of our brain. From an open system perspective, gravity must therefore be important for us in many ways. Before going into Rolfing and other hands-on somatic methods like osteopathy, Feldenkrais and related methods, James discusses the importance of gravity and structure and how they are related to emotional traumas and emotional work. Before the conclusions at the end of the book he focuses on the electromagnetic environment we live in relation to our sensory systems. He points out that living systems can react strongly to a minute stimulus and not at all to a strong one. We get introduced to phenomena like weather sensitivity, allergies, geomagnetism and electromagnetic pollution. The data he presents can facilitate the current discussion of these issues. In the last but one chapter he summarises and concludes that there are many different energy systems in the body and that they can be influenced in many different ways. There is no single life force or healing energy, but rather 'the interactions between biological energy fields, structures, and functions.'.(p. 219) Therefore, bodywork, Qigong, meditation and other methods influence the structure and health through a stabilisation that spreads from molecule to molecule, throughout the system. He questions the neuron doctrine, that the function of the nervous system results solely from neuronal activity, and sees it as a partial view. Instead, he suggests that there is a dual nervous system, the neuronal and the perineural tissue. The perineural, connective tissue that constitutes more than half of the cells of the brain, is older from an evolutionary point of view. It has neither a target, nor does it move information from place to place, as in the classical system. But it is no less important since it delivers regulatory messages throughout the body. It is slower and cannot transport as much information as the classical nervous system. However, it is responsible for the overall regulation of the nervous system and spread of information throughout the whole body. It is regulating the wound healing and repair. The deeper I get into the book the better I understand Candace Pert's tribute in her foreword. But, what are the weaknesses of the book? A clinician as myself, not being a researcher, can find only a few. It is based on James' extensive earlier writings, some of which are collected and published in a number of compendia, well worth reading for those interested in the field. I warmly recommend reading them for somatic and psychotherapeutic practitioners and others interested. To have a great amount of important and interesting material is also a problem, although a pleasant one. What to exclude and what to include in the book is a delicate decision. Homeopathy and related vibrational medicines are given six pages, Rolfing and related methods ten, while acupuncture only three. I am certainly not an expert on acupuncture, but I doubt that it is possible to create something interesting on three pages in a field of an extensive literature and research such as acupuncture. Can Chi, the energy concept in TCM, be seen as something we have not yet been able to measure or does it belong within our Western definition of measurable energies? We are into deep water here and find many exciting questions. It certainly needs more than three pages. On the other hand, one can argue, all he is doing is to point out that even TCM can be understood through our Western way of defining the world. So far so good. It is just a flaw and I have no heavy argument. This is also a matter of taste, of course. However, I would prefer if James, in the next edition, reduced the width of methods in favour of, or just add some clinical case studies as examples of this exciting theory. That, of course, would also be a good new book. What is more surprising, even though understandable, is that Wilhelm Reich is excluded altogether in spite of his work on energy, cancer, meteorology etc. Maybe James explains why in the first chapter on the historical background. Energy work was forbidden in US medical practice during the first part of 20th century. FDA and US authorities put Reich in jail where he died. Reich has been unfairly treated since then except in a few countries like Norway and Italy. However, he is now quickly recapturing lost territory in psychotherapy. From a European perspective a book like this must include Reich and his work on orgone. If the next edition include a discussion on Reich's role in the energy medicine field James' terrific book will become a classic, until then it is an absolute must, for any therapist working with or on the body, from whatever field. In Energy Medicine we get many years of study and research filtered through a creative mind onto a field that is new for most of us. My firm belief is that it is important for medicine and psychiatry to capture this new knowledge in order to conquer new domains. James has made a great contribution to this process. I warmly recommend his book.