Suzan Thompson

Originally this blog was going to be just about guided imagery and meditation and how it can be helpful in counseling. I was going to let you know how I was introduced to guided imagery years ago, when I worked the second shift at the local psychiatric hospital and struggled with falling asleep after working a shift that often ended around midnight, after completing an assessment with a client who was experiencing intense emotions.

Complementary and alternative modalities (CAM) have come under increasing interest by counselors and counselor educators in recent years. To assess how much and in what ways, I conducted qualitative research asking counselors, counselor educators, and counseling students about their interest in, knowledge about, and use of CAM in their education, teaching, research, and clinical work.

The Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP; energypsych.org) categorizes energy therapies by the energy systems of the body: chakras, meridians and biofield (aura). In another blog, we will review the chakras and biofield; this post will provide an overview of the meridians.

Complementary and alternative modalities (CAM) are health approaches that often combine treatments from Western and Eastern cultures. Examples of CAM approaches include yoga, meditation, mindfulness, acupuncture, Reiki, nutrition, and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), among many others.

Complementary, alternative and integrative therapies are a group of diverse medical, healing and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered a part of conventional therapy or medicine. These combine treatments from conventional approaches to health and healing for which there is some high-quality evidence of safety and effectiveness.