About these books - and where to purchase them
Both books can be purchased easily from www.amazon.co.uk [click] or the publisher's website www.karnacbooks.co.uk [click and type 'phil mollon' in search field]
The uk amazon site www.amazon.co.uk seems cheaper than the US site (www.amazon.com) and will post to the US.
Both books combine my immersion in energy psychology, (for the last ten years) with my background as a psychoanalyst. They reflect my continuing search for more effective methods of helping people who are severely traumatised or in other ways psychologically troubled. My original profession is clinical psychology - from there I trained in psychotherapy (Tavistock Clinic) and then in psychoanalysis (Institute of Psychoanalysis in London). Whilst all these trainings have been helpful, my clinical eperience of around 35 years has taught me that purely talk-based therapy is often not as helpful as we might hope, particularly for traumatised people. It was EMDR, emerging in the early 1990s that seemed the first really effective well-known treatment for trauma. Once I became comfortable with this approach I realised that it can be profoundly psychoanalytic. It accelerates the processing of emotional information, providing a sort of 'turbo charge' to free-association. When used skillfully and fluently, it can be a tremendous adjunct to conventional psychotherapy. On the other hand, EMDR is greatly enhanced by psychoanalytic understanding of the dynamics of the mind and the therapeutic relationship.
Energy psychology has roots in Applied Kinesiology, developed by chiropractor George Goodheart in the 1960s, its psychological and emotional applications being developed initially by psychiatrist Dr John Diamond. Around 1979, clinical psychologist, Roger Callahan, built on Diamond's work to develop a simple and startling effective procedure for finding the energy meridian encoding for any state of emotional distress or anxiety, and then guiding the client to tap a series of meridian acupressure points to bring about a rapid collapse of the perturbations. Since then there have been 30 years of experience of using Callahan's Thought Field Therapy and its many derivatives. Some of the simpler variants, such as Emotional Freedom Techniques, are highly compatible with EMDR - and indeed a naive observer would have great difficulty in distinguishing EFT from the tapping variant of EMDR. Each procedure involves the client thinking of a troubling event whilst tapping on the body - and each is a form of exposure therapy, with cognitive content, based on enhanced desensitisation techniques.
EMDR and the Energy Therapies [Phil Mollon. 2005. Karnac] explores the use of both EMDR and simple energy psychology methods in the context of psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy. A wide range of clients are discussed, including some who would be regarded as severely disturbed with psychiatric conditions. Both practical and theoretical aspects are considered. Links with the implicit 'energy psychology' of Freud are particularly highlighted. The book describes how EMDR and related therapies can be used flexibly and fluidly, integrated with ordinary psychotherapeutic discourse.
Psychoanalytic Energy Psychotherapy [Phil Mollon. 2008. Karnac] takes the study of energy psychology and psychodynamics much deeper.The crucial insight that informs the book is that all the sources of distress within the psyche are also encoded as information in the energy fields of the body. When we address the psyche and the energy fields simultaneously, we create a powerful therapeutic synergy which facilitates change with astonishing ease and speed. The use of energy testing methods allows psychodynamic conflict, and the fears and unconscious feelings of guilt that hold problems and suffering in place, to be identified rapidly and with precision. Once these internal objections to resolution of a problem are identified and addressed energetically, then the target issue will typically collapse rather easily. Moreover, identifying the internal objections to resolving a target problem - which Callahan originally called 'psychological reversals'- will usually provide a link to the core childhood traumas and conflicts that underpin the presenting problems. The energetic and psychodynamic phenomena described in this book are all well-known and have been noted by many authors and practitioners - but have not before been brought together and integrated in this way to form psychoanalytic energy psychotherapy.
The subtitle of the book is:
Inspired by Thought Field Therapy, EFT, TAT, and Seemorg Matrix.
['Seemorg Matrix' is now called Advanced Integrative Therapy]
The book is 504 pages, with 17 pages of references, and 19 chapters.
Here is a list of the chapter contents:
1. Introductory remarks - and rationale for psychoanalytic energy psychotherapy
2.The essence of energy psychology
3. History: how did we get to modern energy psychology?
4. Some simple beginnings - tapping points and procedures, using EFT as a derivative of Thought Field Therapy
5. Basic procedures in an energy psychology session
6. Neurological (energetic) disorganisation
7. Psychological reversal and associated resistances
8. Muscle testing (energy checking or body dowsing)
9. Parts and programmes - and other elements of the structure and functioning of the psycho-energetic system
10. Energy toxins
11. Working with chakras
12. Some thoughts on Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT)
13. The energy perspective
14. Freud, Reich, and bioeletrical energy
15. Is the 'energy' concept necessary? A cognitive model of Emotional Freedom Techniques
16. Energy psychology perspectives and therapies for borderline and other personality disorders
17. A systematic review of the evidence base for energy psychology methods
18. Case studies
19. Ethical aspects of energy psychology work - dangers of idealisation and illusions of knowing
References