HOLISTIC THERAPIES:
BIOENERGETICS, YOGA, AND EXERCISE
Holism views man as a unity of body and mind. The established approaches to therapy and counseling, represented by social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and to a certain extent by some religious professionals, all focus attention on our mental-psychological dimension. Similarly, biofeedback, hypnosis, and meditation emphasize the central role of mental control.
Holistic approaches, on the other hand, attempt to bring about positive change by means of emphasis on physical factors that are believed to have a close connection to mental processes. Although holism sees human beings as integral organisms, holistic approaches are inclined to have this physical focus.
Holistic therapies, like meditation, are "fringe" therapies. They are not generally employed by members of the "authorized" community of health practitioners, for two reasons: First, a kind of professional respectability and elitism have come to be associated with the psychological approach; social work, psychology, and psychiatry have an established place in institutions of higher learning, whereas fringe therapies do not. Second, since physicians treat the body, there is an institutionalized prejudice against nonmedical treatment that has the same focus.
Chiropractic has encountered this problem, as have other forms of holism, such as bioenergetics, yoga, diet therapy, and rolfing.
Although much of value may be offered by these fringe therapies, they have also resulted in abuse to consumers. Because of a general absence of licensing standards and of scientific credibility, people frequently are drawn in by the sometimes extravagant promises of unscrupulous or overly enthusiastic fringe therapists. In this area, as in all others that affect the consumer, the proper attitude is one of healthy skepticism and restraint.
BIOENERGETICS
Of these holistic therapies, bioenergetics is perhaps considered the most respectable because it is used by some psychologists. Bioenergetics attempts to diminish an individual's psychological defenses by means of sequences of specially designed physical exercises that, in a controlled and deliberate way, stress the person physically. Practitioners of bioenergetics believe that physical exercises of this kind rapidly put a person in touch with buried (repressed) feelings and speed up the process of inner integration that all holistic practices, as well as traditional therapy, wish to achieve.
YOGA