Energy, Soul-Connecting and Awakening Consciousness: Psychotherapy in a New Paradigm

Ruthie Smith is an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist (The Bowlby Centre) and energy psychotherapist with thirty-five years’ clinical experience in private practice, and ten years as a principal psychotherapist and supervisor in the NHS. She has taught extensively on psychotherapy trainings, speaks at various CPD conference events, has written several chapters and articles, and, after training in work with subtle energy and vibrational healing, founded The Flame Centre in London in 2009, specialising in trauma work. Alongside psychotherapy, Ruthie has a passionate interest in the ‘shift’ of humanity’s awakening consciousness, and in integrating energy and spirituality within psychotherapy. Previously trustee and chant leader of an international Buddhist organisation where she compiled training manuals about Buddhism, Ruthie currently runs Flame residential retreats. She also has a parallel career, in which she has toured the world as a jazz musician (saxophone and voice) and sings in classical ensembles. Director of a one year  post graduate clinical training in energy psychotherapy taught by Energy Psychotherapy Training Ltd, Ruthie’s book, Energy, Soul-Connecting and Awakening Consciousness: Psychotherapy in a New Paradigm, introduces working with energy and the shift to the new paradigm to therapists, clients, and the general public.

Ruthie’s latest book, ‘Energy, Soul-Connecting and Awakening Consciousness: Psychotherapy in a New Paradigm‘ introduces readers to energy psychotherapy, a relatively new combination of relational talking therapy and self-applied energy methods.

As more people experience a ‘shift’ from ego’s ‘3D’ perspective to the fifth-dimensional quantum consciousness accessed via the heart and soul, ‘awakening’ is becoming more mainstream. I wrote Energy, Soul-Connecting and Awakening Consciousness to introduce energy psychotherapy to those wishing to incorporate this practice into their daily lives, either personally or professionally. The book seeks to include awakening in the psychotherapeutic agenda and bring to the fore the paradigm of vibrations and resonance – essentially, the more we raise our frequency by clearing the dense energy of trauma, the happier we are.

As the genius inventor Nikola Tesla has frequently been quoted as saying: ‘If you wish to understand the universe, think of energy, frequency and vibration’. Our thoughts and emotions vibrate at particular frequencies – with guilt and shame measuring very low on the scale and love joy and enlightenment resonating at much higher vibrations.

My own awakening followed a dark night of the soul when I was trying to come to terms with my sister’s agonising mental illness – how could God allow people to suffer so much? I had an astonishing experience of embodied light and with it felt natural innate peace, love and goodness, which brought profound relief, banishing from my psyche the feeling of inner badness which had always plagued me.

This brought a total re-evaluation of the true nature of reality and profoundly altered the trajectory of my life. My perspective on the project of psychotherapy changed radically. I started seeking pathways which could help others to find this peace and wholeness inherent in their being. I feel passionate about sharing this vibrational medium with others, so this book is my offering to bring psychotherapy into the new paradigm.

I have always valued the grounded approach of my psychoanalytic and attachment-based underpinnings. The understanding about developmental stages, the role of the unconscious and the defences, an awareness of psychodynamics (including transference and projection), clear boundaries, and the importance of the therapeutic relationship provide a safe and solid foundation. However, for me, there was something missing. In particular, I felt there was too much emphasis on psychopathology – our tortured anxieties and what is wrong with us – rather than recognising our inherent goodness.

I sought to find a depth therapeutic approach which held the hope of healing, and which combined core therapeutic skills within a psycho-spiritual frame, including the soul, the transpersonal, and our bodies (which hold so much stress and trauma). As I followed various strands of interests – in psychoanalytic psychotherapy; energy healing; the subtle energy systems; neurobiology, meditation and consciousness; and vibration and resonances (which have always been important to me as a musician) – I was led to energy psychotherapy.

This new therapeutic focus is concerned with clearing away the clouds of dense trauma – the ‘heavy’ vibrations of guilt, fear, shame and negativity – to reveal the light vibrations of peace and joy. When we connect with our hearts and feel the expanded sense of spaciousness, purity, light and compassion, we come home to the radiant nature of who we truly are: we are one with ‘the all’. There is a sense of wholeness and wellness – (and incidentally, the Buddha’s name, Kuntuzangpo, means ‘always well’).

I was amazed how energy psychotherapy helped me overcome the triggers, anxieties, dysregulation, and complexes which had continued despite years of analysis and analytical psychology. Its methods can work with pre-verbal trauma including birth trauma, and help, in a non-shaming, grounded way to integrate the shadow elements of our psyche – the pain we prefer to avoid and split off as a result of the fragmentation borne out of trauma.

The client self-applies these healing methods via their subtle energy systems using the meridians and chakra, which facilitate the free associations and insights of the wisdom of the unconscious. These subtle ‘energies’ of our bodies – our life force and our consciousness – are all interconnected. My book, Energy, Soul-Connecting and Awakening Consciousness, situates this work with a developmental understanding, offering ‘maps’ for our soul’s evolution, including psychoanalytic, energetic and spiritual frameworks for applying this work. As a background thread throughout, is my comparison between Dzogchen and energy psychotherapy – two experiential paths of energy and consciousness within the ‘ease and grace’ of quantum ‘flow’.

The second half of the book describes a range of energy psychotherapy practices which anyone can try out for themselves, illustrated by clinical vignettes. It includes an overview of depth energy psychotherapy, including how to work safely with the bodymindenergy to overcome therapeutic blockages, integrate and strengthen the fragmented ego, create healthy resilient ‘energy boundaries’, and work relatively easily to clear all forms of trauma, including pre-verbal, attachment, transgenerational, complex and transpersonal trauma and also PTSD.

My experience – and that of many clients – is that energy psychotherapy works elegantly and simply with bodymindenergy to bring about profound transformation and facilitate connection with Source. To my mind, it changes the therapeutic discourse to one of healing. I hope you feel inspired to try it out for yourselves.