Integrative Mind-Body Therapy for Anxiety?

April 12, 2008 3:13 PM

What is "Integrative Mind Body Therapeutics" and is it a helpful remedy for anxiety?

After many friends recommended it, I began to seek a Cogntive-Behavioral therapist to deal with lifelong, medication-resistant anxiety. Via recommendation of my Freudian therapist, I have ended up with someone whose card specifies Integrative Mind Body Therapeutics. I have seen her once and the experience was much different from any therapy I've had before.

Instead of the usual "This is my story, here's what my childhood was like, here's what I'm worried about," we started with breathing and visualization exercises (picture the anxiety, picture what not having anxiety feels like).

She asked me some questions about what was going on in my life at the present. Then we went on to dream analysis, which I would normally balk at, but she seemed to have some pretty accurate takes on my dreams.

She suggested I take Vitamin B1 and Calcium (that was actually the first thing she said when I told her how anxious I was) and that I keep a dream journal and draw my dreams.

I have a (perhaps self-aggrandizing) need to feel like my therapist is smarter than I am, that s/he knows more than I do and is using well-honed psychological methods to help me. The dream journal and drawing made me wonder if she was new-agey or if this was just a Jungian approach. She also said she specializes in short-term therapy--usually 3 to 6 months. Is this possible? Anxiety with which I've struggled for my whole life could be annihilated in such a short time?

She also mentioned something about a "waking dream" exercise. I want to be open to any method that might help. I'm wondering if these are methods consistent with CBT and if anyone can give me some insight into these varieties of therapy vis-a-vis anxiety.

posted by annabellee to health & fitness (5 comments total)

This sounds like a mix of legitimate cognitive-behavioral techniques (visualization and relaxation) and some weird Freudian and pop-psy ideas. The fact that your Freudian therapist referred you to her suggests that whatever well-researched methods she's using may be combined with a heavy dose of "new-age" techniques. That's not to say a dream journal is going to do any harm--it can be useful for getting you to think about how your brain and thoughts work. But googling "integrative mind body therapy" is showing me a lot of things mentioning hypnosis, alternative medicine, "gentle childbirth", etc that is suggesting that the dream analysis is probably the tip of the iceberg with this therapist.

Frankly, "new-agey", Jungian, and Freudian techniques are all well outside mainstream therapeutic methods, especially if you're interested in behavioral approaches. It's almost methodical at times, and is nearly opposite Freudian ideas.

A few months of therapy would be in the normal range for a traditional c-b therapist--they're mainly focused on helping people with one specific problem, rather than working on several at once in a long-term therapeutic relationship.

I've seen people have great results from cognitive-behavioral techniques for anxiety, but it's less "tell me about your dreams" and more about being trained in actual physical ways of relaxing along with identifying and changing the thoughts and emotions that snowball into anxiety and panic. If you don't start working on identifying the thoughts that lead you towards anxiety and changing them soon, you're probably getting something besides CBT. Same thing for relaxation--if you're just doing relaxation techniques, and not learning how to think of them and use them when you're actually having anxiety or stress, then you're being led around. And for visualization, the traditional CBT-anxiety visualizations involve placing yourself back in a stressful situation, and then working your way through you reactions in a rational matter to determine what was harmful and what was helpful. The ultimate goal is for you to able to think about the things that give you anxiety in a rational manner and to react to them in a way that is clear-headed and proportional to their seriousness. And if you do start to panic, you'll be equipped with the relaxation techniques to draw yourself out of it.

Short version: Something sounds off, but it may just be an early-therapy attempt at seeing what is bothering you. If your sessions don't start getting a little more structured and you don't have specific goals established soon, you probably need to look elsewhere for CBT.
posted by Benjy at 4:33 PM on April 12, 2008

I don't have anything to add to a discussion on "Integrative Mind Body Therapeutics," but it sounded interesting, so I googled it. I found one hit, back to this Askme. So I'm guessing that "Integrative Mind Body Therapeutics" is this person's description of the approach she takes, rather than an established treatment modality.

Nutrition and dreamwork fall well outside of CBT, and a purely CBT-focussed therapist wouldn't ever be interested in the content of your dreams. This woman sounds like she has a very eclectic approach which may include cognitive-behavioral work among many other things.

From your description, I certainly can't tell you whether this therapist is good or bad, helpful or unhelpful. All I can tell you is that none of the things you describe sound anything like cognitive-behavioural therapy.

I work in a heavily referral-based business myself, and one thing I can tell you is that like refers to like. We tend to refer our clients to other people who share our methods, philosophies and worldview, not to people who radically disagree with us. Your Freudian-influenced therapist may not be familiar with many CBT-focussed practitioners, and if you really want to find one, you'll have to do the legwork yourself.
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 6:41 PM on April 12, 2008

Instead of asking is this legitimate therapy or new agey, why not ask, does it work for me or not? Who cares what it's labeled as if it actually helps rid your anxiety? There are many alternative therapies that do and don't work, and many conventional therapies that do and don't work.

On the alternative side, EFT, EMDR, Homeopathy, and Rescue Remedy is all helpful for anxiety, and they don't have pages of side effects like many of the conventional meds do.

Good luck.
posted by healthyliving at 11:26 PM on April 12, 2008

Yes, I guess there is little difference between carefully honed therapeutic techniques supported by years of empirical evidence, research, and real-world experiences and yoga in a bottle or diluting things in water.
posted by Benjy at 8:17 AM on April 13, 2008

Seconding the 'bullshit' assertion.

DO NOT TRUST ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE. It has not been put through rigorous review. Dreams are not things to be interpreted so much as they are activities of your brain while you're asleep using your experiences as context.

It is well-proven that Freud and Jung were full of shit.
posted by kldickson at 5:26 PM on April 13, 2008