How do you know?
So many challenges to any particular position boil down to this question.
How do you know that what you’re saying is accurate? How do you know that the modality you’re using is effective?
In the medical and academic communities, we’re often taught that the only acceptable answer to this question is scientific study, preferably double blinded and/or within a randomized controlled trial.
But there are other types of knowing:
The knowing that lives in one’s own gut. The knowing that is passed down through millennia of history. The knowing that is found within the collective.
And while the particulars of an intuited, spiritual, or collective experience cannot be generalized, the question “how do you know?” extends to how we teach our clients to know.
Do we encourage them to trust the experts? To believe only what is written in peer reviewed journals? Or do we help clients get in touch with the knowing that comes from deep within themselves?
In this episode, Dana Sedlack shares how spiritual practices helped facilitate her own recovery. She talks about how these differ from, and complement traditional therapy, and describes particular alternative healing methods including sound healing and Biofield tuning. We discuss the challenges of translating spiritual practices into traditional therapy settings, and the importance of creating space for clients, who are so inclined, to integrate spirituality with the growth they achieve in therapy.
Dana Sedlak, LCSW, CEDS-C is a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist and Consultant with over a decade of experience in the mental health field. She has led multidisciplinary teams and developed comprehensive treatment programs for eating disorders and co-occurring mental health conditions.
Dana offers individual clinical supervision and mentorship for clinical teams. She also provides consulting to help organizations develop and implement effective mental health and eating disorder treatment programs.
Connect with Dana https://www.ourinnerwellness.com/
Connect with Elka https://elkacubacub.com/
Elka’s book, Binge Eating Demystified https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FD493WZ3