Enhancing the Counselling Experience with Alternative Modalities
Prologue
This article marks the beginning of a journey—one that explores the powerful intersection of traditional counseling and alternative therapies. Over the course of this series, we’ll dive deep into each concept, unpacking the layers of how these modalities work together to support holistic healing. We’ll take a closer look at counselling as the foundation, then move into the transformative alternative modalities used in conjunction with counselling, breaking down each technique and its unique contribution to healing.
One article at a time, I will explore how integrating mind, body, and spirit can lead to lasting, profound change. By the end of this series, you’ll have a clearer, more comprehensive understanding of how these approaches can complement each other, offering a holistic pathway to healing that addresses all aspects of your well-being.
Introduction
If you've ever walked out of a counselling session feeling heard but not necessarily healed, after spending a significant amount of time working on yourself?
I’m not talking about walking out after just one session and expecting immediate change—any therapeutic process takes time, patience, and persistence. However, if you’ve ever felt like there’s no end in sight, despite your best efforts, then this is for you.
Traditional counselling provides a powerful space for self-reflection and deep self-exploration. But, what’s the catch?
With traditional counseling, the focus tends to be on the mind—the mind, with its endless thinking patterns. It can be exhausting and, more often than not, takes much longer, with significant emotional highs and lows along the way - this also being part of the process.
As a counselor, I’ve often found that counselling alone sometimes falls short. While it helps process thoughts and emotions and helps you recognize patterns - for some people, sometimes, it may not seem enough. Sometimes, it feels like we’re taking one step forward and two steps back. This feeling, like a constant hum in the background of my thoughts, kept nudging at me. They say curiosity killed the cat, but in my case, it kept me thriving.
“What is to give light must endure burning.”― Victor Frankl
I believe that this gap can be filled by combining traditional counseling with alternative healing modalities and techniques. Let me explain why.
What Are Alternative Modalities or Techniques?
Alternative modalities and techniques in counselling or therapy refer to methods that fall outside the realm of traditional, mainstream therapeutic practices.
These approaches aim to address emotional, psychological, or energetic aspects of well-being, using holistic, integrative, or non-conventional tools. They often complement traditional therapies and are designed to treat the whole person—mind, body, and spirit—rather than focusing solely on cognitive or emotional aspects.
Simply put, these are techniques that don’t fall within the traditional definition of therapy.
While they might not be as extensively studied or evidence-based as traditional approaches, there is a wealth of anecdotal evidence supporting their effectiveness.
To me, anecdotal evidence is proof that it works, if people walk out of these sessions feeling changed, we see proof that it has worked. These are just difficult to study in a standardized way.
Here’s a fun bit of information - Joe Dispenza has done a brilliant job of studying his alternative techniques - if you’re interested, you can read “Becoming Supernatural” by him.
Why You Should Consider Alternative Modalities
When a client turns to therapy, it often means they’ve reached a point where they can no longer handle things on their own. Trauma, intense emotions, or overwhelming experiences don’t just live in the mind—they impact the entire system.
Our senses send information to our brain, which then communicates with our entire body—down to the very cells. This is what guides our reactions and responses, determining what stays in our system and what leaves. These experiences leave an imprint on our body’s various sub-systems, including our:
Mental state
Emotional state
Brain and the Nervous System
Heart Field and Intelligence
Energy Body
Physical Body - including our cells and organs
These emotional triggers affect all of these sub-systems, and when we talk about healing, it’s essential to recognize that true healing should address more than just the mind.
Logical, right?
Using alternative modalities allows us to work on the whole person—addressing all of these sub-systems.
What Is My Approach?
Every professional in the mental health space brings their own unique flavor, techniques, and structure to their sessions. In this post, I’ll briefly touch on my approach. As we move through this series, I’ll dive deeper into the different modalities I use and explain how they contribute to healing.
For now, it’s important for you to know that my approach integrates three main elements:
Counseling and Coaching – This provides a solid foundation for self-awareness, verbal exploration, and working through your goals for healing.
Tarot – A tool that acts as a mirror, reflecting your subconscious and unconscious thoughts, allowing deeper insights.
Quantum Therapy – This helps bridge the gaps between these sub-systems and triggers the body’s inherent ability to heal itself.
Together, these three modalities form a beautifully integrated approach that supports long-lasting, whole-person change.
We start by identifying the core issues in counselling, understanding what’s going wrong, and figuring out what needs to be realigned.
Then, we move deeper into the realm of the mind and heart with tarot.
Finally, we bring these insights into the very cells of the body with quantum therapy.
This process ensures that everything we’ve worked on during counselling is not only understood but also integrated and internalized in the system.
Reflection Question:
After reading about how traditional counseling works with the mind and how alternative modalities address the whole person, what do you think might be the next step in your own healing journey?
Do you feel like there’s an area (mind, body, heart, or energy) that could benefit from additional support?
What are some of the thoughts going on in your mind? Did something take you by surprise, or nudge you in some direction?
Write down the answers to these questions - you never know, it might take you by surprise!
