| Never before have transpersonal ideas that connect healing to the soul been so prevalent in the minds of the global community. This shift is contextually bound to societal changes in health care, the new sciences, and the rising interest in spirituality. Seeking a theoretical view of this societal shift in terms of biofield healing which includes healing processes applied to the subtle energies in and around the body, mind, emotions, and spirit, this study focuses on client and practitioner experiences of Integrative Energy Healing, a particular genre of biofield healing, as provided to clients of an in-patient addiction treatment centre by Integrative Energy Healing practitioners. Findings are then interlinked with foundational philosophical underpinnings in Integral yoga, with the aim of creating a multidimensional, soul-centered, evolutionary, healing--learning view of the healing process as experienced by this group of practitioners and clients. This transpersonal integral inquiry and constructivist grounded theory allows for both transpersonal and spiritual experiences as well as the ordinary. Client trajectories showed an initial fall into dissociated and fragmented states as a result of addiction with a usual underlay of childhood trauma. Healing became a process of awakening to witness consciousness---war-zone consciousness rife with self-sabotage. In this healing approach practitioners were integral to the subtle biofield process as healing became a multidimensional physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and subtle energy interweaving of reciprocal engagement.The main theoretical construct, yoga sadhana is a process of awareness- and witness-building as clients initiate self-confession and concomitant self-compassion. As the results showed, this process is enhanced by Integrative Energy Healing treatments, developed into an advanced four-point model for addiction treatment.Healthcare professionals will benefit from this information on a biofield healing modality individuals undergoing addiction treatment will have an evidence-based advanced therapy to access and, finally, a foundational base for biofield healing as a yoga sadhana process has been identified in Integral yoga, placing Integrative Energy Healing within the context of a sacralized clinical practice. |
