Why the name Five Senses Healing? What does it really mean? The name came to me spontaneously in 2006 when I realized that each of the modalities I used in my holistic healing practice could be characterized by its relationship to one of the five senses: touch for hands-on healing and bodywork; smell for aromatherapy; sound for music therapy and sound healing, etc. Any of these holistic treatments could be received by the client only through the vehicle of sense perception.

This realization led to a second one, that healing ultimately has to do with the body and its response on a sensate level to all forms of healing whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. Insight, consciousness, awareness, all are essential to growth and wholeness. Yet consciousness grows dramatically with increased body awareness and increasingly fine-tuned sense perception.

The key to healing is dependent on the individual’s unique gifts and challenges, the abilities of the therapist, the resonance between the two, and the context and life circumstances of the client. For example, breaking an addictive cycle or a negative thought pattern may be best approached in certain situations psychotherapeutically, in others with nutritional support, in still others with bodywork. The presenting symptom is the body’s means of paving the way – providing signposts to bring attention to what ails. As initial symptoms begin to resolve, deeper issues can rise to the surface for healing. When intuition helps to inform training and practice, the process thus proceeds naturally and organically, as trust in the therapist, confidence in the process, and courage based on initial successes, grows.

For more on what it is like to experience a session at Five Senses Healing, see “A Typical Session.”

Tags: addictive, challenges, emotional, five senses, healing, intuition, nutritional, organic, physical, sensate, spiritual, therapist