Henry Grayson, Ph.D., Official Site of Mindful Loving Author

WHAT IS SYNERGETIC THERAPY?
Grayson's Synergetic Therapy

Dr. Henry Grayson has always been interested in determining what form of therapy is helpful for different people and different problem areas, hence he has studied most of the major psychotherapies, the new sciences including brain scan studies, the world's spiritual systems, and the therapeutic use of subtle energeties. Even while he was in postdoctoral training to become certified as a psychoanalyst, he founded the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, a postgraduate training institute in New York City which reflected his vision for a integrative approach to helping people overcome their problems. He had already discovered that any single approach to therapy was not effective for all people nor all problem areas, and that different therapies attended more effectively to different problems. A synergetic approach goes beyond this, for synergetic is defined as "the simultaneous action of separate agencies which, together, have greater total effect than the sum of their individual effects." Why is this so? Because there are not in fact separate agencies, but in synergy we bring the re-membering of the whole.

Albert Einstein stated it poignantly when he said:

A human being is part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection of only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living things and all of nature.

Grayson's synergetic therapy views the ego mind as that part of our thinking which creates this illusion of separateness and therefore destroys our peace of mind, judges ourselves and others, makes us anxious, afraid, depressed, deprived, physically sick, makes us focus on the past or the future and avoid living joyfully and successfully now. Since much of our ego mindbody is not conscious to us, the goal of therapy, therefore, is to help one "dis-cover" many different ways one can identify the ego voice, learn tools for letting it go, and therefore continually release all that prevents us from having a life abundant with peace, health, joy, success, and loving relationshipsBeven when there is insanity and tragedy in the world about us.

Our problems begin when we come into a body ego, which appears to be separate from others, from the universe and from Source. We then grow up individuating, thinking we are separate. But as physicists now point out, confirming much of ancient spiritual thought, we are all interconnected at an invisible level. As the esteemed physicist Erwin Shroedinger put it: "the number of minds I have observed in the universe is one." Our basic healing of all our problems is to heal this illusion of separateness. But recognizing that we are most likely not able to do all this at once, we may therefore need to work on it in pieces, focusing on different specific problems or areas of concern. Each will lead to the ultimate goal of healing.

Synergetic therapy recognizes that our problems in this life begin with our early painful experiences which we will call traumas. Traumas can be catastrophic events, but also includes those daily insidious experiences of being neglected, criticized, not listened to, as well as inadequate nurturance or guidance, and are the beginning of many negative core beliefs about ourselves, others or about life in general. Traumas such as emotional abuse, abandonment, as well as physical and sexual abuse may make even deeper imprints in our lives. Numerous studies show that unresolved traumas set us up not only for physical illnesses, but even for replays of our old painful, but undesirable experiences, attracting repetitions of the very things we hated into our lives like a magnetic force field.

Synergetic therapy has learned from neuropsychology and brain scan studies that it may take very little for old traumas to be reactivated, sometimes totally hijacking the rational parts of the brain. Hence we may find ourselves behaving totally irrationally in response to seemingly innocuous statements or behaviors. Also, these brain scan studies show us that talking therapy not only may not clear out effects of such traumas, but may actually rehearse and intensify them. Therefore, synergetic therapy draws from the latest methods which are highly effective in actually clearing out the encodings of this painful information from the limbic system, the survival brain, and other parts of our bodies. These include EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) , TFT (Thought Field Therapy), EFTA (An adaptation by Grayson of the EFT), TAT (Tapas Acupressure Technique), EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy), creative visualization, breathing and self hypnosis, and other body based therapies. The past pains influencing our lives negatively may sometimes come from multiple sources which are pre-memory for us, such as early childhood traumas, birth traumas, intrauterine traumas, genetic memories, and sometimes past lives (whether seen as literal or metaphorical). Synergetic therapy uses methods drawn from applied kinesiology to quickly identify when and where these traumas occurred, how much disturbance remains effecting your life today, the specific method to use for clearing them, and assess when they are fully cleared.

These painful experiences or traumas lead us to draw negative conclusions about ourselves, as noted above. These conclusions form core beliefs which literally work like software in our computers, only printing out in our lives what we have programmed in. We may come to believe we are inadequate, not loveable, not good enough, rejectable, or unworthy, just to mention a few. We may also believe we will be judged, abandoned, abused, deprived, criticized or that it is not safe to assert ourselves in the world, especially to show our deepest and more vulnerable feelings. We may have come to believe that we do not deserve abundance and success so that we live blocking our efforts in this direction. We now understand that the human brain, being the prototype of the modern computer, has programs which can be deleted. The new methods listed above are also very capable of eradicating negative core beliefs and we can literally install new "software" which we can use as a new operating system for our lives. And then, methods such as creative visualizations, such as those used in sports training, can help us open new neural pathways necessary for this new positive information flow, making it easier to make positive changes in our lives.

Grayson's synergy recognizes that we often have barriers to achieving the emotional and/or physical health, happiness, and success in life and relationships. We try ever so hard to use the laws of attraction but are unsuccessful. It's much like trying to sail a boat, realizing we are not moving very much, but not conscious we are dragging a few anchors behind us. Synergetic therapy can identify these "anchors" or resistances which keep us from healing, happiness, and success and provide ways to cut them loose so we can "sail" more freely.

The past pains and our old belief systems fuel our 72-74,000 thoughts we think each day, which largely grow out of our old traumas and beliefs. And we tend to repeat as many as 90-95% of the thoughts we had yesterday, and will do it again tomorrow and the next day. These repetitive thoughts then rehearse our old belief systems, reinforcing our old negative beliefs and thereby perpetuating our problems. Also, even if we clear the negative belief, if we keep thinking the thoughts which would reinforce it, we can actually rebuild the belief again in a few weeks. It becomes necessary for us to learn methods to become aware of our ego mind thoughts, tools to use to let them go, and then learn to think thoughts which would construct happy, healthy, and successful lives instead. Our goal is to learn to never to allow any thought to linger in our minds without our express permission. If we do not control which thoughts are in our minds we do not have control of our lives and cannot be happy and healthy. Synergetic therapy provides thought monitoring exercises which takes only 18 seconds to do, and other mind training exercises which help us to be in charge of what happens in our minds, our bodies and our lives. Having cleared the effects of old traumas and core beliefs helps to make thought monitoring much easier and more effective.

Our traumas, core beliefs, and repetitive thoughts set us up for our "interpretive perceptions." There are no purely objective perceptions, for all are filled with meanings we give to what we see based on our traumas, beliefs and thoughts. If a trauma is not cleared, and the negative belief which grew out of it, we will likely experience something in our perception as dangerous and threatening even when it is not. It will actually hijack the logical problem solving parts of our brains and throw us into totally irrational reactions based on our past rather than the present reality. If we have cleared our traumas and negative beliefs, then we can more likely make a perceptual shift, which means that we can now see things differently. Perhaps we can see that whatever does not come out of love, most likely comes out of fear in some way. When we can see a perpetrator as afraid ( not condoning his behavior) but have compassion for his or her fear, we are empowered and do not feel like victims any more. When we react out of fear ourselves, we will attract more victimization and will actually be weakened. When we feel compassion we are infinitely strong as a simple test of muscular strength will reveal.

Stress is a large part of our lives. Physicians claim that as many as 80% of office visits are from people whose symptoms are stress induced. Recent studies show that at least 50% percent of people are stressed at work enough that it interferes with their competence. Synergetic therapy offers multiple ways of dealing with stress: all the above methods (clearing effects of traumas, changing core beliefs, monitoring our thoughts, making a perceptual shift) are quite effective plus diaphragmatic breathing, relaxation techniques, self hypnosis, meditation, energy psychology techniques (acupressure point stimulation on oneself, and thought monitoring, among others.

Learning new behaviors and attitudes to replace old habituated ones are not always easy. Therefore, the Grayson Synergy recognizes that we must open new neural pathways in order for new habits and patterns to become assimilated. Certain visualization practices combined with energy meridian therapy or bilateral stimulation of the brain, much like those used in sports training, are used to open this flow of new and positive information to make the new behaviors flow more easily and therefore become new habits.

Using all these practices helps to free us from the ego mind, accessing more of our inner power and wisdom, thereby helping us begin to dis-cover our True Self which may have been long hidden from our awarenessCthe Self which is part of the All-That-Is. Many of the practices used in this Synergetic Therapy can also be used alone for personal growth, so that we have the tools to deal with many situation and problems on our own.

Integral to all Grayson Synergetic Therapy is the quality of the therapeutic relationship. There must be an atmosphere of non-judging acceptance, safety, active listening, and a genuine caring for the welfare and healing of the other person while holding a deep belief in the person's limitless potentiality for healing: emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

Grayson's Synergetic Therapy believes that there is a place in you where:
- happiness and joy are boundless.
- you cannot be disturbed by what others do or don't do.
- there is an inner strength and power that prevents your feeling like a victim of people, situations and even your own genes.
- you never feel empty, but always full of love.
- you have infinite inner creativity and power to direct your life.