Reiki Combined: Reiki and Counselling

Counselling is always a part of any treatment session. As a therapist it is important to be able to build a rapport with your clients and create a safe therapeutic environment. This is essential to enable the client to relax and open up to the healing process of whatever therapeutic approach is used.

Counselling creates the foundation for mutual understanding where the client can express their fears, aspirations, intentions, and hopes by telling their “story”. This often provides me as a Reiki therapist with invaluable information on their state of being. As an empath I can also access the non-verbal information during the counselling part of the healing session – everything they are hiding, hiding from, and supressing but which is expressed through body language, tone of voice, facial expressions, and choice of words and wording.

Counselling also provides the client the opportunity to assess their comfort with me as a Reiki practitioner, to ask questions and gain the necessary information to “validate” their choice in therapy and therapist. It is my opinion that energetic compatibility and resonance between client and therapist are critical to the effectiveness of a healing session. This can really only be established through the counselling part of a healing session.

Within my Reiki practice I incorporate many of the principles of effective counselling into the treatment session, e.g.:

• Encouraging clients to express their emotions. By doing this the effectiveness of Reiki therapy is enhanced and clients can enter into an altered state of understanding themselves, their emotions and how others perceive and respond to them and their emotions.
• Encouraging clients to be very specific about their aspirations and their fears. Fear is often the most debilitating emotion and by starting to acknowledge, pinpoint and express such fears the battle towards healing has already made great progress.
• As a good starting point in understanding the client and in formulating an initial therapy and healing strategy a preliminary counselling session with the client often gives a clear indication of the client’s own self-distortions, whether they perceive their lives as more or less satisfying and how they experience pleasure, peace, contentment. This provides me with invaluable information that informs my approach towards addressing the specific client and his/her needs on a therapeutic level.
• Establishing a solid platform through counselling from where a client can be provided with guidance within the context of their healing journey, whether formally through example the Transformation Coaching I offer, or informally through their own process of meditation, mindfulness and other practices.
• Completing the “feedback loop” through counselling is extremely supportive of the clients continued progress. Through counselling it is possible to provide the client with the “mirror” through which they can see the growth and progress they have made, validating that they are on the right path and at the right place of their healing journey. Highlighting the progress a client is making, even if it is slow but steady, is highly motivational for the client.

Monitoring a client’s health and wellbeing is complemented by integrating the counselling process the Reiki healing. Afterall, healing is most effective through a holistic approach and Reiki healers can draw on a variety of complementary therapies such as counselling to support them as therapists.

Please stay tuned for my next article where I will discuss Reiki Complimented with Shamanic Healing.

Article by Thea van der Merwe, Ph.D.

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Thea van der Merwe, Ph. D. is a nationally and internationally trained holistic energy, certified and experienced Master Reiki Practitioner, qualified in Usui Reiki, Reijukido, Karuna® Reiki, Karuna Ki Reiki, Crystal Reiki, and Gendai Reiki. She obtained the title of Shihan (full master/teacher), the highest level in Gendai Reiki Ho. Besides her greatest passion which is Reiki, Thea is also a spiritual shaman, healer, and teacher, offering readings as a way of accessing spiritual guidance. Her journey of personal discovery, growth, and healing started back in 2005 when she was personally in need of healing and searching for something more than what conventional medicine and therapy could provide. Thea is currently nationally and internationally registered with the South African Reiki Masters Association and The Reiki Healing Association respectively – both professional associations for the local and global Reiki communities, working to promote the wide-reaching practice and healing effects of Reiki throughout the world and where the primary philosophy is that together, we can do so much more. You can get into contact with Thea van der Merwe at viterra.co.za, which is her website, and at facebook.com/viterrahealing on Facebook.