Category: Soul Loss/Retrieval
Blog: Healing Post-War Anxiety with Applied Shamanic Practice
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
A young man named Jared had recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. He was having trouble sleeping and felt anxious most of the time. Jared didn’t like talking about his experience overseas. He felt embarrassed that he was having such a hard time reintegrating into civilian life.
In working with him, I learned that Jared had some problems with anxiety before going to the Middle East, but they had gotten much worse since his return. He had tried a series of medications, but they made him feel “weird,” so he didn’t like taking them. The anxiety made it hard for him to focus. I suggested starting off with a more traditional approach.
Video: Applied Shamanic Healing Practices: Part 2: Techniques that Can Help You Maintain Better Personal Boundaries
Shamanism is an ancient wisdom system that has been practiced around the world in many different cultures and in many different times and places. Shamans are the doctors, mediators, educators, diviners, and ceremonialists of the communities they serve. In this video, Isa Gucciardi explores a common experience that we often do not have words to explain. This is the experience of feeling weighed down by others or the feeling of being drained by someone else. We usually think about these experiences as a problem with personal boundaries if we understand them at all. In shamanic forms of healing, these phenomena are well understood and are described as a process of “soul part exchange.” Isa describes how soul part exchange occurs and how it can be remedied. For more information on Applied Shamanism, see sacredstream.org.
Blog: Buddhism in Action Part 2: A Depth Hypnosis Case Study
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
Most of us are very attached to having what we want happen and preventing what we don’t want from happening. But when we try to create a life in this way, we develop misconceptions about ourselves and the people and world around us. In the Depth Hypnosis method, when considering the issue a client presents and their emotional history, practitioners draw upon this Buddhist idea that we suffer when we are unaware of the way our attachments and aversions drive our behavior, or when we have misconceptions about what our life presents to us and about what that might mean for us.
Article: A Call to Action: How Depth Hypnosis Fulfills Stanislav Grof’s Manifesto for a New Paradigm and Definition of Healing
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
I had the good fortune to attend a conference this year where Stanislav Grof was presenting a paper on his work in developing new therapeutic paradigms over the last half century. Stanislav Grof is a man to whom we all owe a great deal.
Over the last fifty years, he has been instrumental in generating innovative and fresh perspectives on the definition of healing, in response to the medical, psychiatric, and psychological establishment’s approaches to this topic. He has managed to create important changes, working both from within these establishments and outside of them. Without his tireless dedication to the redefinition of psychological health and imbalance, we would not be in the position we are in today to offer the transformative processes of Depth Hypnosis to as wide an audience as we do.
Article: An Interview with Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D. on Soul Retrieval
By Gerri Ravyn Stanfield
I was introduced to Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D. through a mutual student and friend who told me “You two are up to the same things.” Through our email correspondence, I came to agree, the Foundation of the Sacred Stream is a place where spiritual seekers and healers can find education and inspiration from a variety of spiritual traditions. I spoke with Isa Gucciardi in September of 2012 regarding her work in the study and practice of soul retrieval.
Article: Depth Hypnosis, Soul Retrieval, and Addiction
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
There are many different understandings about the nature of addiction. In working with addiction through my practice of Depth Hypnosis, I have found that it is helpful to apply the diagnostic and restorative methods provided by shamanism to help resolve addictive issues permanently.
Article: Shamanic Counseling Case Study: Soul Retrieval
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
From the shamanic perspective, one of the primary causes of imbalance is soul loss. Soul loss can be caused by any type of trauma: emotional, physical, spiritual, or psychological. And trauma can be the result of many things including verbal or physical attack, surgery, abuse, or a sudden loss. From a shamanic perspective, when trauma occurs, a soul part can become “frozen outside of time.” When this happens, the soul part does not evolve with the person as they continue their life. If this situation is not addressed, many problems can occur, including depression, addiction, and even chronic illness.
Article: War and Soul Loss
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
It has been unfashionable for veterans returning home from war to talk about the effect their experiences during the war has had on them. I have had countless children of veterans tell me that their fathers had never once spoken of their experience in World War II, Korea, or Vietnam. I have known veterans who stop speaking when war is brought up. Most men returning from war have turned to silence to deal with the trauma of their experience on the battlefield. This is, after all, the “manly” thing to do. The effect that this silence has on their personal life, their family life, and the society in which they live is often minimized or completely disregarded.
Article: Opening the Doors to the Self – Spirit Involvement
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
As we have seen, there are many paths to self-knowledge. Understanding the self is a complex process because the self is so complex. There are many facets to our being that our conscious-mind awareness generally blocks out. It must do this in order to deal with the very complicated external world we must negotiate in our daily life. The creation of a vehicle from which to explore the external world is one of the primary tasks we have to accomplish as part of our development. For many of us, this development is not as linear or logical as we would like to believe.
Article: Opening the Doors to the Self – Pain as a Guidepost
By Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D.
As we have seen, one of the most valuable tools in this journey to the encounter of the self at a soul level is the ability to create an atmosphere where it is safe. We must feel safe in order to remain present with pain long enough to be able to understand its origins. Within the framework of hypnosis, the path through pain or imbalance can reveal itself safely. It can lead us across the field of the pain through the psyche to the encounter with the self at a soul level. To begin this journey, it is important to examine the kinds of relationships we have with pain.