Chakra healingThere's nothing new in the concept that we are what we think. But Dr Brenda Davies takes this concept further. Every illness, she believes, has its roots in the soul. But it is only when our bodies develop disease that we tend to take notice.
According to the consultant psychiatrist, author and spiritual healer, by tracking the original wound and releasing the pain, healing of an individual's energy system can take place and with it comes a new sense of being.
"I believe every illness can be traced back to the soul level. If we don't deal with it then, it trickles down to the emotional level, then the mental and eventually it gets our attention when it gets to the physical level," she says.
"As a therapist I'm always looking for the root of the cause. I'm not suggesting years of psychotherapy or psychoanalysis. But I see people who have been through traumas, who have behaviours they don't understand, who have addictions that they don't know how or why they got them. For me, it's about going back and letting the soul say what the real problem is and then letting go of the guilt of their behaviour, of the chronic illness or the frustration of 'why can I never get well?'"
And how does she propose we do that? "It's fairly simple," the consultant psychiatrist of 25 years announces cheerily. "I work with the chakras."
Often dismissed as the jargon of lentil-eating, Jesus sandalwearing, airy-fairy folk, the chakras (of which there are seven) are measurable energy centres of the body within the electromagnetic field.
Now 64, Dr Davies is a trained pharmacist, doctor and surgeon. As a little girl living in Co Durham, in England she "could see - as lots of children can - that people had these pretty lights around them". As a teenager she would keep notebooks on energy shifts she saw between people. She was 20 before she encountered the term "chakra".
A decade ago she won an international award in Moscow for her innovative combination of ancient complementary medicine and orthodox medical practice and is now involved in the Doctor-Healer Network in England and Germany - an organisation which helps both doctors and healers who wish to work with the other profession. "There is much more of a partnership now and an interest to combine skills than in the past, " she said.
At a conference on healing in Australia recently, more than 200 doctors attended to learn about healing, she says.
Davies has six books to her name including The Rainbow Journey. She has hundreds of patients at her private practice in London and her own international schools of healing and spiritual development in England, Germany, America and Australia.
In dealing with disease, Dr Davies works with an individual's chakras and has found that identifying a person's age when they got hurt can predict illness.
"Chakras all have their own story to tell, develop at particular times and have particular qualities and gifts. If those qualities or gifts are missing, it tells me there was something going on at the time when those things were developing.
"Over the past 60 years I've developed a very deep knowing of the chakras so I can tell you, for example, the Root chakra develops between birth and three to five years old and comes back into focus between 30 and 34 and then again between 60 and 64. At those times, people look at where they belong, whom they belong with, their self-esteem, self-worth and their inner security.
"If anything went wrong between birth and five years old, then that person will have difficulties with security and self-worth, they'll get depressed or do things to get out of their reality temporarily like using substances, activities or behaviours such as developing eating disorders."
In her workshop in Dublin in April, Dr Davies promises a day in which participants will unearth things that they may have been stuck with for a long time and will emerge feeling empowered.
"Rather than having someone tell them what to do, they're deciding this is my body and my life, my history, my trauma - let me take responsibility and learn how to deal with it and let go of anything I no longer need."
Dr Brenda Davies's seminar workshop, Spiritual Aspects of Disease, takes place on April 14th and 15th at the Stillorgan Park Hotel, Dublin. Visit www.jsaonline.ie or call 087 979 7988.