by Colleen M. Quinn

When someone comes into the office of Edie Stone, it is more like entering someone’s living room more than a place of work. “When a client comes in here, I am inviting them into a conversation,” Edie says of her colorful office. The room instantly puts anyone at ease. In many ways the variety of plants, artwork, pillows, and lights is evocative of the work she does. It is also representative of her personal interest and passions from which her work has sprung. “I have always been interested in poetry, fairy tales, and art. They are the raw materials of dreams,” she says.

As a certified shamanic journey guide and licensed psychotherapist, Edie blends these two practices together to offer a uniquely healing experience for her clients. Having already learned about cultural mythologies and spiritual paths, Edie became interested in shamanic work and has trained with many shamanic teachers and healers. Her website, www.shamanicjourneys.net, describes in full her shamanic training. She will also be holding a shamanic workshop February 8-9 called Shamanic Journey Skills for Beginners, also found on her website.

Through her experiences, especially with children, Edie became interested in psychology and holds an M.A. in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University. In addition to individual sessions, Edie also offers couples counseling, such as When Chocolate Isn’t Enough. Information on these can be found at www.ediestone.com.

Edie saw many connections between these two lines of work, and over the years has developed a distinctive practice of her own. “I like to connect the dots and ask ‘How is this related?’” she says of the way she blends psychotherapy with shamanic journeys. “There is a natural relationship between all things. I help people make connections, to see how something is affecting them.”

Edie bases her work on the importance of the mind-body connection, acknowledging that connection as the most fundamental to a person’s well-being and health. She describes her approach as informal and soul-centered, helping her clients become more balanced in body, mind, heart, and soul. When treating depression, for example, Edie looks at all aspects of her client’s life including nutritional, spiritual, and physical conditions as well as emotional well-being. Taking such a holistic approach opens doors for more ways to treat the depression and find its cause. “We have to be connected with our spiritual side, but also have to connect to the real world,” Edie says.

She puts this philosophy into practice through her work as a shamanic journey guide and psychotherapist. Her background in psychotherapy allows her to help clients explore their own emotions, behaviors, and personal history, while her training as a journey guide offers a unique way to delve into one’s spiritual growth.

Some clients come strictly for therapy while others come only for shamanic experiences, but Edie has brought these two different but effective practices together. The way in which she works with clients is unique, as she combines different elements to tailor each session according to a client’s needs. Edie establishes the client’s intentions and determines what their goals are and what kind of healing is needed. Using her combination of psychotherapy and journey work, she helps others reach a level of personal calm and healing they might not have achieved otherwise.

Regardless of how a session progresses, Edie often begins by going over relaxation techniques, usually in her first meeting with the client. It’s essential for the client to learn how to become centered and release tensions. Edie coaches on this relaxation process through guided imagery and practicing releasing physical tension. Relaxation is important for following progress, whether through a shamanic journey or therapy.

If a person needs or wants a shamanic journey, Edie happily provides that opportunity. Her preferred method of shamanic journey is a bit different than more traditional means. In many cultures, shamans themselves take the journey on behalf of another person – they enter a lucid state and retrieve messages for them. While this is a time-honored style, Edie chooses a more interactive method. “I help them have that encounter, so they know what it feels like,” she says. “As a psychotherapist, I don’t do that [journey for the person]. This is a way to help them do it themselves.”

So what is a journey like? Edie describes a journey as a “waking dream, an expanded state of consciousness;” as a journey guide, she gently directs the person by discussing with clients what they see and feel while in their journey. “In a journey, I help open that person to other experiences, and I hold that space for them for their journey.” This is often times very spiritually moving, and people can experience many different things in a journey.

A key part of a journey is finding the person’s spirit guides, which can take the form of animals, angels, ancestors, or another type of being. They give messages, embody meaning, or offer healing experiences. Guides can also be called on for specific reasons. “We call on guides that love you, honor your free will, and have wisdom and healing according to your intentions,” Edie says.

During a shamanic journey, a person’s chakras are stimulated, and so Edie works with these as well to gain as much as possible from the journey. She can actively stimulate chakras with sound or energy or sometimes the journey itself does the job. Negative energy can be released during this process, and many times a person can encounter the spirit guide that corresponds with various chakras.

She also can help clients with mini journeys that focus on specific chakras, too. This is helpful if a client is having a particular problem that could involve a part of the body or chakras. “You can call on that guide, it’s like a specialist for that chakra,” says Edie.

Edie uses a variety of therapeutic methods to enhance a person’s journey experience, or uses them alone to enhance their personal growth and healing. The goal of Edie’s therapy is to find old or damaging behaviors and replace them with positive ones. Role-playing, stress management, Gestalt, and EMDR are a few of the tools she uses to help clients achieve this.

Many of her therapy methods are Gestalt-based. Although defining Gestalt therapy is a bit difficult, Edie explains it best as, “a mode of psychotherapy in which we work in the present to heal wounds from the past, so that a person can be more fully alive now.” Many times this involves addressing past experiences that have ongoing negative effects, like family issues or bad relationships.

Simply put, Gestalt therapy involves body awareness. Edie incorporates this present-centered body awareness with more traditional cognitive techniques. For example, a person who does a lot of negative self-talk will often feel discomfort in the chest. As they learn to replace negative self talk (“I’m so stupid”) into positive talk (“I can do this”), their chest will begin to lighten, as well as their overall posture changing, their mood lifting, and their image of themselves improving. “My coaching is to help you give yourself permission to forgive and heal,” says Edie.

Role-playing and empty-chair or empty-pillow talk are also very helpful Gestalt methods that help clients resolve issues from the past that they are having difficulty overcoming. If a person is resentful towards or harboring guilt concerning a deceased parent, for example, they can imagine the parent on a chair or pillow. Edie encourages the client to speak in the present tense with the parent and the client can finally say the things they had always needed to but couldn’t.

As emotions and physical sensations come to the surface, Edie invites the person to switch roles for a moment and imagine what the deceased parent would say and feel. Both sides can now reach a deeper level of understanding and forgiveness. “This is one of the times when therapy moves from the personal to the transpersonal or spiritual level,” says Edie. “It can feel like the spirit of the loved one really is present with us.”

Edie also uses EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing, to help client manage and resolve problems they have with past events. EMDR is a technique involving sound or tactile stimulation to change the reaction and associations a person has with and to painful or traumatic memories. In an EMDR session, stimulation is rhythmically alternated right to left, either beeping from headphones or buzzing from handheld units, while the client visualizes the difficult memory.

Says Edie, “It shakes loose the memory from that highly charged emotional state,” because the external stimulation physically alters the brain patterns that are linked to a certain memory. The memory can now be recalled without it overwhelming the person. Edie likens EMDR to a journey, because “You’re going there to do something and heal,” she says. “On a deeper level, something changes.”

This type of profound change and healing is what Edie offers to every client. She aids the process of change in a truly original way by establishing a connection between psychotherapy and shamanic work, but also between clients and their goal of healing. “I try to help people develop appreciation, soul connections, and spiritual relationships,” she says. “There is something very sacred about it.”