How Understanding the Biofield Could Hold the Key to Healing Trauma

In a recent?podcast ?(episode #385), I talked to?Dr.?Shamini?Jain , a clinical psychologist, neuroscientist, and social entrepreneur, about the science behind the mind-brain-body connection, the biofield and healing trauma, why we need to understand the placebo effect, how to avoid moralizing self-help, and so much more!?

Through her undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral studies at Columbia University, UC San Diego, and UCLA, Dr. Jain has conducted randomized clinical trials and other research in the areas of meditation, hands-on healing, and other integrative medicine practices from the scientific lens of neurophysiology and psychoneuroimmunology. She has also been a healing student of master healer and teacher Rev. Rosalyn?Bruyere, where she learned a great deal?about?how healing works.?

Through her work as a clinical psychologist,?which included?treating?veterans with PTSD, children from disadvantaged communities, and a variety of people suffering from significant mental illness, she realized that our power for healing ourselves is immense and incredibly important for our times. Both modern science and ancient wisdom provide us with all the tools we need for healing ourselves.?

Dr. Jain discusses this integrated model of health in detail in her amazing new book?Healing Ourselves: Biofield Science and the Future of Health .?She?talks about how we are all interconnected, and how this connection has the power to heal us. Science is increasingly showing us how deeply our mental, spiritual, and emotional selves are connected to our physical bodies and can have a profound influence on our health. It is not just about what we eat or how much we exercise. Other factors like our relationships (both with ourselves and others) can have a big impact on how we feel mentally and physically. This is why it is so important to focus on WHOLE person health.?

The ability to heal ourselves is not just a “miracle”. We can?study?our own healing power?and?understand?how we can start replicating this in real life.?This often includes studying things that have been known for centuries?and putting?them?in the language of science. This can be as simple as prescribing yoga for chronic back pain, which already happens in the US based on research done in the field. This is really exciting?because it underscores our own agency, which, alongside asking for help when necessary (which is also a noble act), is incredibly hopeful.??

Key to understanding this connection is the biofield. Scientifically, biofield is a term used to describe our bio-electric-magnetic nature—fields of energy and information that guide our health. This is not “woohoo”—it is currently going on in many fields of healthcare already, including using magnetic fields to study emotions and electroceuticals to heal various ailments. The biofield also includes traditions that, although difficult to measure, have been harnessed for centuries by many indigenous cultures to heal people, such as qi, universal energy or prana. What do these ancient traditions know about the biofield that we can learn from? This is an important part of scientific inquiry.?

We don’t have to choose between Western and Eastern medicine. We can?choose both. We can look at the whole person AND at different ways of describing what is going on in the healing process. These are all ways of better understanding how interconnected we are.??

One great way to understand this interconnectedness is to examine the placebo effect. As Dr. Jain points out, the placebo effect at its core means healing or holistic elements that activate the process of healing. The placebo effect was originally developed to just please patients, not heal them. It was designed to “trick” a patient into thinking an intervention will heal them. Yet now, in light of the growing body of research on the mind-brain-body connection, we now understand the placebo effect is more than just a “trick”. Placebo effects happen in all therapeutic encounters, even medications, and surgery. They can be incredibly meaningful experiences, right down to the level of our neural firing and neural pathways.?

The placebo effect has many different facets, which Dr. Jain discusses in detail in?Healing Ourselves: Biofield Science and the Future of Health .?These include:?

1.?Expectations. This is what your conscious mind thinks about an intervention. It is generally what most people think of when they think of the placebo effect.?

2.?Conditioning, which is a subconscious and conscious process.?

3.?Relationships. This includes bedside manner. Research has shown that a friendly doctor, for example, can increase chances of recovery.?

4.?Ritual. This creates meaning and context that set the stage for our needs, hopes, and expectations. We are training the body and mind to receive a particular healing encounter, like the ritual of meeting a white coat doctor in a medical office.?

You can start implementing these aspects of the placebo effect at home. Simply create a space at home or in the office to engage in a healing ritual, even for just 15 minutes a day. When you do this, you ready the?whole?person?-?mind, body, and brain?-?for a healing encounter, allowing your mind and body to naturally do what they do: heal.??

This doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you if you don’t automatically heal yourself in every situation. We should avoid moralizing self-help. The more we learn about the biofield, the more we understand the vast importance of interconnectedness and the role it plays in healing—not just in ourselves, but also in our relationships with others and our environment. This is not an either/or situation. It is all about connection.??

It is not about thinking your way out of something or just doing enough yoga to get better. We all have a vast array of life experiences that affect us. Sometimes we get stuck and we need help. This help (in whatever form it takes) supports the natural healing process and interconnectedness that is within us and that defines our world. This is true for an allopathic doctor, and it is true for an energy teacher. Healing ourselves does not mean figuring it out alone and feeling bad when we fail, or that everything will always work out like we expect or hope.?

The key thing to understand about the biofield is the power of spiritual connection, however we define this and however it plays out in our unique context. This energetic nature is open and available to all of us.?Regardless of how?we experience this sense of self beyond the conditioned mind, brain and body, when we tap into this experience, the healing can be immense.?

We can start harnessing this incredible healing power by:?

1.?Grounding. Coming into our bodies and connecting with the earth.?

2.?Flowing with our emotions. Understanding and working skillfully?with our emotional states. This includes?tuning into discomfort?and?allowing?it to move?through us?so we can?learn from it.

3.?Tapping into our?creativity.?Creativity?is an incredible healer!?It?leads us to a stronger sense of authenticity,?which is integral to the healing process.

4.?Fostering positive healing intentions. This?goes beyond positive affirmations. It is about uniting the mental and vital forces, or uniting the mind, brain, and body energy and gaining more insight into our healing desires and what we are envisioning for?ourselves while moving towards?healing support. Community and spiritual connections are integral to this process.

5.?Surrendering. This is about letting go of the conditioned mind and?our?desires, asking for support, and realizing?it. This step opens us up to possibilities of healing that?we may not even have imagined.