Summer 2004

SOUND THERAPY IN THE TREATMENT OF DEPRESSION
by SHOW member Rose Eng-Lum, L AC, RC

 

I would like to share some of the wonderful healing work that goes on in the field of sound therapy in this short case study. The clients name has been changed to protect her privacy. I am known as a sound acupuncturist. In my practice, I use Traditional Chinese Medicine acupuncture, sound therapy, and psychotherapy all integrated in one setting. My sound therapy employs the Acutonics system which utilizes cosmic tuned tuning forks, Tibetan bowls, gongs along with other sound instruments of antiquity. I am one of the few sound acupuncturist that integrates counseling in a clinical setting.

Not every client is amendable to the counseling aspect but in this case, the client was. The combination of all three modalities propelled this client to health in a years time which would ordinarily take many years in conventional counseling or never happen with acupuncture alone.
This combination modality helped the client refocus emotional energy and damaging attitudes as the energy work changed her vibrational patterns held in the body through thoughts and past trauma.

Jennifer W. was a 41 year old Caucasian female, unemployed, 2 years divorced and suffering from depression when she first came to see me. Her physical symptoms included: anxiety, fatigue, insomnia, extreme stress, inability to prioritize her life, emotional liability, frequent burning diarrhea, hemorrhoids, frequent bleeding noses and emotional vulnerability. She was divorced but had not resolved many of the emotional issues surrounding her anger, insecurities, co-dependency and identity.

She came from a very large family of 9 children where she was the youngest daughter. She experienced a history of emotional abandonment in her family of origin and suffered years of repeated sexual abuse as a child and teen from more than one individual. Her mother was an alcoholic and her father was emotionally unavailable. Jennifer grew up feeling her value and acceptance as a human being came from 'doing for others'. She experienced years of alcoholism and promiscuous behavior in her 20's before becoming clean and sober. Her dissolved marriage was to a manipulative, abusive man where Jennifer exercised few healthy interpersonal relationship skills.

Jennifer had a crisis during our course of treatment. She had ideations of suicide for a two month period which she overcame. At that time, we involved her brothers and sisters to give her the support she could not ask for before. My therapies at that time included sound acupuncture to clear pathogenic thought and to build self-love. There are acupuncture points that can facilitate this. Also, the focus was to keep her grounded in reality. I prescribed some Chinese Medicine psychiatric herbs during her entire treatment for anxiety. The counseling session were invaluable.

Her course of treatment involved a one hour counseling session and a one hour sound treatment in one setting for a total of 40 treatments. Most treatments focused on the immediate presenting symptoms that seem most paramount and at the same time to always move the 'qi' or vital force energy of the body. As long as the vital force energy was moving through the application of massive gong infusion, tuning forks on acupuncture points, needles as necessary----her body would release the negative thought patterns that held her hostage in depression. After each treatment her body would align with the natural vibration of the earth and her magnetic field became huge. As her course of treatment progressed, she began to eliminate relationships that were drawing her energy from herself, she began to become more discerning in her selections of friends and she finally came to value herself as a worthy human being in her own right. Her evolution was and is still amazing. Many of her physical symptoms vanished. She became her own best friend and most of all, she finally was resonating with the true vibrations of her soul. I felt privileged to have been part of her healing. She is now actively looking for employment that uses her fantastic organizational skill and creative talents.

Rose Eng-Lum , licensed acupuncturist, registered counselor, certified instructor of sound acupuncture, maintains a private practice and teaches at House of Healing in Bellevue, WA Depression-Sound Acupuncture Modality with Western Input is a class she created and appropriate for many healers. Ms. Eng-Lum holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology/Chemistry and a Masters in Natural Science. She participated in the 2nd Integrated Medicine Delegation to the People's Republic of China in 2001 with Bastyr University and has been featured on KOMO TV, health issues.