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Q: Let’s talk about cravings for psychological wholeness and how Center Point creates a gentle and functional path for recovery and healing.
Barclay: The idea is that when people have substance use issues, as Jung put it out, they are actually seeking psychological wholeness, by using the substance so that if someone has a problem with drinking. Jung’s framework was one where they were seeking to integrate the unconscious with the conscious mind and to unite male and female aspects of themselves, within themselves by focusing on drinking more and more and so it became well known at the end of the 1800s that what they called the thought cure, which was the use of over a strong religious conversion experience, often was highly effective in reducing smoking and drinking issues. And so it was noted by William James that the cure for dips of mania, which meant binge drinking was religious mania.
And this has become part of many recovery groups and the modern 12 step programs as well, with the emphasis on the higher power that enables you to transcend your self destructive cravings. And so these frameworks work for some people. Other people have trouble because they’re often poised in terms of a religious framework. And so where Center Point is different is that we’re using the Meridian system of the body to balance dopamine and serotonin levels, which are pleasure and happinessI in terms of neurotransmitter function. And the idea is by integrating certain types of meditation certain types of movements, certain types of breathing practices, it’s possible for the individual to rewire the nervous system and change the brain reward, cascade system, which is where the individual has gotten locked into a particular pattern of habitual behavior, which is destructive and which is causing problems based on this ancient meditation framework in which attachment results in discomfort or suffering.
So the Center Point model differs from other recovery approaches because it enables the person to maintain whatever their own spiritual or religious belief system is or is not. But then it provides a set of tools and a methodology for the person to practice gradually and to integrate the conscious, unconscious and collective unconscious levels of the mind and of the body and to return to a state of psychological wholeness, which is what the person is actually seeking to begin with. So most of the substance abuse problems are revolving around trauma, a lack of meaning a lack of purpose, self-doubt, self-loathing, and all of those imbalances can be corrected. By running more and more Prana or Chi through the meridian system of the body and balancing out the connections between the sympathetic, parasympathetic and enteric nervous systems, which are determining how the person reacts to stress, emotional pain, sadness or personal loss.
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