Paper: Sunday Times, The (London, England)
Title: Spread your wings – Mind & Body
Author: Lorna V
Date: September 13, 1998
Section: Features
Page: Style 32
Metamorphic therapy is a well-kept secret that can transform your life in weeks. LORNA V investigates
I came across the metamorphic technique via a cryptic but enticing recommendation from a friend, who revealed virtually nothing about what was involved, but stressed the transforming effect it would have on my life, if I was ready for it. Intrigued, I booked a session with one of the country’s top practitioners, Audrey Pasternak, at the trendy Life Centre in west London, to find out.
As I sat on the massage couch, having first removed my shoes and socks, I immediately felt that I was in safe hands.
With her elegant outfit and chic, understated jewellery, Pasternak could easily pass for a distinguished actress or an antiques dealer.
Indeed, before discovering the technique seven years ago, she had a long and successful career as an interior designer. As I launched into a series of questions, she told me in a no-nonsense tone to leave the journalist outside the room and enjoy the experience.
Like most people who find it, I realise now that I came to the metamorphic technique still looking for something that would help me realise my full potential. Despite intensive therapy, all kinds of workshops, and a wide range of alternative treatments over the years, I felt something was missing, and that I wasn’t achieving or enjoying life as much as I could.
Not a lot actually happens during a metamorphic-technique session. The practitioner works with her hands, stroking and lightly massaging the tips of the toes and the inside of the foot, between the big toe and the heel, for about an hour before moving on to the fingertips and, last, the head. It is the head massage that feels most intense, and though you can, if you want, chat through the first stages of the session, this is the time to close your eyes and feel the energy shifting inside your body.
The principle behind the technique is that the light touch stimulates your life force and activates the self-healing process. As Pasternak puts it, the client does the work while the practitioner “holds” the energy.
“But how on earth does it work?” you persist. “It just does,” is the response, “in the same way a tiny seed has the innate intelligence to grow into the flower it is supposed to be, and knows exactly when to bloom.”
The metamorphic technique was developed in the 1960s by the respected naturopath and reflexologist Robert St John to help mentally handicapped children release their emotional blockages. Through his work, he discovered that the nine months spent in the womb are mapped out along the spinal reflexes (which are located mostly at the sides of the feet, but also on the hands).
He passed his findings on to the British- based Canadian practitioner Gaston St Pierre, who, in 1979, set up the Metamorphic Association, of which he is still the director.
Metamorphic technique has slowly and quietly gained respect from not only those whose lives have been transformed by it, but from doctors and specialists impressed with the results for conditions ranging from dyslexia to eating disorders.
As well as reporting significant changes in the way they see life and how they feel about themselves, it is common for those who receive the technique to change where they live, their job, and their relationship – sometimes all three at the same time.
At the end of my first session, I sobbed uncontrollably, without knowing why.
Pasternak assured me I would get through this and told me to be gentle with myself. For a few days, I felt spaced out and tired, which is a common aftereffect. Though sessions are recommended once a week, I found I had such strong reactions that I needed a longer break in between.
I have had several sessions now, and have started to notice subtle changes: I don’t feel guilty about putting myself first, I steer clear of difficult (emotional) situations, I make space for myself and, most of all, I’ve stopped giving myself a hard time. Instead of doubting, I now trust who I am.
The trauma a baby might experience in the womb can range from the physical to the emotional. Metamorphic practitioners believe these experiences create the emotional patterns that carry on through our lives and which, if
negative, manifest themselves as illness, addiction, stress, emotional problems and depression.
Men are particularly attracted to the technique because they say it provides all the benefits of intensive psychotherapy without the agonising process of being probed about the past and the present. In fact, you can spend the whole session with your eyes closed and your mouth shut, not having to utter a single word.
One of Pasternak’s male clients, a television producer who prefers to remain anonymous, says he started the technique after a relationship ended and he realised that he felt stuck in every aspect of his life.
Ironically, the woman he had just parted from had been going to Pasternak for a year, during which time she changed dramatically for the better, and lost what he calls “that fundamental sadness”.
Rather than invoking radical change, he describes his transformation as less dramatic, more like a reversion to his natural self: “I finally got it together to change my home, and my work as a producer changed, too. I have now started a new relationship and, for the first time in my life, I find that I don’t put up blocks or create trouble.
“I had therapy for a couple of years and that definitely cleared some problems, but the metamorphic technique seems to work at a much deeper level. You get the benefits of therapy, a relaxing treatment, and your whole energy slowly changes.”
* For a list of metamorphic technique practitioners, send an SAE to the Metamorphic Association, 67 Ritherdon Road, London SW17 8QE (0181-672 5951)
* Lorna V edits Time Out’s Sell Out section
Author: Lorna V
Section: Features
Page: Style 32