Audit of Resociative Medicine regarding ‘Coming Home to the Self’ piece.
Background:
The idea of the ‘self’ in Western thought is most often a psychological or social construct, and the seat of identity frequently the head or at the heart. Head identifiers have been found to have more rational thinking styles and those with a sense of self at the heart a more emotional approach to decision making. These traits are quite stable over time, but interestingly there are also some who can readily switch between both to tackle the task at hand, and these people show enhanced decision making in all domains: mastering the art of when to choose deliberation versus (heart) intuition.[i]
Various Asian traditions have a more somatic embodied fluid ‘I’, for example the concepts of Tanden/Hara (Japanese), Dantian (Daoist) and Svadhishthana (Hindu), frequently with the seat in the abdomen at or below the umbilicus. These concepts are also energetic and cosmological constructs. These traditions teach that one needs to focus one’s attention in the body (and the breath) to counteract the noise of the mind and tame the ego: to be centred in the body as part of mind-body-spirit .[ii],[iii] Such practices also serve to address and process ‘lower’ embodied emotions such as shame and grief, and so counteract core reactivity when (the identity is) under threat.
On the other hand indigenous philosophies do not generally have a sense of ‘I’ in the body at all, nor an individual ego. Instead the ‘location’ of ‘I’ is relational to the physical and spiritual body’s connection to ancestral lands and waters, in addition to kinship and ancestral obligations. These connections and obligations also transcend time, leading to a collapse of past, present and future into a more space-like concept.[iv],[v]
All three of these approaches have something to offer but none is sufficient to meet the current demands of the modern world where a balance needs to be struck: There is a need for a fluid sense of ‘I’ that can encompass all of these: rational thinking has advanced the human condition in many ways but hyper-rationality is a disease in itself: strong emotions leading to threatened and blinkered intuition can be more readily addressed if one is centred; and individual creativity can safely soar if one is earthed and connected without being overly so.
In other words we need a radical shift in identity, given that there is too much ‘noise’: be it from unresolved emotional charge (personal or transgenerational), extra electromatic radiation, geo-political wrangling and/or angst about the future/climate. With this shift we can answer the question: ‘How can I be a rational, grounded and centred yet creative and spiritual individual in a collective?’
----------------------------------------
My practice specialises in (internal and external) conflict conditions presenting mentally, emotionally or physically. From early November 2024 to September 2025 I worked on developing a neo-shamanic framework for an ‘identity shift’ piece called ‘Coming Home to the Self’ in collaboration with clients (i.e. paying significant attention to feedback and reworking the piece over this period) in order enable such a shift as well as to establish a more structured approach and so give clients something definitive to work towards in a process oriented therapy. In undertaking this piece (or any of my work), clients are encouraged to explore their own ANS regulating embodiment practices as well as ‘connectivity’ practices from whichever traditions they so choose.
The intention of this piece was to establish firm emotional and ‘energetic’ internal and external boundaries without rigidity (i.e. there can be some flexibility and so the person does not appear to be ‘putting up walls’.) The primary audience of this piece was envisaged to be clients who had ‘burnt out’. However the piece is relevant to a much wider audience who haven’t quite reached that tipping point but suffer from internal and external conflict in other ways[1].
In order to achieve this the piece establishes the identity throughout the whole core of the body (with a central point at the solar plexus) whilst also strengthening connection of the self to the land If required, and the electromagnetic field, in a safe and boundaried way. In making this shift the different parts of a person can start to operate in collaborative rather than competitive or conflicting ways. (Not being pulled externally nor internally beyond the system’s capacity.)
In development this has been niche work (clients reaching my practice are generally searching for answers outside the box having exhausted all other avenues, as well as needing to be open to psycho-spiritual approaches), so the absolute number of clients is not large. It is also the case that I did not practice for 4.5 months for my own recovery from mid-December 2025. However the length of sessions ranged from ~70 minutes to around 5 hours (with two breaks!) in one instance, and a few of the collaborators were seen for many sessions ‘re-running’ various versions of the piece as it was refined.[2],[3]
I have also been developing another piece: ‘parenting the self’ in the last few months. The relevance is it appears that this subsequent piece is ideally completed before the Identity shift piece (as it is intrinsically easier to ‘digest’), but for various reasons was developed afterwards. The final version of the parenting piece was only completed two weeks prior to this audit so it is not in the quantitative data in this analysis.
Quantitative Data:
Number of clients who have been offered a version of the piece
25
Number of clients who have completed a version of the piece
17
Percentage of clients who have been both offered and completed a version of the piece
68
Gender of clients who have been offered a version of the piece
Female:17
Male: 6
Non binary:2
Gender of clients who have been offered a version of the piece and have completed it
Female:14
Male:1
Non binary:2
Number of clients who have completed a version of the piece who have/had burnout, an inflammatory/immune condition and/or mental health condition that affected ability to work
11
Number of clients who have not completed a version of the piece who have/had burnout, an inflammatory/immune and/or mental health condition that affected ability to work
0
Analysis:
Discussion:
This is a small sample size (N=25) which limits it's broad generalisability, particularly in terms of generalisability to all Western males. However the very large effect size of the first hypothesis is of note in this context as small sample sizes typically lack the power to detect relationships unless these are remarkably pronounced.
The data also reveal that a health crisis affecting capacity to work in one’s chosen field acts as a highly significant catalyst for completing the identity shift piece. This supports the theory that a profound disruption to one’s livelihood lowers resistance from the ego to shift from a ‘top down control’ to a more balanced and ‘holistic’ identity structure.
Interestingly when the second trend is cross-referenced with gender another potential pattern emerges: 37.5% of the female and non-binary clients (6 out of 16) were able to undertake the piece without the added pressure of a health crisis, however none of the male clients did so. The sole male participant who completed the piece belonged to the health-crisis cohort. This pattern aligns tentatively suggests that individuals occupying a structurally dominant societal position require a multi-layered disruption—both conceptual and physical/vocational—to engage with radical identity shifting.
Thus when the two sets of data are examined as a whole they suggest that while societal privilege (like being male in Western society) builds a stronger fortress around the brain-centric ego, a severe vocational or health crisis is powerful enough to completely bypass those defences.
Conclusions:
The data indicate that there are two distinct pathways to completing the identity-shift piece:
[1] I consider various conditions such as significant generalised inflammation related to ANS dysregulation to be a form of burn-out and have incorporated into the analysis those clients who are similarly minded (i.e. who have attended for help with such) to the extent that the condition has affected their ability to work (or work in their usual profession if a health practitioner).
[2] It should be noted that not all clients who were offered an earlier version of the piece have been offered the final version (there was about five weeks after the first offering where some additional tweaks were made and a few clients booked in to do it in the interim). I generally only offered the later version if clients subsequently contacted me (noting the synchronicity of a shamanic approach so that what a client needs at that point in time will be able to be incorporated into any subsequent version or other framework).
[3] Additionally some clients have not been offered the piece at all as they are more recent or on 1 occasion they ceased working with me prior to being ‘ready’ for it. These clients are not incorporated into the study.
[i] Fetterman, Adam K and Robinson, Michael D. Do you use your head or follow your heart? Self-location predicts personality, emotion, decision making, and performance. J Pers Soc Psychol 2013 Aug;105(2):316-34. Epub 2013 Jun 17. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23773045/
[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dantian
[iii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svadhishthana
[iv] Tempone-Wiltshire, Julien and Yunkaporta, Tyson. Contributions From Aboriginal Australian Psychology: Songlines, Memory, and Relational Knowledge Systems. Indigenous Healing Practices, Vol. 13, Issue 2, 2025 September 19, 2025 AEST. https://doi.org/10.59158/001c.143975
[v] Wilson, Alex, Our Coming In Stories: Cree Identity, Body Sovereignty and Gender Self-Determination, Journal of Global Indigeneity, 1(1), 2015. http://ro.uow.edu.au/jgi/vol1/iss1/4
Background:
The idea of the ‘self’ in Western thought is most often a psychological or social construct, and the seat of identity frequently the head or at the heart. Head identifiers have been found to have more rational thinking styles and those with a sense of self at the heart a more emotional approach to decision making. These traits are quite stable over time, but interestingly there are also some who can readily switch between both to tackle the task at hand, and these people show enhanced decision making in all domains: mastering the art of when to choose deliberation versus (heart) intuition.[i]
Various Asian traditions have a more somatic embodied fluid ‘I’, for example the concepts of Tanden/Hara (Japanese), Dantian (Daoist) and Svadhishthana (Hindu), frequently with the seat in the abdomen at or below the umbilicus. These concepts are also energetic and cosmological constructs. These traditions teach that one needs to focus one’s attention in the body (and the breath) to counteract the noise of the mind and tame the ego: to be centred in the body as part of mind-body-spirit .[ii],[iii] Such practices also serve to address and process ‘lower’ embodied emotions such as shame and grief, and so counteract core reactivity when (the identity is) under threat.
On the other hand indigenous philosophies do not generally have a sense of ‘I’ in the body at all, nor an individual ego. Instead the ‘location’ of ‘I’ is relational to the physical and spiritual body’s connection to ancestral lands and waters, in addition to kinship and ancestral obligations. These connections and obligations also transcend time, leading to a collapse of past, present and future into a more space-like concept.[iv],[v]
All three of these approaches have something to offer but none is sufficient to meet the current demands of the modern world where a balance needs to be struck: There is a need for a fluid sense of ‘I’ that can encompass all of these: rational thinking has advanced the human condition in many ways but hyper-rationality is a disease in itself: strong emotions leading to threatened and blinkered intuition can be more readily addressed if one is centred; and individual creativity can safely soar if one is earthed and connected without being overly so.
In other words we need a radical shift in identity, given that there is too much ‘noise’: be it from unresolved emotional charge (personal or transgenerational), extra electromatic radiation, geo-political wrangling and/or angst about the future/climate. With this shift we can answer the question: ‘How can I be a rational, grounded and centred yet creative and spiritual individual in a collective?’
----------------------------------------
My practice specialises in (internal and external) conflict conditions presenting mentally, emotionally or physically. From early November 2024 to September 2025 I worked on developing a neo-shamanic framework for an ‘identity shift’ piece called ‘Coming Home to the Self’ in collaboration with clients (i.e. paying significant attention to feedback and reworking the piece over this period) in order enable such a shift as well as to establish a more structured approach and so give clients something definitive to work towards in a process oriented therapy. In undertaking this piece (or any of my work), clients are encouraged to explore their own ANS regulating embodiment practices as well as ‘connectivity’ practices from whichever traditions they so choose.
The intention of this piece was to establish firm emotional and ‘energetic’ internal and external boundaries without rigidity (i.e. there can be some flexibility and so the person does not appear to be ‘putting up walls’.) The primary audience of this piece was envisaged to be clients who had ‘burnt out’. However the piece is relevant to a much wider audience who haven’t quite reached that tipping point but suffer from internal and external conflict in other ways[1].
In order to achieve this the piece establishes the identity throughout the whole core of the body (with a central point at the solar plexus) whilst also strengthening connection of the self to the land If required, and the electromagnetic field, in a safe and boundaried way. In making this shift the different parts of a person can start to operate in collaborative rather than competitive or conflicting ways. (Not being pulled externally nor internally beyond the system’s capacity.)
In development this has been niche work (clients reaching my practice are generally searching for answers outside the box having exhausted all other avenues, as well as needing to be open to psycho-spiritual approaches), so the absolute number of clients is not large. It is also the case that I did not practice for 4.5 months for my own recovery from mid-December 2025. However the length of sessions ranged from ~70 minutes to around 5 hours (with two breaks!) in one instance, and a few of the collaborators were seen for many sessions ‘re-running’ various versions of the piece as it was refined.[2],[3]
I have also been developing another piece: ‘parenting the self’ in the last few months. The relevance is it appears that this subsequent piece is ideally completed before the Identity shift piece (as it is intrinsically easier to ‘digest’), but for various reasons was developed afterwards. The final version of the parenting piece was only completed two weeks prior to this audit so it is not in the quantitative data in this analysis.
Quantitative Data:
Number of clients who have been offered a version of the piece
25
Number of clients who have completed a version of the piece
17
Percentage of clients who have been both offered and completed a version of the piece
68
Gender of clients who have been offered a version of the piece
Female:17
Male: 6
Non binary:2
Gender of clients who have been offered a version of the piece and have completed it
Female:14
Male:1
Non binary:2
Number of clients who have completed a version of the piece who have/had burnout, an inflammatory/immune condition and/or mental health condition that affected ability to work
11
Number of clients who have not completed a version of the piece who have/had burnout, an inflammatory/immune and/or mental health condition that affected ability to work
0
Analysis:
- The first hypothesis is that males are less likely to complete a neo-shamanic piece that shifts the identity from the brain (+/- heart) to being shared throughout the body/wider environment as they are in a dominant position in Western society and have had no/less reason to question their identity.
- Using Fisher’s Exact Test on a 2x2 contingency table (due to small sample size) the odds ratio of males completing the piece in comparison with females and non-binary clients (coupled together) is 0.0055 which is statistically significant.
- (Odds Ratio (26.67): The odds of a female or non-binary client completing the body-centric identity shift piece are 26.6 times higher than the odds of a male client completing it.)
- When separating the non-binary group into a distinct category and using the Freeman-Halton extension of the Fisher’s Exact Test (and a 3x2 contingency table) the significance holds with a p value of 0.0074).
- Using Fisher’s Exact Test on a 2x2 contingency table (due to small sample size) the odds ratio of males completing the piece in comparison with females and non-binary clients (coupled together) is 0.0055 which is statistically significant.
- The second hypothesis is having a health condition that has meant that one cannot work or work in one’s chosen field (generally a health practitioner but not always) is another catalyst to complete the piece.
- The Fishers Exact test p value for this piece is even more significant than the above at p=0.0029
Discussion:
This is a small sample size (N=25) which limits it's broad generalisability, particularly in terms of generalisability to all Western males. However the very large effect size of the first hypothesis is of note in this context as small sample sizes typically lack the power to detect relationships unless these are remarkably pronounced.
The data also reveal that a health crisis affecting capacity to work in one’s chosen field acts as a highly significant catalyst for completing the identity shift piece. This supports the theory that a profound disruption to one’s livelihood lowers resistance from the ego to shift from a ‘top down control’ to a more balanced and ‘holistic’ identity structure.
Interestingly when the second trend is cross-referenced with gender another potential pattern emerges: 37.5% of the female and non-binary clients (6 out of 16) were able to undertake the piece without the added pressure of a health crisis, however none of the male clients did so. The sole male participant who completed the piece belonged to the health-crisis cohort. This pattern aligns tentatively suggests that individuals occupying a structurally dominant societal position require a multi-layered disruption—both conceptual and physical/vocational—to engage with radical identity shifting.
Thus when the two sets of data are examined as a whole they suggest that while societal privilege (like being male in Western society) builds a stronger fortress around the brain-centric ego, a severe vocational or health crisis is powerful enough to completely bypass those defences.
Conclusions:
The data indicate that there are two distinct pathways to completing the identity-shift piece:
- The Voluntary Path: Dominated by female and non-binary clients, who may already be socially positioned to question traditional identity structures and can choose to complete the shift without a crisis pushing them.
- The Involuntary/Catalyzed Path: Where the ego-disruption is forced by an external crisis, resulting in 100% of these clients with such a condition completing a version of the piece.
[1] I consider various conditions such as significant generalised inflammation related to ANS dysregulation to be a form of burn-out and have incorporated into the analysis those clients who are similarly minded (i.e. who have attended for help with such) to the extent that the condition has affected their ability to work (or work in their usual profession if a health practitioner).
[2] It should be noted that not all clients who were offered an earlier version of the piece have been offered the final version (there was about five weeks after the first offering where some additional tweaks were made and a few clients booked in to do it in the interim). I generally only offered the later version if clients subsequently contacted me (noting the synchronicity of a shamanic approach so that what a client needs at that point in time will be able to be incorporated into any subsequent version or other framework).
[3] Additionally some clients have not been offered the piece at all as they are more recent or on 1 occasion they ceased working with me prior to being ‘ready’ for it. These clients are not incorporated into the study.
[i] Fetterman, Adam K and Robinson, Michael D. Do you use your head or follow your heart? Self-location predicts personality, emotion, decision making, and performance. J Pers Soc Psychol 2013 Aug;105(2):316-34. Epub 2013 Jun 17. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23773045/
[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dantian
[iii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svadhishthana
[iv] Tempone-Wiltshire, Julien and Yunkaporta, Tyson. Contributions From Aboriginal Australian Psychology: Songlines, Memory, and Relational Knowledge Systems. Indigenous Healing Practices, Vol. 13, Issue 2, 2025 September 19, 2025 AEST. https://doi.org/10.59158/001c.143975
[v] Wilson, Alex, Our Coming In Stories: Cree Identity, Body Sovereignty and Gender Self-Determination, Journal of Global Indigeneity, 1(1), 2015. http://ro.uow.edu.au/jgi/vol1/iss1/4