The Science ... MindFit A Woo Woo Free Zone
Why the Emphasis on Real Science?
The bottom line is this ... many people with good intentions and issues in their life will find a method that helps them recover from that issue in their lives. Guided by this personal revelation they will learn whatever method worked for them, and begin to use it to help others, as a one stop cure all.
More often than not, very little research is done about the method, and more often than not while the method may in fact work, and have a good explanation for how and why it works, the theory behind what they learn is full of metaphysical mumbo jumbo. And, since most people have a built in ego defense mechanisms to protect the reality of their subjective expereince, any information contrary to what they believe results in notions such as "The medical community are trying to suppress this" or "Science does not have the ability to measure it yet".
The problem is, it takes time and dedication to learn and use the real science to be able to teach it to others. All too often people with the best of intentions will find that they just do not have the time (or ability) to research properly all the methods or alternative explanations. Some people will find that a new age method worked for them, and attribute truth to all the dogma associated with the method rather than look at why they improved.
Speaking from Experience
I used to have a new age influenced approach. I would talk about how we only use 10% of our brain, how the Sub Conscious mind records everything perfectly like a tape recorder, how energies can cause problems in our physical health.
So what happened?
I decided that as a Hypnotherapist, I was getting a little annoyed at so called psychological 'experts' telling me I was practicing pseudo science, I was getting annoyed that my results were better than theirs, yet I had no credibility. So I decided to become a psychologist to have the creditability to do what I had always done.
In my first year at University, in PSYC 101, I learned that brain imaging showed we used all of our brain, This was just a fact, looking into the 10% myth I discovered the comment was made sometime in the 1940's by a psychic to explain why they were more special than the rest of us. And this 10% statement has been repeated over time and taken to be true when it is not. I learned that as early as 1932, Bartlett showed that memories were encoded as fragments and reconstructed at recall, influenced heavily by our personal experience and beliefs. I learned that this is why memories are unreliable and certainly not a perfect recording. All you need to do is to have experienced an argument with someone over a disagreement of something that was said, when you were both there at the time to understand memories are not perfect. I learned that 'Energy' is a measurement and not a 'thing'. To use the word energy to explain something in the body or a universe life force was akin to saying "I feel 10 miles of anger".
So within the first year of my 6 years of study into human change, I found out that in fact I was totally wrong in explaining how what I did worked. But I also discovered that modalities such as Hypnosis or Neuro Linguistic programming did create greater and fast change than traditional psychological methods. They did produce a real effect, a powerful effect, but they produced it through mechanisms that were understood, and I did not need to use a 'woo woo' explanation because I was ignorant of how the methods worked.
During this time, I had to if I was to consider myself an honest person, take a look at why I believed certain things. I had to look at both sides of for example the drug industry, rather than just say herbs or homeopathy work but they are being suppressed by the medical industry. And in looking at both sides, I found out that homeopathy has zero additional effect over placebo, and how could it? A gram of caffeine mixed into enough water to fill a sphere of size of our solar system is suppose to help you sleep? It not only can't it work as we understand the world, it has not been shown to work in any studies. I discovered that in clinical drug trails, that side effects are reported in people taking placebo's. And the list of adverse side effects when taking a sugar pill are sometimes scary. But they are not real or at all related to the pill. (Maybe this is why Homeopathy works!)
I have since found that there is yet to be something I once thought or believed as a new age therapist that does not have a more reasonable, rational and proven explanation in science. I admit the answer usually lacks a 'spiritual or warm fuzzy element' but the answer is real, and it is truth as we understand our world at this point today, and I am happy to accept reality since it works, over a uneducated and lazy 'woo woo' explanation.