RED

January 2011

Emotional Rescue

Could a wellbeing expert be your best bet for tackling anything life throws at you- or is it just a hype? Alice Hart-Davies on the growing trend for having a guru on speed-dial.

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For the first half of last year, I was in deep with Beata. My friend, Clara, is still besotted with Momo. Julie, meanwhile, is holding out the tantalising prospect of an introduction to Jo. These aren’t romantic entanglements of business prospects. Beata is a massage therapist; Momo, a healer; Jo, a shaman. Each is so much more that their title suggests; they have become our gurus.

The word “guru” comes from Sanskrit and means “one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom and authority, and who uses this to guide others”. Modern-day gurus, however, are neither doctors nor the white-robed spirituals advisers favoured by 1960s hippies. I regard them as something in-between. I know this sounds fanciful- idiotic, perhaps. In most of my life, like Clara and Julie, I am ruthlessly practical. Like most journalists, I am conditioned to be cynical about novel solutions for intransigent problems. If a friend told me she was spending money she could ill afford on something with precious little in the way of professional qualifications, I would think she’d lost her marbles. Yet I always seem to have a guru on the go, someone I hope is going to fix my back, improve my life, make things somehow, miraculously, better… And I’m not alone. There is a growing trend on relying on someone who’s not your doctor for this sort of support, someone whose name gets passed among friends like a guilty secret, as a private indulgence.

For each of us the initial introduction has been specific: to alleviate pain, relieve suppressed grief or revitalise a stagnant life. But such is the power of modern gurus that they become as much an emotional crutch as an aid to physical maintenance, and their help soon becomes indispensable.

I tend to keep quiet about gurus; they don’t go down so well with some of my friends and family. Ever sceptical, they point out that most ‘gurus’ have no formal qualifications other than a talent for life-enhancement. Of course, we all love spending an hour with someone who will listen closely to our many woes and weave some magic to alleviate them, even if we have paid through the nose for the privilege. It could be argued that what my gurus are offering is, at best, placebo; at worst, pseudo-science dressed up as treatment.

With a job writing about health and beauty, I encountered more potential gurus than most. Sometimes I just meet them, Interview them, Pass on, but at other times, there’s an instant connection, like when I met Beata Aleksandrowicz. I had heard good things about her on the grapevine, had even written about her, but have never met her face to face, until last autumn. Within minutes, she abandoned the chitchat, fixed me with a searching look and said, “Listen, you need to come and see me,” in a way that brooked no refusal. Technically, what Beata offers is massage, but the treatment she gives me she simply calls ‘body balancing’. It’s a non-committal name for some of the most extraordinary, heavy-duty ‘energy work’ I’ve ever tried. Precisely what she’s doing is hard to say, but after the earlier sessions, I could barely thing straight, and learned to take the rest of the day extremely slowly. What I did know is that I felt better, lighter, less burdened- and wanted to go back for more.

Are these gurus qualified to hear our various problems? Not officially. Most are holistic therapists, not counsellors or psychotherapists. The best, most ethical ones, don’t claim to be treating your mind. It could even be dangerous to go to a complementary therapist if you have a mental health issue. And you must also check any potential guru’s qualifications, that he or she is properly trained and is a member of their relevant industry body (if there is one) before you book in.

Clara Mitchell went to Momo Kovacevic, a ‘bio-energy healer’, after miscarrying at seven months. ‘I was deeply traumatised,’ explains Clara. ‘I didn’t want antidepressants or to “wait for time to make it easier”, so a friend suggested Momo. In normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have listened. “Energy work” isn’t my bag.’

A session with Momo isn’t something Clara ever envisaged herself having. ‘HE doesn’t talk to you, or touch you,’ she says. ‘You like there and he just moves the air around you. It’s weird, but I couldn’t feel the energy moving around my body. And you know what, it worked. For the first time in six weeks, I found I could release the grief. It takes a lot to make me cry, and the build-up had been eating away inside me. By the third treatment, I felt stronger. ‘I go back to Momo whenever I need emotional release. When I got pregnant again, I was terrified I might lose the baby at any stage, and again, he helped me. [All was fine – Clara’s son is now two] I recommend him to all sorts of people.’

Is this therapy by another name? Possibly, but quite often a complementary therapist won’t talk about any emotional issues. Clearly, it can be effective for some people. But then, it’s often hard to entirely disentangle physical and emotional wellbeing, as Nish Joshi of The Joshi Clinic points out. Joshi is trained as an osteopath and his London practice is home to a group of practitioners offering everything from colonics to Hellerwork (a kind of deep tissue massage). But he is better known as a holistic wellness guru, with an A-list following that includes Gwyneth Paltrow and Juliette Binoche.

‘Ultimately the most important thin g is letting the patients know they are being heard,’ says Joshi. ‘If you give them undivided attention, they feel they are getting proper treatment and value for money. The guru aspect comes in when they start relying on you; they know they can contact you for anything from a back problem to performance stress or a referral to a specialist. You are there as their guide.’

A wide range of talents helps in the guru stakes. ‘I first went to see Chris Smith for hypnotherapy to help me lose weight,’ says Mandy Bonchurch, 38. ‘Then I found out he’s also a professional life coach. There’s nothing mystical about what he does, but it all works together. He has taught me relaxing techniques and, if I’m relaxed, I can see my way more clearly through work problems and I’m less likely to binge on carbs, too.The difference he has made to my life is huge. That’s why I’m happy to ay his Harley Street prices.’

Ah yes, the cost. Gurus are an expensive habit. A session often costs £100 or more. Personally, I’d rather spend money on this sort of self-improvement than on, say, a pair of shoes. Does that make gurus a luxury for the spoilt? Quite possibly, though many of them have a sliding scale of charges depending on their clients’ ability to pay. Once you’ve found your guru, you could stick with them for life or, like me, you could keep moving on. One day, I’ll find the time to follow up with Jo the shaman but, for now, I’ve a new fix. Gerad Kite does five-element acupuncture and, after a couple of sessions, I was hooked by the changes in my outlook (and my perennially creaky back). But when I suggested that many of his patients- particularly women he helps with fertility issues- must regard him as a guru, he looked bemused. ‘My teacher,’ he said, ‘always said: “The only guru is the self.”’ Relying on someone else’s expertise, on other words, is a form of laziness. Eek! Be your own guru? I don’t feel I could manage that just yet.