Root Cause Therapy

What Is Root Cause Therapy?

Last Edited: Nov 2025

Root Cause Therapy has gained attention in recent years as people look for approaches that go deeper than traditional talk therapy. If you've spent years in therapy talking about your problems without seeing lasting change, you're not alone. Many people find themselves stuck in the same patterns despite understanding them intellectually.

Root Cause Therapy is a holistic therapy approach that uses three core techniques to identify and release the emotions and patterns contributing to your current struggles: regression therapy, timeline therapy, and kinesiology (muscle testing). The fundamental premise is this: your body and subconscious mind hold onto unprocessed emotions from past events, and these trapped feelings continue generating unwanted thoughts, behaviours, and physical symptoms in the present.

What makes Root Cause Therapy distinctive is its systematic approach to finding the root cause. Rather than exploring your past through conversation, practitioners use kinesiology to communicate directly with your subconscious mind, identifying exactly which limiting beliefs are affecting you. Then, through timeline and regression work, they guide you back to the very first event where that belief was formed. This might be in your current lifetime, in the womb, through inherited generational trauma, or in what presents as a past life experience. Once you access that root cause event, you can release the trapped emotions and reframe the experience, creating lasting change.

This approach works particularly well for people dealing with anxiety and depression, chronic pain and illness, relationship problems, addictive behaviours, trauma and PTSD, recurring fears or phobias, unexplained anxiety, lack of confidence, and low self-esteem. Root Cause Therapy helps you move beyond just understanding your issues to actually resolving them at their deepest level.

Where Root Cause Therapy Comes From

Root Cause Therapy was developed by Melissa Hiemann, co-founder of The Centre for Healing. Hiemann had training in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), hypnosis, and timeline therapy, but found these techniques weren't enough to heal her own anxiety and substance abuse issues. She realised these approaches were missing key elements related to working with the nervous system, breathwork, body awareness, and most importantly, a comprehensive method for using kinesiology to systematically identify and clear limiting beliefs at their source.

Through her own healing process and years of clinical practice, Hiemann developed Root Cause Therapy to address these gaps. The method combines regression therapy and timeline work as its central techniques, using kinesiology (muscle testing) to communicate directly with the subconscious mind. This allows practitioners to identify exactly which beliefs need clearing and when those beliefs were formed, whether in this lifetime, in utero, through generational patterns, or in past life experiences.

Over the past decade, The Centre for Healing has refined this systematic approach and now trains practitioners internationally. What sets Root Cause Therapy apart from other therapeutic modalities is its precision. Rather than spending months or years in talk therapy exploring your past, kinesiology testing identifies the specific beliefs blocking you and timeline therapy takes you directly to the root cause event for healing.

The approach recognises that trauma and limiting beliefs affect not just your mind but also your body and nervous system. When difficult experiences happen, particularly in childhood or even before birth, your body may not have the resources to fully process the emotions involved. These unprocessed emotions get stored in your nervous system, creating blockages that influence your thoughts, beliefs, and behaviours years or even lifetimes later. Root Cause Therapy's combination of regression work, timeline therapy, and kinesiology provides a structured pathway to access, release, and reframe these stored patterns.

How Root Cause Therapy Works: The Mind-Body Connection

Root Cause Therapy recognises that your mind operates on two levels: the conscious mind (what you're aware of right now) and the subconscious mind (where automatic learned behaviours and bottled-up emotions reside). Your conscious mind might understand logically that you're safe, but if your subconscious holds unprocessed fear from past experiences, you'll still feel anxious.

Trauma creates blockages in your nervous system, which regulates your stress response and emotions. It also creates distortions in how you perceive yourself and the world. These blockages prevent you from expressing your true self and living authentically. You might find yourself repeating the same relationship patterns, sabotaging your success, or feeling anxious without understanding why.

Root Cause Therapy addresses healing from multiple angles. It works with your body's sensations through somatic awareness, helping you tune into physical feelings and impulses. It uses breathwork to activate, regulate, and calm your nervous system. Energy work clears and balances your energy field. Guided regression techniques access your subconscious mind to identify when limiting beliefs were formed, then helps you release the trapped emotions connected to those beliefs.

The method uses something called Root Cause Analysis to identify underlying patterns and triggers for your current symptoms or behaviours. By examining past experiences and identifying patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour, therapists help you gain insight into the underlying causes of your issues and work to release them.

Common Techniques Used in Root Cause Therapy

Beyond the three core techniques of regression therapy, timeline therapy, and kinesiology, Root Cause Therapy incorporates several complementary modalities to support the healing process.

Emotional release techniques help you safely express and let go of trapped emotions without becoming overwhelmed. When emotions get suppressed because they were too intense to process at the time, they remain stored in your body. These techniques help you discharge that stored emotional energy in a controlled, therapeutic way.

Subconscious reprogramming happens naturally through the timeline work. Once you've released the old emotions and limiting beliefs, your practitioner helps you install new, empowering beliefs. These aren't just positive affirmations you repeat. They're tested through kinesiology to ensure they've actually integrated at a subconscious level, replacing the old programming.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) principles inform how practitioners work with language patterns and mental frameworks. The way you talk about your experiences reveals underlying beliefs. NLP techniques help shift these patterns, giving you new ways to perceive and respond to situations.

Elements of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) appear in the educational aspects of sessions. Practitioners help you recognise thought patterns contributing to emotional distress and develop awareness of how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours interconnect.

Hypnotherapy techniques create the relaxed, receptive state needed for timeline and regression work. You're not unconscious or out of control. You're in a focused, relaxed state where your subconscious mind becomes more accessible. This allows you to access memories and emotions that your conscious mind can't reach.

Breathwork and energy work support the release process. Specific breathing patterns can activate or calm your nervous system, helping emotions move through and out of your body. Energy work clears blockages in your energy field that correspond to the emotional releases happening during timeline therapy.

All these techniques serve the central process: using kinesiology to identify what needs healing, then using regression and timeline therapy to access and clear the root cause events where limiting beliefs and trapped emotions originated.

The Core Techniques: Regression Therapy, Timeline Therapy, and Kinesiology

Root Cause Therapy's distinctive approach centres on three core techniques that work together to identify and heal the root causes of your current issues: regression therapy, timeline therapy, and kinesiology. These aren't just add-ons. They're the foundation of how this modality works.

Regression Therapy and Timeline Work

The heart of Root Cause Therapy lies in accessing your subconscious mind to discover when and where limiting beliefs first formed. This is where regression therapy and timeline therapy come in. Your conscious mind might know you have anxiety or low self-worth, but it often can't tell you why or where it started. Your subconscious mind, however, has recorded everything.

Timeline therapy works with the concept that your unconscious mind stores memories chronologically along an internal timeline. This timeline extends from your past, through the present, into your future. It also includes memories from before birth, spanning back through generational patterns inherited from your family lineage and, according to many practitioners, past life experiences.

During a session, your practitioner guides you into a relaxed state and then takes you back along your timeline to identify the very first event that created a particular limiting belief or emotional pattern. This might be something that happened last year, in childhood, in the womb, through inherited family trauma, or in what presents as a past life experience.

Here's what makes this approach different from traditional therapy: you're not just talking about what happened. You're actually accessing the subconscious memory where the emotion remains trapped and the belief was formed. Your unconscious mind takes you directly to the root cause event, bypassing years of conscious speculation and analysis.

You might discover that your fear of public speaking doesn't actually stem from that embarrassing presentation in high school. Instead, it traces back to being three years old and being shamed by a teacher, or even earlier to an in-utero experience of your mother's anxiety, or in some cases to what appears as a past life event involving persecution for speaking out.

Past Life and Early Life Investigation

One of Root Cause Therapy's distinguishing features is its openness to wherever your unconscious mind needs to go for healing. Many limiting beliefs and emotional patterns don't originate in your current lifetime. They may have been passed down through generational trauma, existing in your family's energetic and emotional inheritance. Or they may connect to experiences that present as past lives.

Whether you believe in past lives literally or view them as metaphorical representations created by your subconscious mind doesn't actually matter for the healing process. What matters is that when your unconscious presents these experiences, working with them creates profound shifts in your current life patterns.

Your practitioner won't impose any belief system on you. They simply follow where your unconscious mind leads. If it takes you to a past life, you'll work with that. If it takes you to early childhood or the womb, you'll work with that. The unconscious mind knows what needs healing and when you're ready to access it.

Early life investigation often uncovers pre-verbal experiences. Babies and young children absorb beliefs and emotions before they have language to process or understand them. You might have formed a core belief like "I'm not safe" or "I'm not wanted" before you could even speak. These pre-verbal imprints are incredibly powerful because they operate below conscious awareness, shaping your entire experience of reality.

In-utero experiences also emerge frequently in Root Cause Therapy. Your nervous system was developing during pregnancy, and your mother's emotional state directly affected you. If she experienced significant stress, fear, or trauma whilst pregnant, you absorbed those patterns. These become your baseline for how the world feels, even though consciously you have no memory of them.

Generational or ancestral trauma passes through family lines. Your grandmother's unprocessed grief or your great-grandfather's wartime trauma can create patterns that show up in your life, even if you never knew these ancestors or heard their stories. Root Cause Therapy can identify and release these inherited patterns.

Kinesiology and Muscle Testing

The third core technique, kinesiology or muscle testing, might seem unusual if you haven't experienced it before. It's a way of communicating directly with your subconscious mind, bypassing the conscious mind's filters, defences, and lack of awareness.

Here's how it works: your practitioner asks your body yes or no questions whilst testing the strength of a muscle response, typically your arm. When something is true or aligned for you, your muscle stays strong. When something is false or misaligned, your muscle momentarily weakens. This isn't about physical strength. It's a neurological response reflecting your subconscious knowledge.

Why use kinesiology? Because your conscious mind doesn't have access to the information needed for healing. You can't think your way to knowing which belief is causing your anxiety or when that belief was formed. But your subconscious mind knows exactly what needs addressing and in what order.

Your practitioner uses kinesiology throughout the session to identify priority beliefs, test which events on your timeline need clearing, determine whether emotions have been fully released, and confirm that new, positive beliefs have integrated. This creates a structured, systematic approach that ensures you're working on what matters most, not just what seems logical to your conscious mind.

The testing process uses carefully worded statements. Your practitioner might test statements like "I am safe," "I am worthy of love," or "I can trust myself." A weak muscle response indicates that at a subconscious level, you don't believe this statement. That becomes a priority for healing work.

Kinesiology also helps identify the age or timeframe when a limiting belief was formed. Your practitioner can test different age ranges or even past life experiences to pinpoint exactly when to take you on your timeline. This precision makes the work much more efficient than traditional talk therapy's exploratory approach.

What Happens in a Root Cause Therapy Session

Now that you understand the core techniques, here's what actually happens when you book a session.

Your first session typically involves an open conversation about your health history, current concerns, and what you want to achieve. This allows your practitioner to tailor the session to your unique needs. You'll discuss what's most important to you and what you hope to get out of your time together.

Your practitioner then uses kinesiology testing with a structured testing sheet to identify which limiting beliefs are affecting you most significantly. This might involve testing dozens of common beliefs to see which ones your subconscious holds as true. The beliefs that test weak become priorities for the session.

Once your practitioner identifies which limiting beliefs are causing problems, they'll guide you through the regression and timeline work portion of the session. You'll simply close your eyes whilst your practitioner takes you through a quick relaxation exercise to help you feel comfortable and relaxed. This isn't deep hypnosis where you lose awareness. You remain conscious and aware throughout, just deeply relaxed.

Your practitioner then guides you back along your timeline, using kinesiology to pinpoint when the limiting belief was formed. They might ask your unconscious mind to take you to the very first event that created this belief. Your unconscious mind will present an image, memory, feeling, or knowing. Sometimes it's crystal clear. Other times it's more of an impression or sense.

You might find yourself accessing memories from early childhood, from the womb, from what presents as a past life, or from your ancestral line. You might not have conscious memory of some events, particularly those from before age seven or from other timeframes. Your unconscious mind has stored everything along with the associated emotions.

Here's what's important: you won't re-live trauma. Your unconscious mind's primary role is keeping you safe, and it will never show you an event or bring up healing that it doesn't think you're strong enough or ready enough to handle. Practitioners ask permission from your unconscious mind before going into an event. If you're guided into an event, your practitioner guides you through safely releasing the trapped emotions without re-traumatising you.

The release process involves acknowledging the emotions present in that original event, allowing yourself to feel them safely in the present moment, and then letting them go. Your practitioner might use breathing techniques, energy work, or other release methods depending on their training and your needs.

As you release these emotions, you'll have the opportunity to gain new learnings from the event. By going back with your current adult perspective and resources, you can see the situation differently. You might offer comfort to your younger self, stand up to someone who hurt you, or simply witness the event with understanding and compassion. This integration of new understanding shifts the old pattern at its root.

Your practitioner uses kinesiology throughout to test whether emotions have fully released and whether the limiting belief has shifted. They'll also help you install new, empowering beliefs in place of the old limiting ones. These new beliefs are tested to ensure they've integrated at a subconscious level.

Sessions typically last 60 to 120 minutes. The frequency depends on your individual needs and the complexity of what you're working on. Some people experience immediate relief after just a couple of sessions, whilst others work with their therapist weekly or fortnightly over several months. Each session might address one or several limiting beliefs, depending on how they're interconnected and how much time the release process requires.

The Benefits of Root Cause Therapy

Working with Root Cause Therapy can lead to significant improvements in physical and mental health. Many people report a calmer, more stable mental and emotional state as emotions no longer remain unprocessed or incomplete within the body and mind.

Your nervous system recalibrates so it no longer responds to old triggers in the same way. You might find you're less reactive, sleep better, and feel more grounded in your body. The inclination to engage in behaviours that have become problematic, such as alcohol or substance use, relationship addiction, or other coping mechanisms, often reduces or disappears.

People commonly experience increased self-awareness and improved relationships. As you release old patterns and limiting beliefs, you develop a growing sense of hope and confidence in yourself. You integrate new ways of managing emotions and situations that arise. Many people also report a deeper connection to their authentic self and inner wisdom, along with a renewed sense of purpose and direction.

Physical symptoms often shift as well. Chronic pain, digestive issues, skin conditions, and other physical manifestations of unprocessed emotions frequently improve as the underlying emotional causes are addressed.

How Root Cause Therapy Differs from Traditional Talk Therapy

Traditional talk therapy typically focuses on exploring and processing experiences through conversation. You talk about what happened, how it made you feel, and work to understand your patterns. This can be incredibly valuable for gaining insight and feeling heard and validated.

Root Cause Therapy goes beyond talking about issues to healing them at a deeper level. Instead of just processing experiences consciously, it works directly with the subconscious mind and body where emotions are stored. This allows you to access and release emotions that have been held in your system, sometimes for decades.

In traditional therapy, you might spend months or years understanding why you do what you do. In Root Cause Therapy, you understand why and release the underlying cause in the same session. The work is more directive and structured. Your practitioner uses specific techniques to identify priority beliefs and guide you through releasing them, rather than open-ended conversation.

Another key difference is that Root Cause Therapy is trauma-informed and designed to avoid re-traumatisation. You're not reliving painful experiences in vivid detail. Instead, you're accessing them in a way that allows for release and reframing without overwhelming your system.

Many people use Root Cause Therapy after traditional therapy hasn't provided the relief they were hoping for. It's not that talk therapy doesn't work, it's just that some issues need a different approach. Root Cause Therapy and traditional therapy can also complement each other. Some people work with both simultaneously or do Root Cause Therapy after building a foundation in traditional therapy.

Preparing for Your Session and What to Expect After

To get the most from your Root Cause Therapy session, come with an open mind and willingness to explore past experiences and emotions. Think about the goals you want to set for yourself and what you hope to get out of the session. It helps to be specific. Rather than "I want to feel better," try "I want to stop having panic attacks" or "I want to feel confident in social situations."

During the session, you'll engage in various therapeutic techniques such as guided visualisation, emotional release, and timeline work to identify and release trapped emotions and patterns. You remain fully conscious throughout the process. You're not hypnotised in the sense of losing control. You're in a relaxed state but aware of everything happening.

After the session, you might feel a sense of relief and lightness. Many people describe feeling like a weight has lifted. However, you might also experience temporary discomfort or emotional release as emotions continue processing. This is normal and part of the healing process. Some people feel tired after sessions as their system integrates the work. Others feel energised.

Your practitioner should provide guidance for integration, which might include journaling, mindfulness practices, or specific exercises to support your continued healing. Between sessions, pay attention to how you're feeling and any shifts you notice in your thoughts, emotions, or behaviours.

The number of sessions needed varies depending on what you're working on and your specific needs. Some people notice significant shifts after just one session. Many beliefs can shift in a single session. However, it's generally recommended to have a minimum of four sessions to allow for multiple belief pattern shifts and give you time to reflect on how far you've come since the first session and what emotional baggage you've left behind.

Integrating Your Healing into Daily Life

The real work of Root Cause Therapy extends beyond your sessions. Integrating the insights and tools you've gained into daily life is crucial for lasting change.

This might involve practising self-care in new ways. As old patterns release, you'll have space to develop healthier habits that actually support your wellbeing rather than numbing or avoiding difficult feelings.

Engaging in mindfulness or meditation practices helps you stay present and aware of what you're feeling in your body. When old patterns try to reassert themselves, you'll notice earlier and can make different choices.

Working to identify and release patterns and emotions as they arise becomes easier once you've experienced the process in sessions. You'll develop an awareness of when you're operating from old programming versus responding to the present moment.

Movement practices like yoga, tai chi, or gentle stretching help maintain energy flow in your body and support continued release of stuck emotions. Breathwork exercises practised daily can release tension and regulate your nervous system.

Journaling helps you reflect on emotions and insights between sessions. Writing about your experiences can reveal patterns and support integration of new perspectives.

Building a supportive environment matters too. As you change, some relationships might shift. Surrounding yourself with people who support your growth and understand what you're working on makes the process easier.

Potential Benefits and Risks

Like any form of therapy, Root Cause Therapy has potential benefits and risks you should be aware of before starting.

Benefits can include improved physical and mental health, increased self-awareness, improved relationships, release of long-held emotional baggage, freedom from limiting beliefs that have held you back, better nervous system regulation, relief from stress and stored emotional tension, greater sense of purpose and alignment, and breaking free from repetitive patterns and self-sabotaging behaviours.

Risks might include emotional discomfort as you access and release difficult emotions. Some people experience temporary worsening of symptoms as emotions come to the surface to be processed. You might feel vulnerable or emotionally raw after sessions, particularly in the beginning.

It's crucial to work with a qualified and experienced therapist who creates a safe container for this deep work. Not all practitioners calling themselves Root Cause Therapists have the same training or skill level. Before beginning therapy, discuss any concerns or questions with your potential practitioner. Make sure you feel comfortable with them and trust their ability to guide you through the process safely.

Root Cause Therapy is not suitable for everyone. If you're currently in crisis, experiencing severe mental health symptoms, or have concerns about your ability to handle reviewing past experiences, traditional mental health support might be more appropriate initially. Only people with sound mental health who are confident that reviewing past events won't adversely impact their emotional or mental health should participate in this type of deep subconscious work.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between Root Cause Therapy and traditional counselling or psychology?

Traditional counselling and psychology typically work with your conscious mind through conversation, helping you understand and process your experiences. You talk about what happened, explore your feelings, and gain insights into your patterns. This is valuable for building self-awareness and feeling heard.

Root Cause Therapy takes a fundamentally different approach. It uses kinesiology (muscle testing) to communicate directly with your subconscious mind, bypassing the conscious mind's limitations. Your conscious mind might not know why you have anxiety or when your fear of rejection started. Your subconscious mind knows exactly, but traditional talk therapy can't access that information efficiently.

Through timeline and regression therapy, Root Cause Therapy takes you directly to the root cause event, whether that's in early childhood, in the womb, through generational trauma, or in past life experiences. You access and release the trapped emotions at their source, then reframe the experience with your current adult perspective. This creates shifts that can happen in a single session rather than months or years of exploration.

Traditional therapy helps you understand why you feel and behave the way you do. Root Cause Therapy helps you understand and then eliminates the underlying cause, often resulting in faster, more permanent shifts. The work is highly structured and directive, using kinesiology to guide every step of the process rather than open-ended conversation.

Many people do Root Cause Therapy after years of traditional therapy when they've gained insight but haven't experienced the emotional relief or behaviour change they were hoping for. Others use both simultaneously, with traditional therapy providing ongoing support whilst Root Cause Therapy addresses specific deep-rooted patterns.

How many sessions will I need?

This varies significantly based on what you're working on and your individual needs. Some people notice profound shifts after just one session. Others work with their therapist for several months. A minimum of four sessions is generally recommended to allow for multiple belief pattern shifts and give you time to integrate changes. Complex trauma or deeply ingrained patterns typically require more sessions. Your practitioner should give you a realistic assessment based on your specific situation during your initial consultation.

Is Root Cause Therapy safe? Will I be re-traumatised?

When conducted by a qualified practitioner, Root Cause Therapy is designed to be trauma-informed and safe. You won't relive traumatic experiences in vivid detail. Instead, you access memories in a way that allows for release and reframing without overwhelming your system. Your unconscious mind acts as a protective mechanism and won't show you anything you're not ready to process. Practitioners ask permission from your unconscious mind before accessing any memories. That said, emotional release can feel uncomfortable in the moment. You might cry, feel anger, or experience other emotions as they come up to be processed. This is part of healing, not re-traumatisation.

Can Root Cause Therapy help with physical symptoms?

Yes, many people experience improvement in physical symptoms through Root Cause Therapy. The mind-body connection means that unprocessed emotions often manifest as physical symptoms. Chronic pain, digestive issues, skin conditions, headaches, fatigue, and other physical complaints frequently have emotional components. When you address and release the underlying emotional causes, physical symptoms often improve or resolve. However, Root Cause Therapy shouldn't replace medical care for physical conditions. It works best as a complementary approach alongside appropriate medical treatment.

How much does a Root Cause Therapy session typically cost in Australia?

In Australia, Root Cause Therapy sessions typically range from $150 to $250 per session, depending on the practitioner's experience, training level, and location. Some practitioners charge up to $450 per session for advanced work. Many offer package deals for multiple sessions, which can reduce the per-session cost. Initial consultations are sometimes offered at a reduced rate or free. Check whether your private health insurance provides rebates for this type of therapy, as coverage varies between funds and policies.

What qualifications should a Root Cause Therapy practitioner have?

Reputable Root Cause Therapy practitioners typically complete certification through The Centre for Healing, which offers internationally recognised training accredited with organisations like the International Association of Therapists (IOATH), the International Compliance Assurance for Holistic Practitioners (ICAHP), and the International Institute for Complementary Therapists (IICT). Many practitioners also hold additional qualifications in areas like counselling, psychology, hypnotherapy, NLP, nutrition, or other therapeutic modalities. Ask potential practitioners about their training, how long they've been practising, whether they have experience with issues similar to yours, and whether they engage in ongoing professional development. A qualified practitioner should be transparent about their credentials and happy to answer your questions.

How do I choose a good Root Cause Therapy practitioner?

Start by checking their qualifications and training. Look for practitioners certified through reputable organisations and who have additional therapeutic training. Ask about their experience, particularly with issues similar to what you're dealing with. During an initial consultation or phone call, pay attention to whether you feel comfortable with them. The therapeutic relationship matters enormously. You need to work with someone you trust and feel safe being vulnerable with. Look for practitioners who are trauma-informed and create a safe, non-judgemental space. Read reviews or testimonials from previous clients if available. Ask about their approach and what a typical session involves. Make sure their style resonates with you. Consider practical factors like location, availability, session format (in-person or online), and cost. Bodhi Holistic Hub provides carefully vetted and verified Root Cause Therapy practitioners, giving you confidence you're working with qualified professionals. You can browse practitioner profiles, read about their experience and specialisations, and book sessions directly through the platform.

Can Root Cause Therapy be done online?

Yes, Root Cause Therapy works effectively online through video sessions. The techniques used in Root Cause Therapy (guided visualisation, timeline work, emotional release) translate well to virtual sessions. Many practitioners offer online sessions, which provides greater flexibility in scheduling and eliminates travel time. You'll need a quiet, private space where you won't be interrupted and a stable internet connection. Some people prefer in-person sessions for the first session or two to establish the therapeutic relationship, then switch to online for convenience. Others work entirely online from the start. Choose whatever format feels most comfortable for you.

What issues can Root Cause Therapy address?

Root Cause Therapy can help with a wide range of mental, emotional, and physical concerns. Common issues include anxiety and depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic pain and fatigue, addictions and substance use, digestive and gastrointestinal issues, relationship challenges, skin conditions and allergies, emotional blockages and limiting beliefs, recurring fears and phobias, low self-esteem and lack of confidence, self-sabotaging behaviours, sleep disorders, and stress-related conditions. It's particularly effective for issues that have roots in past experiences or unprocessed emotions. If you're managing a mental health condition, it's important to work with your existing mental health team and ensure Root Cause Therapy is used as a complement to, not a replacement for, appropriate care.

References and Further Reading

Professional Organisations

• The Centre for Healing
• International Institute for Complementary Therapists (IICT)
• International Association of Therapists (IOATH)
• Australian Counselling Association (ACA)

Research and Scientific Foundation

• Australian Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health
• Blue Knot Foundation (National Centre of Excellence for Complex Trauma)
• The Body Keeps the Score Research
• Polyvagal Theory Research
  
  

Educational Resources

• "Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma" by Peter A. Levine
• "Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy" by Francine Shapiro
• "When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress" by Dr. Gabor Maté
• "It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are" by Mark Wolynn

Related Modalities

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) – Evidence-based trauma therapy using bilateral stimulation to process traumatic memories.

Somatic Experiencing – Body-oriented approach to healing trauma developed by Peter Levine, focusing on releasing trauma held in the nervous system.

Hypnotherapy – Use of guided hypnosis to access the subconscious mind and facilitate healing and behaviour change.

Timeline Therapy – NLP-based technique working with the unconscious mind's storage of memories to release negative emotions and limiting decisions.

Breathwork – Various breathing practices used to release stored emotions, regulate the nervous system, and facilitate emotional healing.

This guide was written by the Bodhi Holistic Hub team according to their editorial policy.