Adriana Popescu is a licensed clinical psychologist, ACEP member and clinical director at Avery Lane, an innovative treatment program for women with co-occurring addictions and mental health disorders in the SF Bay Area. The program offers 30 to 90-day residential treatment stays in addition to outpatient services. It offers traditional gold- standard treatments such as CBT, dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), relapse prevention, process groups, and 12-Step and other self-help groups, in addition to a variety of complementary alternative modalities including massage, Reiki, Access Bars, yoga, mindful- ness, meditation, art therapy, nature therapy, and equine-assisted therapy. Trauma-specific curricula include Seeking Safety and Beyond Trauma, and clients also participate in classes such as Family Systems, Anger Management, Codependency, Medical Education, Life Skills, and Conscious Recovery. Additionally EP techniques (EFT, Be Set Free Fast and Brainspotting) are utilized in both individual and group sessions.
For this study Popescu collected data on 123 female clients over a 3.5 year period. She reports reductions in mental health symptomology: depression scores reduced from 79% at intake to 16% at last survey, p < .001; anxiety scores from 73% to 8%, p < .001; trauma symptoms from 76% to 30%, p < .001; suicidality from 53% to 11%, p < .001; binge eating from 33% to 11%, p = .01; and compensatory eating disorder behaviors from 41% to 11%, p = .074.
“When compared to national statistics, Avery Lane’s outcomes are significantly better than norms provided in the 2017 Treatment Episode Data Set–Discharges (TEDS-D; SAMHSA, 2019), which cite a low 41% successful completion rate, with 30% dropping out of treatment, and 22% transferred to further treatment. Progress in treatment, as measured by comparing the self-report measures at intake and discharge….. indicate that a significant improvement in mental health symptoms occurred for the majority of clients (n = 116–123).”
Conclusion: “The evidence presented indicates that EP can be a very empowering and effective adjunct to treatment for co-occurring disorders, particularly for emotional self-regulation, cognitive restructuring, and trauma processing….”
Ref – Popescu, A. (2021). Trauma-Based Energy Psychology Treatment Is Associated with Client Rehabilitation at an Addiction Clinic. Energy Psychology Journal, 13(1). doi 10.9769/EPJ.2021.13.1.AP
