Healing Through Integration: A Case Study in Parts Work, EMDR, and Reiki

Have you ever wondered how to heal and integrate an aspect of yourself that you're uncomfortable with?

Maybe you have an inner critic that constantly judges your choices. Maybe you have a part that turns to substance use, leading to regret or discomfort.

Maybe there's a part that believes dying would end your suffering. Or perhaps you carry deep shame or insecurity about who you are.

In this post, I’ll share a case study of a client who was struggling with suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and shame due to early life experiences and messages from a Christian upbringing.

I’ll explain how we used a combination of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, EMDR, and Reiki to help them access a deep part of their unconscious, leading to a powerful mystical experience and, ultimately, healing and transformation.

I call this process the hero’s journey.

Understanding the Client’s Inner Landscape

I had been working with this client for a couple of years. Early in our work, we focused on helping them learn to be with the aspects of themselves that were causing distress—anxiety, discomfort with their identity, a strong inner critic, suicidal thoughts, and self-harming behavior.

Using Internal Family Systems therapy, or parts work, we began to explore these aspects more deeply.

If you’re unfamiliar with parts work, I encourage you to watch my earlier videos on this topic. In short, the method is based on the idea that we all have an inner compass that is whole and complete, and sub-personalities—or parts—that often hold pain or trauma.

Through mindfulness, we explored these parts. The client connected with a young part that engaged in self-harm and another part from around age five that was told they would go to hell for identifying as non-binary. As we continued, they discovered they had parts that were male, female, and genderless (just energy).

This helped them understand the disharmony they felt in their body, which didn’t match the identity of many of their parts.

They also began to see that the self-harming behavior was a coping strategy to manage the shame they carried... shame rooted in religious teachings that labeled their identity as sinful.

A New Way of Seeing

You are entitled to your beliefs, and I respect those who identify as Christian and hold different views.

Still, I offer this case study as an invitation to consider other possibilities and, perhaps, to explore my upcoming book, The Divine Within, which includes related exercises.

Carl Jung described a collective unconscious—what I call the collective divine—that we all have access to.

It includes archetypes and stories that help us make sense of life. Within this field, we can encounter aspects of ourselves that are compassionate and loving, which I see as our divine nature, as well as aspects that judge or punish, which are also divine but wounded (what Jung called the shadow or complexes).

Connecting to the Divine Within

Using Reiki, a form of energy healing, I guided my client to connect with their breath—the air we all share—and invited them to treat the air as if it were a person.

Many traditions consider breath to be divine, the original creator. In quantum physics, it might be seen as the quantum field. Meditation activates the frontal lobe, where compassion resides, allowing us to access this deeper state.

As they connected to the breath, they began to cry. They felt loved, accepted, and connected. They asked the air questions, and the air identified itself as what their Christian background would call God.

I reassured them they didn’t have to accept that label if it felt unsafe.

Instead, I invited them to be curious about the answers. They asked, “Is it wrong for me to identify as LGBTQ+?” and the energy said no, encouraging them to express their inner divinity however they felt called.

They asked, “Am I going to hell?” and the energy replied that hell is a state of suffering, while heaven is a state of peace within. There was no punishment, only the question of whether their expression caused harm to themselves or others.

If not, they were free to be who they are.

Transformation Through Acceptance

This encounter led to profound healing. Their internal parts began to feel safe and loved.

The shame and suicidal thoughts subsided. They began to live with more compassion for themselves and others.

They no longer felt the urge to self-harm and instead felt called to help others in the LGBTQ+ community find their own healing paths.

Why This Matters

I share this story not to convince you of any belief system, but to show what healing and integration can look like.

It doesn’t matter what you believe. It matters that you can find peace, ease, and a way of being that causes less harm.

This is the hero’s journey.

We are all invited to integrate our wounded parts so they no longer suffer, to accept the shadow within us so that we can show up in the world with more compassion and less fear.

If this resonates with you, I invite you to explore my book The Divine Within: Healing Ourselves to Heal the World, releasing later this year, and stay connected for the online course I’m creating to accompany it.

You can also subscribe to my newsletter for updates and more teachings.

Wherever you are on your path, I honor you. There is nothing wrong with you, no matter what state you are in. You are worthy of love. I accept you as you are, and I hope that, over time, you find your own way to peace.