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©Freund Publishing House Ltd. Int J Adolesc Med Health 2009;21(3):281-297
_________________________________________________________________________
Positive effects, side effects, and adverse events of clinical
holistic medicine. A review of Gerda Boyesen’s non-
pharmaceutical mind-body medicine (biodynamic body-
psychotherapy) at two centers in the United Kingdom and
Germany
Charlotte Allmer, EU-MSc-CAM
1
, Søren Ventegodt, MD, MMedSci, EU-MSc-
CAM
2,3,4,5,6
, Isack Kandel, MA, PhD
7,8
and Joav Merrick, MD, MMedSci,
DMSc
6,8,9,10
1
Eta Wegman Academy, Graz, Austria,
2
Quality of Life Research Center,
3
Research Clinic
for Holistic Medicine and
4
Nordic School of Holistic Medicine, Copenhagen, Denmark;
5
Scandinavian Foundation for Holistic Medicine, Sandvika, Norway;
6
Interuniversity
College, Graz, Austria;
7
Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Behavioral Sciences,
Ariel University Center of Samaria, Ariel, Israel;
8
National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development,
9
Office of the Medical Director, Health Services, Division for Mental
Retardation, Ministry of Social Affairs, Jerusalem, Israel and
10
Kentucky Children’s
Hospital, University of Kentucky, Lexington, United States
Abstract: To review adverse events of intensive, clinical holistic medicine (CHM) as it is practiced in
holistic body-psychotherapy in England and Germany. Gerda Boyesen’s “biodynamic body-
psychotherapy” (BBP) is an intensive type of holistic mind-body medicine used by Boyesen at two
centers. Methods: About 13,500 patients were treated during 1985-2005 period and studied for side
effects and adverse events. The first author worked closely with Boyesen 1995-2005 with full insight
in all aspects of the therapy and provided the data on side-effects. Results: Therapy helped chronic
patients with physical, psychological, sexual, psychiatric and existential problems to improve health,
ability, and quality of life (NNT (number needed to treat) = 1-3). Effective in the treatment of
mentally ill patients (schizophrenia, anxiety, poor mental health, low general ability). For re-
traumatization, brief reactive psychosis, depression, depersonalization and derealization, implanted
memories, side effects from manipulations of the body, suicide/suicide attempts, hospitalization for
physical and mental health problem during or 90 days after treatment, NNH (number needed to harm)
> 13,500. Interpretation: Intensive, holistic non-drug medicine is helpful for physical, sexual,
psychological, psychiatric and existential problems and is completely safe for the patient. The
therapeutic value TV = NNH/NNT > 5,000. Altogether about 18,000 patients treated with different
subtypes of CHM in four different countries have now been evaluated for effects, side effects and
adverse events, with similar results.
Keywords:
mind-body medicine,
clinical medicine, clinical holistic medicine, CAM, integrative medicine
Correspondence: Søren Ventegodt, MD, MMedSci, EU-MSc-CAM, Director, Quality of Life Research
Center, Classensgade 11C, 1 sal, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. Tel: +45-33-141113; Fax: +45-33-
141123; E-mail: ventegodt@livskvalitet.org
Submitted: January 01, 2009. Revised: March 18, 2009. Accepted: March 23, 2009.
SIDE EFFECTS AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE 282
INTRODUCTION
In 2000 David S Sobel praised what he
called nonpharmacologic medicine—often
called non-drug medicine in Europe—in the
Journal of the American Medical
Association: “What if there was a new
medical treatment that had been shown in
clinical trials to improve health outcomes in
a number of illnesses, speed post-surgical
recovery, reduce unnecessary procedures,
decrease medical costs, and improve patient
satisfaction? And what if its major sequelae
were that patients felt less isolated, more
confident, satisfied, and happier, all without
adverse effects? These benefits (and many
others) result from a variety of nonpharma-
cologic mind/body and behavioral medicine
treatments. An increasing number of studies,
including randomized clinical trials, point to
safe and relatively inexpensive interventions
that can improve health outcomes and
reduce the need for more expensive medical
treatments” (1).
Sobel stated this after documenting that
mind-body medicine often is efficient, has
no side effects and is much more cost-
effective and therefore much cheaper than
biomedicine (2). Since then many more
studies has shown the same (3-12), and
dozens of papers have documented many
unexpected, serious problems with the
biomedical drugs and surgery (12-32). The
drugs used for i.e. cancer, schizophrenia,
and depression have been found only
slightly better than placebo (33-35), and the
adverse effects have been found to burden
at least half the patients using these drugs
(i.e. a NNH (number needed to harm) = 2
for antipsychotics (34).
The problem with non-drug medicine
has been that the whole area has been
mysterious, the names and labels strange,
the procedures outlandish, and the
documentation of poor standard compared
to the RCTs with thousands of participants
we are used to get from the financially
strong, industrial research. In most studies
of non-drug medicine there are 20 or 50
patients. For many diseases we still only
got case studies, or case series reports. So
in a paradoxical way we are now very
certain that “the drugs don’t work” (36), but
not so certain that non-drug medicine
works.
To understand what works in holistic
therapy and why, we have tried to identify
the fundamental healing principles of non-
drug medicine. The EU-university of CAM
(complementary and alternative medicine),
Interuniversity College, Castle of Seggau,
Graz, has done the Hercularian task of
collecting all existent knowledge of CAM
from 40 universities and academic institution
all over Europe, and integrated this into the
EU-master’s program of complementary,
psychosocial, and integrative health sciences
(EU-MSc-CAM) (37). This body of
knowledge has crystallized five core
principles of healing (see table 1) (38,39).
The most important principle of these five is
the principle of salutogenesis, the healing of
the patient’s whole existence as formulated
by Aaron Antonovsky (1923-1994) around
1985 (40,41).
The healing principles make it possible
to organize the different types of non-drug
medicine into a simple scheme, where
medicine can work on the chemical level,
on the bodily level, the mental level, the
spiritual level, or the level of wholeness of
the patient (the existential or “holistic”
level, including aspects of the patient’s
love, consciousness, and sexuality) (see
table 2).
We have analyzed the different types of
medicine in order to find which of the
healing CAM-principles are used in each
type, and we have identified six classes
(class 2-7 in table 2). In class 2-4 one single
principle seems to be used, and the therapy
C ALLMER ET AL 283
Table 1. The five central principles of healing in non-drug therapy (i.e. clinical medicine,
holistic medicine, clinical holistic medicine, and CAM; see the major categories in table 2)
from the curriculum of the EU-master in CAM
1. The principle of salutogenesis: t
he whole person must be healed (existential healing),
not only a part of the person. This is done by recovering the sense of coherence
,
character and purpose of life of the person.
2. The similarity principle: only by reminding the patient (or his body, mind
or soul) of
what made him ill, can the patient be cured. The reason for this is that the earlier
wound/trauma(s) live in the subconscious (or body-mind).
3. The Hering’s law of cure (Constantine Hering, 1800-
1880): that you will get well in
the opposite order of the way you got ill.
4.
The principle of resources: only when you are getting the holding/care and support
you did not get when you became ill, can you be healed from the old wound.
5. The principle of using as little force as possible (primum non nocere or
first do no
harm), because since Hippocrates (460-
377 BCE) “declare the past, diagnose the
present, foretell the future; practice these acts. As to diseases, make a habit of two
things - to help, or at least to do no harm” has been paramount not to harm th
e patient
or running a risk with the patient’s life or health.
Table 2. Classification of medicine according to the use of the healing principles of CAM
into seven principal classes
1. Chemical medicine (biomedicine, herbal medicine with bioactive molecules)
2. Body-medicine (massage, reflexology, physical therapy, physiotherapy, spa, sauna etc)
3. Mind-medicine (psychotherapy - psychodynamic, cognitive, gestalt etc.-
psychoanalysis,
meditation, no-touch sexology, couching, healing music)
4. Spirit-medicine (philos
ophical interventions, energy medicine, prayers, spiritual healing
(i.e. Reichi), shamanism, spiritual CAM (i.e. crystal healing) etc.)
5. Mind-
body medicine (acupuncture, acupressure, chiropractics, homeopathy, manual
sexology, body-psychotherapy, Reichian bodywork, Rosen therapy, ergo therapy etc.)
6. Holistic (body-mind-
spirit/existential) medicine (holistic medicine, clinical medicine,
clinical holistic medicine, holistic body-
psychotherapy, holistic bodywork, the
sexological examination, holistic mind-body m
edicine, biodynamic bodypsychotherapy,
tantric bodywork and massage, holistic sexology, Native American rituals).
7. Chemical-body-mind-
spirit medicine (Shamanism with peyote, Ayahuasca, magic
mushrooms, Grof’s LSD-psychotherapy etc) (44-61)
is not likely to have a large healing
potential. In class 5, mind-body therapy,
most of the healing principles are in use,
and in class 6 and 7, all the five healing
principles are believed to be in active use.
We therefore expect class 2, 3, and 4 to be
little effective, class 5 to be effective, and
class 6 and 7 to be highly effective. Class 7
might be impossible to use as medicine for
modern man, leaving us with a natural
SIDE EFFECTS AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE 284
focus on class 6-methods, the holistic
methods that intervene on body, mind, and
spirit at the same time.
Most interesting, this type of medicine
is identical with the original medicine of the
Hippocratic tradition (42) that for more
than two millennia was the dominant type
of medicine in Europe. Most pre-modern
societies had this kind of medicine—China
(acupuncture, yin-yang), India (ayurveda),
North and South America (Native
American medicine men and shamanism),
Africa (the Sangomas), Australia (the
aboriginal healers), and the Nordic
countries (the druids, witches and Samic
shamans) (43). As these cultures’ medical
systems all developed very much into the
same type of holistic medicine, we take this
as a strong indication of this kind of
medicine being highly effective and very
safe, in accordance with the statement of
Sobel above.
HOLISTIC MEDICINE
The aim of this review was therefore to
look at the positive effects and adverse
effects/side effects including adverse event
of intensive clinical holistic therapy. We
have already documented the experience
with this kind of medicine in our own clinic
in Denmark (62-69), at the center for
holistic mind-body medicine and clinical
medicine in Sweden established by Bengt
Stern (70-74). In this paper we want to
document the experiences with this kind of
therapy as practiced in United Kingdom
and Germany. We have chosen to focus on
Gerda Boyesen’s biodynamic body-
psychotherapy, a subtype of intensive,
integrative medicine that only involves talk
and touch therapy in a holistic
philosophical context. Gerda Boyesen’s
type of bodypsychotherapy includes a
combination of intensive psychodynamic
psychotherapy with bodywork especially
designed to release the most intensive
emotions connected to relations, childhood,
love, sexuality, life and death
unconsciously held by the body’s tissues.
We believe that all five healing principles
(see table 1) are in use in this kind therapy.
Gerda Boyesen (1922-2005) worked in
the tradition of holistic medicine, especially
the different kinds of psychodynamic
psychotherapy, therapeutic bodywork, body-
psychotherapy, healing massage, acupressure
and body-energy-work that was pioneered in
the last century by Wilhelm Reich, Alexander
Lowen, Marion Rosen, Stanislav Grof,
Lillemor Johnsen and many more (see Reich,
1969 for an introduction to this kind of
therapy (75)). The Gerda Boyesen Centers
are institutes for advanced self-exploration
(76-79). The basic principle is clinical
medicine (80,81), where salutogenesis
(existential healing) happens because the
therapist supports the patient’s self-
exploration. The first center, Acacia was
established in England in 1985 by the
physiotherapist Gerda Boyesen; ten years
later she founded yet another similar center,
Biozen, Witten Herdiger in Germany. The
therapy included the patient’s body, mind,
and spirit and is therefore ‘holistic
medicine’. During the 20 years centers were
lead or supervised by Gerda Boyesen about
13,500 patients were treated. She founded
the centers and developed the methods
further. After more than 20 years as leader in
the field she passed away in 2005, but the
centers have continued their work. The first
author is today the leader of the Eta Wegman
Academy, Graz in Austria, trained by Gerda
Boyesen and worked closely together with
Boyesen for her last 10 years, 1995-2005.
Body-psychotherapy
Today body-mind medicine is also known
as holistic medicine, body-oriented psycho-
therapy, clinical medicine, or somatic
C ALLMER ET AL 285
psychology. Bodypsychotherapy in its
modern form is a branch of psychodynamic
psychotherapy with origins in the work of
Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm
Reich (75-94). Traditional holistic treat-
ment of body, mind, and spirit at the same
time has continued until today and has
taken many different forms.
In contemporary medical science,
holistic medicine is defined as therapy that
includes intervention on body mind and
spirit. If it employs the healing principles of
CAM (see table 1) and uses the patient’s
self exploration as the main principle of
healing, holistic medicine is also clinical
medicine, and we then label it holistic
clinical medicine or ‘clinical holistic
medicine’ (CHM), which is almost identical
to the kind of body psychotherapy that is
practiced by the more spiritual of the body-
psychotherapists, including mindfulness
meditation similar to Bengt Stern’s holistic
therapy in Sweden (71-74). Body
psychotherapy addresses the body and the
mind at the same time. It focuses on the
patient’s body, sexuality, body language,
emotional expressions, psychosomatic
manifestations, conscious and unconscious
mind, and philosophy of life (76-79).
One branch of body psychotherapy
evolved from the work of Wilhelm Reich
(1897-1957), who worked and trained
therapists in Berlin, Copenhagen, Oslo and
USA during many years from 1920-1956
(75). From this work came bioenergetic
analysis, developed by Alexander Lowen
and John Pierrakos, and the modern science
of sexology developed further by Masters
and Johnson.
Body psychotherapy itself is now
becoming recognized as a mainstream
branch of psychotherapy, and body-
psychotherapists has organized in a number
of national and international organizations
like the “United States (US) Association for
Body Psychotherapy (USABP)” and the
“European Association for Body Psycho-
therapy (EABP)”. Many national
organizations exist, like the European
School for Biodynamic Psychology
(ESBPE) in Germany. The USABP has its
own scientific Journal of Body
Psychotherapy, as have other organizations.
A large number of schools and training
centers all over the world train thousands of
new body workers, like the Cambridge
Body Psychotherapy Center, the Chiron
Center for Body Psychotherapy, the Gerda
Boyesen Institute, the Gerda Boyesen
International Institute, and the London
School of Biodynamic Psychotherapy. In
Switzerland, Gerda Boyesen’s biodynamic
bodypsychotherapy is now covered by
health care insurance and is on the verge of
being accepted as one of the first methods
in alternative medicine.
Body psychotherapy borders with fields
like somatic psychology, energy medicine,
Eastern medicines and philosophies, yoga,
acupuncture, tai chi chuan, other 'body
therapies' like massage, physiotherapy, and
sexology. Body psychotherapy integrates
Alexander technique, Feldenkrais’ method,
Rolfing, and techniques from holistic
manual sexology like the sexological exami-
nation. Today many different branches exist,
like biosynthesis (David Boadella) bio-
dynamic body-psychotherapy (Gerda
Boyesen, Charlotte Allmer), synergy
(Rubenfeld), body-mind psychotherapy
(Susan Aposhyan), the Nordic School of
Clinical Holistic Medicine (Søren
Ventegodt, Joav Merrick, and Niels Jørgen
Andersen), and holistic mind-body medicine
(Bengt Stern). Several of these, if not all,
have been influenced by the work of
Wilhelm Reich, but were also considerably
influenced by other people and their
methods, especially the traditional holistic
medicine of Hippocrates.
SIDE EFFECTS AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE 286
Body psychotherapy is very useful in the
treatment of trauma (84-91). Recently
research has documented the efficacy of
body psychotherapy with many different
patient groups including schizophrenia
(4,92). Body-psychotherapy seems to be
rather efficient in helping and healing the
patient with NNTs (number needed to treat)
from 1-3, often 2. This is remarkably good,
compared with the NNTs of 5, 10, and 20,
which are normal in biomedicine (33-36).
Therefore, the prevalence of side effects and
adverse events becomes very important.
Biodynamic Body Psychotherapy
Gerda Boyesen (1922-2005) is one of the
founders of modern body-psychotherapy.
Gerda Boyesen became an honorary
member of the EABP, as well as the
honorary president of the German Gesell-
schaft für Biodynamische Psychologie
(Society for Biodynamics Psychology), the
professional association for biodynamics
body-psychotherapists in Germany. She
was born in Bergen, Norway and strongly
inspired by Reich and Ola Raknes, a
vegetotherapist who had been trained by
Reich. She studied psychology in Oslo and
received further training as physical
therapist, which led her to work with Aadel
Bülow-Hansen (1906-2001).
In her therapy, Boyesen focused on the
connection between repressed emotions and
muscle tensions as described in her book
“Über den Körper die Seele heilen” (78).
Gerda Boyesen founded “Biodynamics
Psychology and Psychotherapy”. In 1968
she left for London and opened a practice
and in 1985 an international teaching and
training institute. In addition to client-
oriented work other focus areas were
included, most notably she was the first
woman in Europe to establish her own
psychotherapeutic training institute. Gerda
Boyesen lived and worked in different,
mostly European, countries, however, her
work influenced body psychotherapy
worldwide. Her books were translated into
other languages. She trained psychothera-
pists over several decades and throughout
her life she continued to develop her ideas
and methods.
The therapy. This psychodynamic
bodypsychotherapy is of the Jungian and
Reichian type, with focus on archetypes,
energy, charkas, and the human collective
(un)unconscious. The bodywork is of the
psychodramatic type, where central gestalts
of life—birth, all kinds of human inter-
actions and finally death—are confronted,
and old repressed emotions released. The
reflections and learning are facilitated by
conversation therapy. The healing has three
phases: 1) feel, 2) understand and 3) let go
(93,94). Some techniques are based on
Swedish massage, which usually involves a
massage table and direct skin-to-skin
contact and manipulation.
LITERATURE REVIEW
In general, mind-body medicine has proven
effective in many diseases: “Drawing
principally from systematic reviews and
meta-analyses, there is considerable
evidence of efficacy for several mind-body
therapies in the treatment of coronary
artery disease (eg, cardiac rehabilitation),
headaches, insomnia, incontinence, chronic
low back pain, disease and treatment
related symptoms of cancer, and improving
post-surgical outcomes. We found moderate
evidence of efficacy for mind-body
therapies in the areas of hypertension and
arthritis” (3).
Today around 100 papers have been
published in PubMed/Medline on “body-
psychotherapy” and many more reviews of
mind-body medicine, which again is a
subcategory under non-drug medicine.
Röhricht et al (4) concluded that “in
C ALLMER ET AL 287
patients with chronic schizophrenia, body
oriented psychological interventions may
be effective for both positive therapeutic
changes in ego-pathology and negative
symptoms, even though these effects are not
necessarily related.” Levy Berg (5) found a
positive effect on anxiety: “It is concluded
that treatment preferences may have
considerable interpersonal potential in
therapy; how therapists utilize this potential
may be important for improving outcome.”
Koemeda-Lutz (6) found in a large multi-
center study from three German and five
Swiss member institutes of the EABP, where
patients with poor mental health and general
ability was treated with body-psychotherapy,
that “at the end of therapy or after two years
of treatment at maximum (n = 160) large
effect sizes are attained in all scales. These
are lasting results according to catamnestic
data (n = 42). This naturalistic prospective
field study claims to supply evidence for the
effectiveness of the evaluated body-
psychotherapeutic methods and to classify as
phase IV- (‘routine application’) and level I-
evidence.”
If you look at the effect of CHM in
general, several studies have been conducted
in Sweden and Denmark investigating the
efficacy and side effects of the therapy. One
study of 107 consecutively chosen patients
that entered the therapy described the health
status and quality of life of the participants
as low and similar to mentally ill patients
when they entered the treatment (72).
Another study documented that therapeutic
effect on quality of life and sense of
coherence normalized for 83 patients after
therapy (73). From the data, NNT = 1-3
was estimated for improvement of quality
of life and subjective mental health.
A new dissertation (74) under the
auspices of the Karolinska Institutet in
Sweden based upon these findings concluded
that the holistic therapeutic intervention
actually normalized the mental health and
quality of life of the participants: "This study
group consisting of well-educated women
and men rated their initial emotional health
unexpectedly low. The actual intervention in
Sweden is described in details in the book
“Feeling bad is a good start” (71). No
significant side effects or adverse events
were found except from very rare, small fast-
healing bone fractures (of the ribs) from
high-energy manipulations (NNH>1,000)
that healed so fast that they were not
considered a significant side effects (70).
A similar investigation at our own clinic
in Denmark of CHM did not find any
significant side effects or negative events,
but this was done on only 500 patients. A
number of small studies on the treatment of
physical, mental, sexual, existential,
psychological, and working ability problems
all documented no adverse effects and no
adverse events (67-69). It is also known that
similar interventions with holistic sexology
had no side effects or negative effects (95,96).
Altogether, about 18,000 patients treated
with different subtypes of clinical holistic
medicine have now been evaluated for
effects, side effects and adverse events, with
similar results—CHM has no significant side
effects or adverse events.
DATA COLLECTION ON SIDE EFFECTS
FOR THIS REVIEW
Data were collected by the second author
when interviewing Charlotte Allmer, which
happened at several occasions. First in
connection with the first author’s
participation in the examination of students
from the Nordic Campus of Interuniversity
College, Castle of Seggau, Graz in 2008,
where the first author met Charlotte Allmer
in person, and after that a complementary
interview in March 2009, where all
numbers of patients with all significant side
effects and life events (like suicide-
SIDE EFFECTS AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE 288
attempts, suicides, hospitalization, brief
reactive psychoses etc) were reviewed. This
allowed for this review to include all
patients treated from January 1985 to
December 2005. The data (table 2 and 3
and the description of the results) was sent
to Charlotte Allmer for final correction and
approval.
As significant side effects and adverse
events are easy to identify and remember
and as they obviously always make a
lasting impression on the therapists, since
they used every event to learn from in order
to improve the therapy. The total number of
patients is calculated from the average
number of patients each year. During the
therapy data of side effects and adverse
events was documented in the case record.
The most difficult aspect of the adverse
events is the possibility of the therapy
provoking patients to commit suicide. To
investigate this, we send some of the
therapists working in the centers in that
period a short questionnaire with the
following questions:
1. How many percent (estimated) of the
patients thought about suicide at the
start of the therapy?
2. How many percent (estimated) of the
patients had tried to commit suicide
before start of therapy?
3. How many percent (estimated) had
decided to commit suicide before start
of the therapy?
4. How many percent (estimated) had a
plan for the suicide before they started
therapy?
5. How many patients tried in the year
1985-2005 (Acacia) 1995-2005
(Biozen) to commit suicide during or
the first three months after end of
therapy?
6. How many patients did in the year
1985-2005 (Acacia) 1995-2005
(Biozen) commit suicide during or the
first three month after end of therapy?
The information about suicide in table 5 is
based on these estimates; the data are still
being collected, and we plan to present a
more accurate analysis of the ability of the
therapy to prevent suicide in another paper.
Quality of data
Data of side effects and adverse events are
not so easy to collect, as they are often not
part of the patient’s case record. Therefore,
if you want to collect these data, you need
to go to the therapists’ supervisor and only
if the therapist has fill trusts in his or her
supervisor will these things be shared.
Fortunately Gerda Boyesen had her
therapist’s trust and they shared everything
with her. As she personally supervised all
therapists and traveled back and forth
between England and Germany to do so, we
know that Boyesen herself had perfect
insight into these aspects of the therapy.
Most unfortunately Boyesen passed away
before this study was done, but she noticed
in her books that the therapy had no side
effects. Our most valuable source of
information is not her writings, which were
not detailed on this subject, but Charlotte
Allmer, who worked closely together with
Boyesen for the last 10 years of her life and
in the period where Boyesen supervised to
two centers. We believe the quality of the
data from Allmer on side effects and
adverse events to be of high quality and we
have made an additional survey on suicide
and suicide attempts to document that the
therapy was actually preventing suicide.
Estimated number of patients treated.
As some years have gone since Boyesen
passed away, the exact number of patients
treated at the two centers in the periods
C ALLMER ET AL 289
Table 3. Side effects/adverse effects caused by psychotherapy, bodywork, and psycho-
therapy combined with bodywork (80)
Psychotherapy
1. Re-traumatization
2. Brief reactive psychosis
3. Depression (and hypomania)
4. Depersonalization and derealization
5. Implanted memories and implanted philosophy
6. Iatrogenic disturbances
7. Negative effects of hospitalization
8. Studies with no side effects, or side effects less than the side effects
of drugs
9. Suicide and suicide attempts
10. Paradoxal findings: Psychotherapy diminished side effects
Bodywork
1. Brief reactive psychosis
2. High-energy manipulations of the body in chiropractics can cause
damage to the spine of vulnerable patients.
3. Damage to the body if the therapist is unaware of illnesses or for
example fractures.
4. Suicide and suicide attempts
Psychotherapy and bodywork/ holistic medicine (i.e. manual sexology
like the sexological examination, clinical holistic medicine (CHM), and
holotropic breath work)
1. Brief reactive psychosis
2. Implanted memories and implanted philosophy
3. (Developmental crises)
4. Suicide and suicide attempts
1985-2005 (Acacia in London) and 1995-
2005 (Biozen in Witten Herdiger) are not
known anymore. But the number of hours
of treatment of each patient, and the
average number of therapist and active
students are known. A normal treatment
was 50 sessions during a year; psychotic
patients often got 200 sessions a year for
two or three years, or 250 hours of therapy,
while minor problems was solved with 10
or 20 sessions of therapy. On average the
patents received 50 hours of therapy.
Acacia had a minimum of 20 therapists and
students per year, and each therapist treated
between 10 and 20 patients a year. In
Biozen, which was a much larger center, 50
therapists and students worked. Boyesen's
principle was that students should treat for
free, and many patients come in from the
street to get treated for free by the students.
The centers were therefore very active.
Based on these data we know that Acacia
SIDE EFFECTS AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE 290
Table 4. Side effects/adverse effects caused by Gerda Boyesen’s body-psychotherapy on
13,500 Patients
Side effects N* NNH**
1. Re-traumatization
2. a) Brief reactive psychosis, with no history of previous psychotic,
mental illness
3. b) Brief reactive psychosis, with a history of previous psychotic,
mental illness
4. Depression
5. Depersonalization and derealization
6. Implanted memories and implanted philosophy
7. Iatrogenic disturbances
8. a) Side effects from manipulations of the body: Insignificant
physical problems lasting less than one week (skin-abrasions, blue
marks, and tenderness)
b) Side effects from manipulations of the body: Problems lasting less
than three months (fractures etc.)
c) Side effects from manipulations of the body: Permanent physical
problems
9. Damage to the body if the therapists are unaware of illnesses,
fractures, etc
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
*
Number of patients with side effects; ** number needed to harm
treated at least 300 patients a years, and
Biozen 15x50=750 patients a year. In total
about 6,000 patients were treated at Acacia
and 7,500 patients in Biozen and therefore
Gerda Boyesen supervised the treatment of
about 13,500 patients during the period
1985-2005.
Table 4 shows that no patient had
significant side effects from the therapy of
Gerda Boyesen and her therapists at the two
centers in United Kingdom and Germany.
None suffered from retraumatization,
understood as getting a new trauma on top
of an old one, and therefore feeling worse
after treatment than before. None of the
participants suffered from “brief reactive
psychosis” provoked by the therapy (see
table 5), but many had psychosis when they
started, which disappeared during the
therapy. Depression – meaning that a
patient was more depressed after the
treatment than before – did not happen, but
many patients were cured for depression.
None suffered from the experience of
loosing themselves, but many found
themselves and no patients got the impulse
to commit suicide from the therapy (see
table 5), but many patients let go of such
impulses and cured from their negative
wishes to die. In conclusion no patient
suffered significant side effects or had
adverse events from the therapy.
Prevention of suicide
Table 5 shows the adverse events from the
CHM-therapy. None has ever, to the
knowledge of Charlotte Allmer and the
other therapists, attempted to commit
C ALLMER ET AL 291
Table 5. Adverse events during or three month after Gerda Boyesen’s intervention with
intensive, clinical holistic medicine on 13,500 patients
Adverse events N* NNH**
1. Suicide attempt in relation to treatment on the training site/during
treatment
2. Suicide attempt in relation to treatment up to 3 months after
treatment
3. Committed suicide in relation to treatment on the training
site/during treatment
4. Committed suicide in relation to treatment up to 3 months after
treatment
5. Hospitalization for physical health problem, during or up to 14 days
after treatment
6. Hospitalization for mental health problem during or up to 14 days
after treatment
0
0
0
0
0
0
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
> 13,500
*Number of patients with side effects; ** number needed to harm
suicide in the United Kingdom center or
immediately after that in relation to the
treatment. Quite contrary, a significant
number of the patients, estimated about one
each year in each centre, or about 30
patients, came into treatment determined to
end their own life by own hand, and all of
these patients let go of their negative
decision during the treatment. None
committed suicide during the first three
month after the treatment. This strongly
indicate that body clinical holistic medicine
(holistic body psychotherapy) prevents
suicide. The results from this survey will be
presented in another paper.
All in all we found no significant side
effects or adverse events from the treatment
of 13,500 patients with intensive, clinical
holistic therapy at Gerda Boyesen’s two
centers for body-psychotherapy.
DISCUSSION
The therapy seems to be life saving for
some of the most ill patients. Taking this
into consideration, and that the therapy had
no side effects at all, the degree of intensity
from the tools used seems balanced and
reasonable. The most controversial idea in
this work seems to be the necessity of the
developmental crises (97,98). Gerda
Boyesen’s idea was that you have to
confront the negative emotions, gestalts,
and trauma to heal, thus she is in
accordance with the old Hippocratic
tradition. Accelerated personal development
leads sometimes to intensive, existential
crisis, and only if the patient is well
guarded and well supported, can this kind
of intensive healing be possible. Gerda
Boyesen’s Center seems to provide exactly
this to its participants.
Combining the information that we now
have from Bengt Stern’s therapy in
Sweden, from the CHM in Denmark, and
from Gerda Boyesen’s holistic therapy at
two centers, we must conclude that even
when we look at about 10,000 patients
treated with CHM, we cannot find anyone
who had side effects or adverse events from
the therapy. This result allows us to
conclude that holistic medicine with
psychotherapy and bodywork (CHM) is a
safe treatment. Reports that CHM also
seems to prevent suicide in accordance with
SIDE EFFECTS AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE 292
earlier similar findings (70) makes it even
safer, and makes it recommendable even for
severely mentally ill patients, who are
known often to commit suicide after
initiation of psychiatric treatment and
during hospitalization (99).
The healing potential of CHM has yet to
be established. Single patients with cancer
and schizophrenia have already been helped
with this method, and the next logical step
seems to study the effect of CHM more
systematically with the most ill patients. In
principle, even persons with HIV could be
helped in this way (100).
This review found that at least one in
two (NNT = 1-3) individuals were helped to
improve their quality of life or physical or
mental health or a similar dimension by
Gerda Boyesen’s CHM, with no significant
side effect or adverse events conducted at
centers in the United Kingdom and
Germany. We found NNH > 13,500 for
mental hospitalization and brief reactive
psychosis. No patient committed suicide or
attempted to commit suicide during the
treatment. We actually found that suicide
was prevented by the CHM treatment, as
about 30 of the 13,500 (and probably many
more as this is not always revealed to the
therapist) patients had decided to commit
suicide before the course, but decided to let
go of this decision during treatment, which
is a very important finding. The existential
healing crisis is not a side effect, but rather
a part of the therapy. Former studies have
shown that mental health, quality of life,
and sexual functioning is normalized for
most patients with CHM (NNT = 1-3).
Combined with the complete lack of side
effects and adverse events (1-11,70,71,75-
81,101), we find it safe to conclude that
intensive clinical holistic medicine is a safe
and efficient help for patients with physical,
mental, sexual, quality of life-related
psychological, and existential problems.
Judged from the existing data, we
recommend that CHM can also be used for
severely mentally ill patients. We
recommend immediate funding, national as
well as private, for research that documents
the effect of CHM for existential problems,
sexual dysfunctions, and the more serious
physical and mental diseases like diabetes
type 1, schizophrenia, cancer, and HIV.
Holistic medicine is safe and efficient
compared with biomedicine, and treatments
exist for a wide range of diseases and health
problems. We recommend that mind-body
medicine, clinical medicine, and holistic
medicine become part of the curriculum of
all medical schools.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Danish Quality of Life Survey, Quality of
Life Research Center and the Research Clinic
for Holistic Medicine, Copenhagen, was from
1987 till today supported by grants from the
1991 Pharmacy Foundation, the Goodwill-
fonden, the JL-Foundation, E Danielsen and
Wife's Foundation, Emmerick Meyer’s Trust,
the Frimodt-Heineken Foundation, the Hede
Nielsen Family Foundation, Petrus Andersens
Fond, Wholesaler CP Frederiksens Study
Trust, Else and Mogens Wedell-Wedells-
borg’s Foundation, and IMK Almene Fond.
The research in quality of life and scientific
complementary and holistic medicine was
approved by the Copenhagen Scientific
Ethical Committee under the numbers (KF)V.
100.1762-90, (KF)V. 100.2123/91, (KF)V. 01-
502/93, (KF)V. 01-026/97, (KF)V. 01-162/97,
(KF)V. 01-198/97, and further correspondence.
We declare no conflicts of interest.
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