In this insightful MysticMag interview, Dr. Ronald A. Alexander shares the powerful journey that led him to develop his integrative mind-body healing approach, rooted in mindfulness, Eastern wisdom, and somatic psychotherapy.
From early retreats with medical professionals to decades of clinical experience, his work bridges the gap between ancient spiritual practices and modern psychological tools. Dr. Alexander’s unique method not only facilitates emotional and physical healing but also helps individuals unlock deep reservoirs of creativity and inner wisdom.
Through breathwork, embodied therapies, and transpersonal insight, he invites us to transform suffering into soulful awakening.
What inspired you to focus on mindfulness-based mind-body therapies?
In 1976, I was invited to teach a course on mindfulness at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. We took 250 doctors, interns, and residents up into the mountains for a weekend retreat called Healing the Healer, which focused on steps and stages to prevent burnout. By the end of that weekend, there was such a profound shift—not only in the participants’ energy levels but also in their mental clarity.
That experience deeply inspired me. Over the next three years, while I was working toward my doctorate in psychology, I began investigating the relationship between meditation, psychosomatic medicine, and holistic health.
How does your approach help individuals unlock their creative potential?
My approach is very hands-on and experiential, whether it’s in therapy or executive and leadership coaching. While I do start with conversation, after a few minutes I guide people from simply talking to actually experiencing what’s happening inside them. That means tuning into sensations in their body, their feelings, emotions, and noticing energetic flows and patterns. I often ask, “Where in your body do you feel energy flowing?” or “Where do you feel it’s blocked?”
What makes my approach unique is that I integrate several modalities. One is Crosstalk Therapy, which is a present-moment, mindfulness-based approach that helps individuals stay grounded in the here and now. I combine that with principles from Eastern wisdom traditions—what we might call spiritual tools or methods of skillful means.
I also use Somatic Experiencing, which is a trauma-healing modality. It helps people not only rewire their nervous system but also develop tools to unblock energy that’s been constricted. It allows clients to release trapped energy—whether from emotional, developmental, or shock-related trauma—and teaches them to navigate between sympathetic states (like fight, flight, freeze) and parasympathetic states (rest, digest, relax, and reflect).
The fourth pillar of what I call my Integrative Mind-Body Healing Approach is Ericksonian Mind-Body Healing, developed by Dr. Milton Erickson. He was a pioneer of clinical hypnotherapy, and his methods teach people how to tap into the creative resources of the unconscious mind to support emotional, physical, and spiritual healing.
Additionally, I draw from various spiritual and meditative traditions, including Zen, Dzogchen, and Mahamudra from Tibetan Buddhism. These are woven together with Western psychotherapeutic methods like Ericksonian hypnosis, creating a deeply integrative experience. This combination helps unlock creativity by removing energetic blocks, calming the nervous system, and expanding inner awareness.
What role does somatic psychotherapy play in emotional healing?
What makes somatic psychotherapy truly unique is that it begins with a foundational premise: the body never lies. The body reveals what the mind may not yet be ready to express, and the unconscious is inherently creative—it’s always up to something meaningful and often surprising.
When someone experiences physiological symptoms—like a neck ache, stomach pain, back pain, or even headaches—the unconscious is often using the body as a representational field of expression. In other words, the body becomes a messenger for what’s unresolved emotionally or energetically.
What’s so powerful—and almost laser-focused—about Somatic Experiencing Therapy is that we use these physical symptoms not just as problems to fix, but as doorways to healing. Rather than staying solely in verbal emotional expression, we guide clients into the body to observe what’s happening in their breath and nervous system.
We track the movement—or blockage—of energy within the body, moving from constriction to expansion, from blocked or trapped emotions to expression and release. This process helps restore a sense of flow and balance. It fosters coherence, strengthens resilience, and brings greater congruency between the mind, body, and spirit.
Can you share a success story from your coaching or therapy practice?
Yes, I’d be happy to share a story. A woman once came to see me because she was experiencing pain in her arm and shoulder, which was preventing her from playing the violin—something that was central to her identity. She had worked with various specialists for years, but no one had been able to resolve the issue.
I asked her to bring her instrument into the session. Rather than just talk about the problem, I had her stand up so I could observe her posture. Immediately, I noticed her shoulder was hunched, her knees were locked, and her breathing was extremely shallow. I asked her, “Who do you need to get off your back? Off your shoulder?” Without hesitation, she said, “My mother. She’s always there. I hear her voice constantly, and it feels like a weight pressing down on me.”
We dove into a deep role-play exercise using Gestalt therapy. She spoke directly to the internalized, critical version of her mother that lived within her—what we call the introjected negative mother. Back and forth, she confronted this voice until she was able to say, with intention and clarity, that she no longer wanted to carry it.
We then focused on her breath. I guided her through mindful breathing exercises and encouraged her to walk around the room, keeping her knees soft to feel more grounded and reduce rigidity. That physical rigidity, I believe, was directly linked to the emotional tension from her mother’s presence. As an artist—especially a musician—fluidity is essential. Artists thrive in a semi-permeable state where they can absorb, process, and express creatively.
Afterward, I asked her to stand in front of me again, this time with her knees slightly bent, and play her violin from a place where her mother was no longer weighing on her. She played for 10–15 minutes, then put her instrument down. I asked how her shoulder felt. Her response: “There’s no more pain.”
That’s just one of many examples of how moving beyond talking—into experiential, embodied therapeutic work—can create profound change.
In my approach to integrative mind-body psychotherapy, experiential methods are fundamental. We combine mindfulness, expressive and somatic techniques to help clients gain deeper insight and release blocked energy. Mindfulness, in particular, is crucial. It equips individuals with tools they can use at home to observe their own thoughts, feelings, and sensations—moment by moment.
Over time, this practice evolves. Clients move from simply identifying thoughts or feelings to tracking the flows of energy within their body and mind. This leads not just to healing but to wisdom. The Pali word sati—which means mindfulness—also means insight or deep inner knowing.
Ultimately, this integrative model supports both personal healing and transpersonal awakening. As clients heal the wounded, fragmented parts of the self, they also begin to access what some call the higher self—or as I prefer to say, the divine self. This dual process—healing the personal self while awakening the spiritual self—is at the heart of my work.
As Ken Wilber, one of the leading voices in transpersonal psychology, emphasized, the integration of Eastern wisdom traditions with Western psychological and philosophical frameworks is key. When these paths are brought together, the result is not just symptom relief, but a deeper transformation—one that supports healing, awakening, and the unfolding of a more conscious and connected life.
How do you integrate Eastern wisdom traditions with modern psychology?
The integration of Eastern wisdom traditions with modern psychology begins with helping individuals identify and explore the hidden parts of themselves—what we often call the shadow. Carl Jung, the renowned Swiss psychiatrist and founder of Jungian psychology, was one of the first to recognize the importance of integrating spirituality into psychology. His model departed from the more analytical, Freudian approach and emphasized the need for inner wholeness.
In Jungian psychology—and many Eastern traditions—integration is not just about healing symptoms but about reconnecting with lost or fragmented aspects of the self. Shadow work, which involves diving into the unconscious parts of ourselves that we’ve disowned, rejected, or ignored, is central to this process.
There’s a beautiful metaphor from India: the white lotus, considered the most sacred flower, grows out of the mud. Likewise, in our healing work, the “mud” of the self—our shadow, our pain, our history—is the fertile ground where transformation begins. When we do the work of facing and integrating our shadow, something luminous can emerge from that darkness.
Western psychology, particularly depth psychology, offers effective tools to examine and work through these unconscious parts. It helps us to uncover the misidentified, forgotten, or hidden aspects of the self—those that interfere with coherence, alignment, and inner peace.
This journey eventually moves us from the personal to the transpersonal. Freud once described the ego as the acting part of the self, responsible for navigating the outer world. But in spiritual traditions, the ego can also be seen as a gatekeeper—like a locked door to the deeper layers of the self.
I often use the metaphor of the “House of Self.” In this house, the ego might be a small room near the entrance. But if it remains unchecked, it can grow to fill the entire space, blocking access to the innermost chamber—what I call the living room of the soul. This sacred inner room is where the diamond of the self resides: the core essence, spirit, or divine spark within each of us.
When we bring together Western therapeutic tools and Eastern spiritual insights, we support people in both healing their fragmented selves and awakening to their deeper, divine nature. This is the essence of integrative mind-body-spirit work.
What advice would you give to someone struggling with anxiety or life transitions?
The most important thing for someone struggling with anxiety is to understand a fundamental truth—what the Buddha called the First Noble Truth: that inherent in taking human form, in being born, is suffering. Anxiety is simply one expression of that suffering. It’s not something unique or personal—it’s part of the human experience. We all face it, in different ways, throughout our lives—from the beginning to the end.
The Second Noble Truth reminds us that in order to address this suffering, we need tools. Mindfulness, Zen meditation, Tai Chi, Tibetan meditation, or Transcendental Meditation—these are all practices that help us begin working with our anxiety, rather than being consumed by it.
Then comes the Third Noble Truth: that through consistent use of these tools, we can begin to free ourselves from suffering. People who struggle with anxiety often feel constricted and torn apart inside. Breathwork, somatic experiencing, yoga therapy—these embodied practices help shift us from tension to release, and from fear to calm.
That leads us to the Fourth Noble Truth: that freedom is possible. Awakening is possible. There is a spaciousness that can open up within us, even when anxiety is present.
I often explain to people that our emotions—our thoughts, feelings, and sensations—move in cycles, much like the seasons: summer, fall, winter, and spring. We don’t stay in one emotional state forever. No matter how painful or intense an experience is, it will pass.
Take, for example, a panic attack. It can feel overwhelming, like it will never end. But I encourage people to remember that it’s much like a toddler having a tantrum—at the peak of the storm, it feels endless, but eventually, the child becomes exhausted and settles into sleep and rest. The nervous system naturally regulates itself.
Anxiety, depression, grief—these are like emotional winters. But even in places like Siberia, where I’ve worked and trained therapists, and where winter can feel like it stretches on until June—summer still arrives. Transformation is possible. No season lasts forever.
And I like to leave people with a quote Leonard Cohen graciously gave me permission to include in my first book, Wise Mind, Open Mind, and again in my second book, Core Creativity:
“You lose your grip, and then you slip into the masterpiece.”
It’s a reminder that sometimes it’s in our loosening, in our surrender, that the most beautiful unfolding begins.
Find out more at: www.ronaldalexander.com
