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I saw a flyer advertising a free trial session of Grinberg Therapy, which was described using phrases such as “energy flow” and “holistic healing.” Intrigued, I looked for more information on the Internet. According to a brief entry on German Wikipedia, the Grinberg Method is an “esoteric pseudo-medicinal practice” created by an Israeli health practitioner named Avi Grinberg.
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The Grinberg Method, it turns out, is based in reflexology. I wish I had known this in advance, so I could have been better prepared. (Helpful hint: wear clean socks.) Sandra sat me on a massage table, naked feet forward, and proceeded to ask me the standard opening questions of psychotherapy. Instead of meticulously taking notes, she responded to my answers by squeezing my toes and kneading my feet. This was weird, but not entirely unpleasant.
“Why did you come here today?” she began.
I didn’t want to give the obvious answer, because it was free, so I went with, “I have some issues with managing anger.”
“What makes you angry?”
“Oh, I don’t know... anything.... everything. All those self-satisfied parents pushing their million-dollar strollers around, for instance. Their bourgeois sense of entitlement! Do they really need to further over-populate the world just to pass on their precious genetic material? Fuck them!”
“And you’d like to feel less angry?” she asked.
“Not really,” I admitted. “Actually, I’m sort of on a health kick right now. I’m trying to cut down on drugs and alcohol. The only relaxation activity I have left is listening to insanely aggressive music and being consumed by rage.” I went on to explain to her that I considered myself reasonably sane and not in particular need of psychiatric help, and beside the occasional debilitating nightmare, the panic attacks, and of course the unrelenting pain between my shoulder blades that just fucking killed all the time, I was actually pretty healthy and stress-free.
“Hmm,” she said. “Well, let’s look at that pain between the shoulder blades.” She had me lay on my stomach, and the Grinberging began in earnest.
The Grinberg Method, as far as my experience goes, is basically a combination of back-rub and therapy session. It’s a pretty good combination, to tell the truth. Sandra asked me questions about my life, my anxieties, and my childhood, all the while paying attention to the physical reactions of my body. At one point I got aggravated, thinking: here I am trying to relax, and she keeps asking me about my relationship with my mom! But then she stopped abruptly, and asked me to take note of how I was holding my shoulders. I have to admit, the chronic pain between the shoulder blades began to make a lot more sense.
I left the office feeling a lot better, physically and mentally, than when I had arrived. In fact, I felt good enough to sign up for four more Grinberg sessions. These happened weekly, and were pretty similar to the first one, although the focus shifted to breathing exercises of the sort you learn to do in yoga classes. As it turns out, these exercises feel a lot less goofy when done in a clinical, pseudo-medicinal environment than when done in front of a bunch of middle-aged ladies in leotards.
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But meanwhile, some other unsettling events transpired. Attempting to research the subject a bit further, I found that the fairly negative Wikipedia entry I’d seen had now been mysteriously removed.