In building this approach, we drew not only on research papers but also on masters who left their mark in their fields, wrote books and worked with people for years. Some of their methods have been tested in research; others have not, or did not pass the test. For each one we say clearly what we took and where the evidence stands. Being included here does not mean we recommend all of their methods.
Historical ideaCarl Gustav Jung
Swiss psychiatrist, 1875–1961
The feelings and parts of ourselves that we ignore don’t disappear; they wait to be noticed. Jung invited people to talk with the feelings and images of their inner world.
In Three Doors: the question in the mind door, “If this feeling wanted to tell you something, what would it say?”
Not enough evidenceEugene Gendlin
American philosopher and psychologist, 1926–2017
In the method he called “Focusing”, he described how a problem has a vague feeling in the body that hasn’t yet been put into words. Staying patiently with that feeling and finding the word or image that fits it can bring a sense of release in the body.
In Three Doors: first finding the feeling in the body, then naming it, and the question “If this feeling were a shape or a colour?”. The method has been little researched since the 1980s.
PromisingPeter Levine
American psychologist, founder of Somatic Experiencing
The weight of difficult experiences can stay in the body. Levine suggests working with it in small pieces, and moving attention back and forth, like a pendulum, between a difficult sensation and a part of the body that feels comfortable.
In Three Doors: bringing your attention to your feet if staying with a feeling becomes hard. The first comparative study of the method had promising results.
Not enough evidenceŽivorad Mihajlović Slavinski
Serbian author, born 1937
He wrote around 30 books on Western esotericism and developed some twenty methods he called “spiritual technology”. One of them, PEAT, holds that opposite poles lie beneath a problem and that finding and “neutralising” them brings relief.
In Three Doors: the question in the mind door, “What would the opposite of this feeling be? Can you notice both at once?”. We found no research showing that PEAT works.
Not enough evidenceBradley Nelson
US chiropractor, founder of The Emotion Code
He claims that difficult emotions from the past stay in the body as “trapped emotions”. The practitioner looks for them with a muscle test, pressing on the arm, and tries to “release” them with a magnet passed from the forehead to the back of the neck.
In Three Doors: we share the idea of looking for emotion in the body. But instead of muscle testing or a magnet we use your own awareness, because muscle testing did no better than chance in a double-blind study of 51 people.
Strong evidenceEdmund Jacobson
American physician, 1888–1983
He showed that the way to notice tension is to tense a muscle on purpose and then let it go, and developed progressive muscle relaxation.
In Three Doors: squeezing and releasing your shoulders in the body door to notice the difference between tension and relaxation. Detailed guide: Muscle relaxation.
Strong evidenceFrancine Shapiro
American psychologist, 1948–2019
She took something small she noticed on a walk in the park seriously, then put it to the test. EMDR, born from that observation, is today among the recommended treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder.
In Three Doors: taking an observation seriously, then testing it: the spirit of our approach.
Historical ideaViktor Frankl
Austrian psychiatrist, 1905–1997
In Man’s Search for Meaning, written after he survived the concentration camps, he described how, even in situations we cannot change, we can choose our attitude towards them.
In Three Doors: the question in the mind door, “In this situation, what can’t you change, and what can you choose?”
A method feeling good doesn’t show that its explanation is right. But nor does it mean an observation is worthless.
EMDR, too, began in 1987 with a personal observation on a walk in the park; it was tested in the first comparative study in 1989, and in 2013 it joined the treatments recommended by the World Health Organization. Clinical observation asks the question; science looks for the answer. That is the path of Three Doors too.
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