Energy Healers! Is the Barbara Brennan School of Healing the Next Step in Your Evolution?

As a wellness practitioner, I’ve spent many years practising healing modalities like Reiki and crystal healing, confident I had a solid grasp of energy work. But when the Barbara Brennan School of Healing (BBSH) opened a school in Australasia, I eagerly signed up and quickly realised how much more there was to learn – and how deeply transformative the journey could be!

I thought I knew a lot, but BBSH opened my eyes to the vastness of knowledge around energy healing. The school’s four-year program is unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Having just completed year 1, I realised it’s not just about learning healing techniques, it’s also a profound journey of self-discovery and growth.

Initially, I felt overwhelmed. Four years seemed like a huge commitment, with books to read, modules to complete, and trips to Sydney to organise (classes are both in person and online). I wondered about my new classmates and worried about what deep, dark things I might uncover about myself. But, just like the first day of school, those fears quickly faded. I found myself immersed in a beautifully orchestrated program that balanced education, hands-on practice, and personal process work, all in a safe container with highly experienced Brennan Integration Practitioners to guide us, all of whom trained under Barbara herself.

At its core, Barbara Brennan’s work is grounded in her background as a vibrational scientist with NASA, blending her spiritual insights with science, Jungian/Reichian psychoanalysis, and her own guided practice with auras and energy fields. What I love is that her training provides a scientific foundation for energy healing while still embracing its spiritual and intuitive aspects.

The integration of energy work with psychological insights fascinated me, particularly how early life experiences can shape your energy field and how those patterns can be healed. I’ve always been curious about how ‘thoughts become things’, how negative self-beliefs develop, and how they impact the body’s vibrational system. Through BBSH teachings, I began to clearly identify blocks in my energy field and, most importantly, learned how to transform them.

I discovered that my strong ‘rigid’ character defence fuelled my need to be perfect, which often stopped me from taking action. If you’ve seen the Disney movie ‘Encanto’, you’ll understand the joy of realising you don’t have to be a perfect damask rose – you can thrive as a wayward, untamed strangling fig! A great current (and fun!) analogy – and embodying my inner ‘fig’ has definitely helped me relax into going with the flow!

If you’re already exploring Reiki, energy healing, or other bodywork modalities and are ready for deeper exploration, I can’t recommend BBSH enough. The school has been popular in the U.S and Europe and is now entering its fourth year in Australasia. With students joining the four-year program from across the Asia-Pacific region, the school continues to grow, delivering internationally recognised professional training and fostering a much-needed sense of community for energy healers.

Applications for the Australasia 2025 school year are now open (with other school options available globally). BBSH Australasia is hosting online Q&A sessions ahead of the 2025 term, alongside options for one-day workshops and introductory sessions. Details will be up on their Facebook page. So why not dust off your copy of Hands of Light and see where the journey takes you? I’m excited to discover where it will lead me next!

By Jo Shipley, BBSH Student Year 2 Student