The ECHO approach is a non-directive approach that is learned in the form of short-term learning. In this sheet, you will discover what this approach is, its principles, its history, its benefits, its practice and the training to be done to teach it.

The ECHO approach aims to remove blockages that interfere with natural vital processes normally responsible for maintaining health and well-being. It does not directly address the symptoms of the disease, which are seen as the outward manifestations of an inner imbalance. Rather, it seeks to intervene on natural mechanisms which could indirectly, but concretely, contribute to healing. The ECHO method makes it possible to make changes in the inner reality of the person to bring about results in his outer reality, whether it be bodily, behavioral or mental.

The name ECHO refers to our intimate processes: thoughts, designs, vibrations and resonances with the outside. In this perspective, the intention of the approach is to vivify this dimension of the person and to allow him to enter into an echo ”with himself.

The letters of the word represent the four dimensions of the approach:

• Interior space, that is to say the practice of the art of being present to oneself;
• the Current, or restoring movement where everything seemed frozen;
• Harmonization, or the ability to play with obstacles;
• the Work, or the power to imagine and create anew.

The main principles

The ECHO method proposes to create conditions conducive to giving back to the organism, using its own “inner intelligence”, the capacity to do its healing work effectively. The self-healing process consists of creating in itself a context that promotes the development of natural healing mechanisms – in other words, to induce the placebo effect without the pill or placebo treatment.

At the basis of the method is the notion that the human organism is “one”. This means that its physiological, emotional and mental aspects operate according to the same dynamic and that this dynamic is intelligent. Self-healing as seen by ECHO would consist in creating a “personal, bodily and psychic field” allowing the various healing processes to be optimally actualized.

Faced with an illness, trauma, aggression or psychological problem, it very often happens that the person is in distress. Since she is overwhelmed by stress and anxiety, her natural vital processes are diminished or blocked. One of the main objectives of the ECHO method is precisely to put the person at the center of their experience. Events (pain, fear, treatments, financial problems arising from the disease, etc.) can then stop taking up the central space and once again become mere “objects” that must be taken into consideration – among many others.

Once they find themselves in the center of themselves, the person can start to breathe again and recognize the subjective reality of their illness. She gains perspective and control. She can then explore the relationship she has with her symptoms and difficulties and, if she wishes, address the underlying discomfort. However, it is not a psychotherapy, which can however be practiced in parallel.

No clinical studies on the ECHO approach have been published to date. Consequently, we cannot conclude to the effectiveness of this therapy in the various uses made presently.

According to testimonials collected by the ECHO method team, people who have experienced it say that it allows:

• Promotes personal development: the ECHO method allows you to regain your place as an individual and to assert yourself more while identifying your needs more easily.
• Feel more personal freedom and creativity.
• Communicate and interact more with their body;
• To improve psychological well-being by reducing psychological symptoms, by putting illnesses and their problems at a distance, by feeling calmer and more able to de-dramatize external situations and by having more control over internal events.
• Improve your physical condition: the echo method allows you to have more energy, to experience more well-being and to better manage pain.

Course of a session

The learning of ECHO takes place in a precise framework, within which the person must always feel in “state of power”, without having to submit to a technique. “From the moment she is no longer in control, from the moment when the goal takes precedence, from the moment she wants at all costs to follow the instructions to achieve a result, the person is already in danger. imbalance, which poses a threat to the healing process4. The instructions are seen as less important than the resulting experience and their wording is surprisingly open. Despite the use of terms like “psyche” and “complexity”, and even if the theory behind it is elaborated, the ECHO method is accessible to all because it presents itself very simply in practice. During the meetings, people choose a comfortable position, lying or sitting, to listen to the instructions for the exercises. They mainly consist in paying attention to what is happening in oneself (sensations, images, thoughts, emotions) based on the suggestions of the facilitators. One exercise, for example, proposes to stage different parts of the body (brain, skin, etc.), to question them and to let reactions emerge, without ever suggesting an interpretation. A period of time is provided for the exchanges. Over the course of the meetings, we gradually deepen the personal experiences of the participants, if they so wish.

Become a therapist

Training in the ECHO approach is intended for health professionals (nurses, massage therapists, psychotherapists, etc.) who wish to integrate this component into their regular practice or to lead an apprenticeship program. It includes basic learning, several one-on-one meetings with a trainer, structured training, guided readings as well as clinical practice and supervision placements.

The practice of the ECHO method requires a learning period of about fifteen hours, given to groups of 4 to 15 people. Learning through individual meetings is possible in the private sector, at an hourly rate.

We owe the ECHO method to Dr Jean-Charles Crombez – doctor, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and psychosomatician -, member of the consultation-liaison service of the Center hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM- Hôpital Notre-Dame), and his team multidisciplinary clinical research. If its formulation dates back to the early 1980s, the method has its roots in the youth of the researcher. His frequentation of mime and his attraction to poetry, as well as the workshops on the therapeutic relationship he organized for doctors and caregivers at the hospital, contributed to Dr Crombez’s approach. He has written extensively on the ECHO method (see Books, etc.), and his method continues to evolve thanks to the observations of the team responsible for teaching it.

The fact that the method was developed in a department of a large modern hospital indicates that it is designed not in opposition to conventional methods of treatment, but to coexist with them. Its general objectives are to: promote the health and well-being of the person, allow the relief of suffering, support medical practice, etc.