What is Auriculotherapy?

Posted On October 19, 2020October 30, 2021

Posted By Alex Perez - Mental Health Writer, B.A.

Therapists often use evidence-based physical techniques to help treat mental health conditions. For example, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and Chromotherapy are often used in treating severe post-traumatic stress disorder. One technique that therapists use to treat physical and mental health issues is auriculotherapy.

Auriculotherapy

Auriculotherapy is an Eastern medicinal treatment procedure of manipulating the ears in order to treat various health concerns. In Auriculotherapy, acupuncture is performed to the cranial part of the ears. Each of these points that are activated on the ear triggers a neurological reaction in the brain. These reactions have consequences that can treat mental health concerns and other health issues.

What Auriculotherapy can treat

Auriculotherapy is often used to treat neurological disorders due to pain such as migraines. However, there are other physical and mental health conditions that can be targeted in auriculotherapy treatment.

Studies have shown that auriculotherapy has been used to treat mental health concerns and physical health issues.

Some Mental Health Issues Auriculotherapy treats are:

Anxiety
Insomnia
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Panic Disorder
Phobias
Stress
Depression

Some Physical Health Concerns Auriculotherapy treats are:

Optic neuropathy
Epilepsy
Dementia
Ocular Myasthenia Gravis
Sciatic Pain
Migraines
Olfactory Acuity
Pain

When using Auriculotherapy to treat mental health concerns, a practitioner commonly practices the procedure alongside another psychotherapy practice such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps you recognize and acknowledge your own thinking errors and encourages you to reroute to more beneficial and supportive thinking patterns. CBT with auriculotherapy can help you tackle mental health disorders through natural medicine and talk-therapy, providing holistic support.

How does Auriculotherapy work?

Many mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression involve the stimulation of the amygdala, a part of the brain responsible for emotions, and hypothalamus, responsible for regulating hormone release in our body.

Auriculotherapy uses pressure points in the ear that, when manipulated, influence the amygdala and hypothalamus, causing a release of endorphin and a decrease of adrenaline. This often leads to many mental health benefits as endorphins are commonly known as the “feel-good” hormone. Patients with anxiety, depression, and difficulty managing stress benefit from this surge of endorphin release.

Along with the physiological effects of auriculotherapy, the support of talk-therapy can help you recover from mental health and sleep issues that you may be struggling with from a natural and holistic perspective.

How Fast does Auriculotherapy work?

Studies show that you can experience an improvement to your mental health condition in as little as two sessions. However, depending on your particular diagnosis, practitioners often recommend anywhere between two and ten sessions of auriculotherapy. These are also followed up with psychotherapy treatment.

If this procedure sounds appealing to you, tell your therapist that you are interested in trying the procedure and if you would be a good candidate. They will be able to make arrangements for your treatment and evaluate whether or not auriculotherapy would be suitable for your case.