What this is
The Atlas of Healing & Transformative Modalities is a descriptive reference for practising psychotherapists. It holds 2,500 implementation guides in sixteen domains, from psychoanalysis and cognitive-behavioural therapy through body, arts, contemplative, traditional and esoteric practice, to the historical record of practices that caused harm. Each guide sets out a modality's framework, its guiding principles, its interventions, the problems it records, and its sources.
It is written for clinicians who meet these practices in their clients' lives, in training and in the literature, and who want to understand them on their own terms before forming a view.
How it was compiled
The content was compiled with AI assistance. The guides, the domain syntheses, the overview essay, the lineage map, the glossary, the learning paths and the teaching cases were drafted by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, working as many coordinated agents under the direction of a human editor. The editor set the scope, the structure of every guide and the content rules described below, reviewed samples throughout, and decided disputed questions.
The work ran in stages:
- Drafting. Each guide was drafted from published sources: founders' own writings, the official pages of training bodies and traditions, regulators, courts, reference works and the research literature. Sources are paraphrased, never copied, and only legitimately published copies were used.
- Re-checking. Guides were then checked again against their sources in further passes. Claims that could be confirmed were tied to a source; claims that could not were marked as uncertain or removed. A separate pass searched for sources for guides that had too few.
- Safety and consistency review. Every guide was checked against the content rules below, and wording about the research process itself was removed from the finished text.
- Derived tools. The interventions were weighed on the three orientations (Agape, Logos, Mythos), the founders' principles were grouped into shared ideas, and the lineage links were collected into a map. These are computed or curated from the guides, and the toolkit pages (client cards, situations, phrases, comparisons, quizzes) are generated automatically from the same material.
AI drafting at this scale makes mistakes: a wrong date, a misattributed idea, a source that says less than the sentence that cites it. The tags and the re-check passes reduce this but do not remove it. Check anything that matters against the sources a guide cites.
What the tags mean
- [source: …] shows where a claim comes from.
- [uncertain] marks a claim that could not be confirmed in a primary or authoritative source. It may still be true; treat it as unverified.
- [synthesis] marks the writer's own reconstruction or summary across sources, rather than a statement any one source makes.
What it is not
It is descriptive, not an evidence appraisal. A guide describes a modality as its own practitioners understand and teach it. Inclusion is not endorsement, and the length or detail of a guide says nothing about how well the practice works. Where a guide reports research findings, it reports what the cited studies or reviews say; it does not grade the evidence, compare effect sizes or recommend one approach over another. For that, consult systematic reviews and clinical guidelines.
It is not medical advice and not a training. Reading a guide does not qualify anyone to practise a modality. Work within your training, your professional code and the law where you practise, and seek supervision.
Content rules
Some limits apply across the whole atlas, for safety and out of respect for living traditions:
- No doses, routes, schedules, sourcing or preparation of any substance, and no device settings.
- No prescriptions for breathing, fasting, temperature exposure, exercise, sleep restriction or diet.
- No advice to start, stop or change any medication, and no practice presented as treating cancer or other physical disease.
- Living traditions are described only as far as their own institutions publish. Secret, initiatory or ritual content is not reproduced.
- Sexual practices are not described. Where touch is part of a practice, the guides state that it requires consent before and during, a right to stop, and is never sexual.
- Accounts of harm describe what happened, who was involved, the justification offered, the documented consequences and the warning signs. They leave out anything that could serve as instructions.
- Victims, private individuals and minors are not named. People accused or convicted of harm are named only where a court, regulator, independent investigation or major news organisation has named them.
If you or a client are in crisis
Follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988. In the UK and Ireland, call Samaritans on 116 123.
Limits of this edition
- The atlas reflects sources available up to its compilation in 2026. Regulation, training routes and research change, so check current details with the relevant professional or regulatory body.
- Coverage is broad, not even. Some modalities have a rich published record; others are described mostly by their own practitioners, and their guides say so.
- The orientation weights, principle clusters, lineage links and situation matches are interpretive aids made with AI assistance, not measurements.
- This offline edition is a snapshot. The live domain documents may have been corrected since it was built.