Curt Ramsey is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Virginia beginning his journey of offering ASMR counseling via in-person visits and live video sessions.
He has an ASMR counseling website and an ASMR video channel.
This is my 3rd update as I continue sharing Curt’s pioneering journey as a practitioner of ASMR counseling (First post Nov 10, 2020, Update #1, Update #2)
In this update, Curt shares his experiences and perspectives about recorded ASMR sessions, live ASMR sessions/performances, ASMR counseling, ASMR spas, and ASMR therapy via apps.
From Curt Ramsey,
In my previous update, I shared my experience doing an ASMR Counseling demonstration session with an ASMRtist and my thoughts on direct versus indirect applications of ASMR in the clinical counseling setting.
In this entry, my hope is to process the relative benefits of ASMR in three unique settings: Youtube, live (online and in person) ASMR sessions, and of course ASMR in counseling sessions.
The benefits of watching ASMR on Youtube are readily apparent. Just ask the millions of viewers who go to sleep to, feel relaxed by, and feel cared for by these videos. The benefits of watching ASMR videos has been researched, and that research is continuing–explore the rest of asmruniversity.com to find out more!
But the benefits of ASMR don’t need to stop there, which is the thought that naturally led me to explore the use of ASMR in my counseling practice. However, there is a distinction that needs to be made in the realm of “therapeutic ASMR” or “ASMR therapy”. ALL ASMR can be therapeutic, but that therapeutic value can be seen as being on a spectrum. Imagine at one end of the spectrum you have Youtube videos that trigger the tingles and help a viewer fall asleep–this is on the lower end of the spectrum.
Now imagine a client in a counseling office. The counselor, like myself, is an ASMR practitioner. The client sits or lays comfortably on the counselor’s couch, and the counselor uses the client’s identified strongest ASMR triggers to trigger intense tingles and a strong sense of personal connection and trust. Because of a series of unfortunate events in the client’s life, the client has not felt a close connection to anyone in quite some time, leading to depression and low self-esteem–that is, until this moment when the client feels hope that genuine human connection in their life is possible once again. The client then feels a deep trust with the therapist and opens up in their sessions far more than they would have in a typical counseling session. This scene is on the higher end of the therapeutic ASMR spectrum.
And then there’s everything in the middle. In particular, I’d like to give special attention to ASMR sessions that are not intended to directly treat mental health. Some of these are more artistic in nature. The first example I saw of ASMR being intentionally used in real life was a video walk-through of a Whisper Lodge performance, where Melinda Lauw and others give immersive in-person ASMR experiences to groups of tingle-seekers. Their work is worth checking out! There have been a handful of places in the world where ASMR spas have opened for in-person ASMR spa sessions. I’ve spoken to a few people who have given these sessions, and they sound amazing.
But where do the masses of people longing for a more personal, and perhaps more therapeutic, ASMR experience find this next level of immersive ASMR? What if there is no ASMR spa in their town? Well, there are a few answers that come to mind. The first and most obvious answer, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, is online sessions. I’ve been fortunate enough to be connected to a team working on an app called Lulla. The hope for Lulla is to provide live, 1-on-1 ASMR sessions between an artist and a listener. I believe Lulla, and anything like it, will be the next step in bridging the gap between Youtube and ASMR in a counseling session. Think of it like an online massage therapy session for the listener’s brain. It has the potential to be hugely beneficial to the listener’s mental health, yet the artist is not directly responsible for improving it.
Before Lulla, I was also involved with another app development which is now called Daily Sleep Guide: 30-day journey. Their goal is to specifically focus the power of ASMR to help people sleep, which is one of the major benefits of ASMR. They take a therapeutic approach, helping the listener methodically improve their sleep whilst doing so in an ASMR recorded video format. This app, too, is a great example of taking ASMR to a higher therapeutic level.
The other answer is more in-person ASMR sessions. But how? The answer, I believe, is in empowering counselors, massage therapists, and others to offer live ASMR sessions as a secondary service in the work spaces they already have. This model would carry less risk to the therapist/artist as they could interweave ASMR sessions into their schedules as they find more clients wanting such services. The first place to start with this will be my own practice. My hope is to eventually start advertising ASMR relaxation sessions and utilize my therapy office, with slight modifications, to accommodate these sessions. I’ll keep you updated as that progresses, but it may be a while before it is realized.
The last area in which I could see this middle-of-the-spectrum ASMR happening is for practitioners of all sorts to start incorporating ASMR into their practices. Imagine ASMR-aware barbers, massage therapists, dental workers, flight attendants, etc, who are trained to practice their trade with an ASMR flavor. More on this later…
Curt Ramsey
Counselor Curt, LLC
Learn more about Curt Ramsey:
Learn more about ASMR:
- Website: ASMR University
- Podcast: ASMR University Podcast
- Book: Brain Tingles
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