About
Hello,
My name is João Pestana. I hold a degree in Clinical Psychology and I am a Specialist in Clinical Health Psychology recognized by the Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses. I am also a member of the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology and the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation.
My professional methodology — Método Pestana — is grounded in a collaborative framework, working closely with each individual to co‑create a therapeutic process designed to achieve clearly defined goals in a safe, efficient, and structured manner. These goals may include overcoming health‑related challenges, enhancing overall well‑being, or supporting personal and spiritual development.
The Método Pestana was born from my experience as a clinical psychologist and from the deep conviction that full health — whether physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, familial, relational, professional, economic, or social — can only be achieved when we care for the body, the mind, the emotions, and the energy that connects them in an integrated way.
Early in my academic journey, I became deeply interested in the intricate connection between body and mind. This interest culminated in my undergraduate thesis, titled "The Role of Spiritual Well‑Being in the Quality of Life of Oncology Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy", which led to a scientific article published in Revista Cons‑Ciências of University Fernando Pessoa.
This work deepened my understanding of how chronic emotional stress significantly contributes to the development and recurrence of many of the most pervasive physical and psychological diseases in contemporary Western societies.
After completing my degree in Clinical Psychology in 2006, I dedicated more than a decade to my work at the Algarve Oncology Association, where I supported hundreds of people — cancer patients, family members, and healthcare professionals — facing situations of profound emotional suffering. This intense experience strengthened my conviction regarding:
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the profound impact of emotions on the processes of disease development and recurrence, as well as on recovery and the maintenance of health;
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the bidirectional link between chronic emotional pain (trauma) and the development and recurrence of illnesses — not only physical conditions such as cancer, but also psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression;
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the limitations of conventional psychology and psychiatry in effectively resolving traumatic emotional pain.
This direct contact with the extreme realities of human suffering marked a turning point in my career, motivating me to explore and embrace more integrative and effective alternatives to traditional treatments.
Through ongoing research, continued training, and the application of complementary therapies in my daily clinical practice, I came to understand that working with the body’s subtle energies opened faster and deeper pathways to recovery — not only for patients, but also for families, professionals, communities, and institutions.
It was from this journey that the Pestana Method emerged.
Throughout this process, I became aware that emotional suffering affects far more than physical and psychological health and wellbeing:
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emotions shape the way we think, feel, behave, and relate to others, influencing multiple domains of life.
This understanding, refined throughout my personal and professional experience, expanded the Pestana Method beyond the treatment of illness, reinforcing the importance of a truly integrative approach — one that not only alleviates suffering and addresses disease, but also promotes health, emotional regulation, and personal and spiritual development.
In my clinical practice, I consistently observe that this integration accelerates the therapeutic process, improves outcomes, and enhances the physical, mental, emotional, and energetic well-being of those seeking my services.
In addition to my clinical practice, I am a trainer in Eden Energy Medicine (Eden Method) and translated into Portuguese the book "Energy Medicine: A Guide to Balancing Your Body’s Energies for Optimal Health and Joy", by Donna Eden and David Feinstein (Nascente Publishing).
I am also the founder and director of the Pestana Method Academy where I design and coordinate innovative training programs for healthcare professionals and the general public, both in person and online.
If you feel you are going through a phase in your life where you need to regain balance, overcome health challenges, or transform and energize your life, the Pestana Method offers you innovative, safe and effective tools to do so. Along the way, you will not only learn to release emotional blocks and awaken your natural healing abilities, but also reconnect with your inner strength so that you can create lasting and meaningful changes in your life.
It would be an honour and a privilege to support you throughout this journey.
João Pestana
Our Health System Is in Crisis
Because Talking and Medicating Are Not Enough
The Problem: A Paradigm That No Longer Serves Us
Despite the immense human, intellectual, professional, and financial effort invested over the past decades by successive governments and non‑governmental organizations, the plain truth is that chronic illnesses continue to rise, and the overall physical and psychological health of the Western population is in rapid decline.
Many factors contribute to this phenomenon — some more positive (such as increased life expectancy), others less so (including air pollution, sedentary lifestyles, diet, and chronic stress).
However, none of these factors indirectly sustains the problem as strongly as the model that continues to dominate health policies: the so‑called biomedical model.
Although this biomedical model — which views the human being as a mechanical collection of separate parts that communicate little with one another — is widely recognized as scientifically outdated, it continues to dominate the teaching of medicine and psychology in contemporary universities, with significant consequences for the training of healthcare professionals and for the policies adopted by both public and private health institutions.
While it is true that this model has contributed to the development of interventions, procedures, and medications that have helped millions of people extend their lives, it is equally true that these advances have come with significant impacts and costs to patients’ quality of life and physical and psychological well‑being.
Two areas in which the shortcomings of the biomedical model are most evident are mental health — particularly in the treatment of acute emotional pain and psycho‑emotional disorders — and chronic organic conditions, such as cancer, heart disease or diabetes.
What’s Missing in Our Health System? Emotion and Energy!
Emotions are the beating heart of human experience; energy is the invisible force that connects, sustains, and animates that entire experience.
When these dimensions are ignored, any approach becomes incomplete because it fails to touch the essence of what makes us human — and the results inevitably reflect that.
After years of witnessing firsthand the ethical and moral conflicts experienced by healthcare professionals — disillusioned yet resigned to the limitations of the prevailing biomedical paradigm — and feeling unable to truly help my patients heal using only the “traditional” tools available to me, I decided to develop the Pestana Method, born precisely from the desire to stop doing the same thing and expecting different results.
Over the years, the Pestana Method has helped hundreds of people and has restored my own sense of enthusiasm and hope — hope that I am contributing to a world with greater physical and psychological health and wellbeing.
A Third Way
Integrating Body, Mind, and Energy
Today, millions of people around the world remain unaware of the profound impact that emotions and energy have on the development of disease and the maintenance of health.
For decades, society has been led to believe that when it comes to psychological suffering—such as stress, anxiety, depression, or emotional trauma—there are only two options:
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talking about the problem with a psychologist/psychotherapist, and/or
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taking medication prescribed by a doctor/psychiatrist.
These approaches have their place and can, in many cases, be helpful or even essential. However, limiting treatment to these two paths is an incomplete and reductive view of human nature and of how our body and mind truly function.
Throughout my clinical practice, I began to notice that many of my patients had already “talked a lot” about their problems or had tried several medications — and yet they continued to feel blocked, stuck, or exhausted. That was when I realized it was necessary to go deeper and, at the same time, act in a simpler and more direct way on the body and the nervous system.
What is not always acknowledged — and what the Pestana Method makes clear — is that there is a third way. A natural, integrative, psychossensory approach that does not require repeatedly reliving past suffering, nor does it rely on chemicals to suppress symptoms.
Instead, it works directly with the body, with its energies, and with the nervous system, helping to release the internal mechanisms that keep stress, fear, sadness, or emotional exhaustion in place.
Through techniques that consciously activate the body’s own healing responses — both in the nervous system and in the energetic systems that support it — it becomes possible to access deep levels of emotional regulation, relief from suffering, and personal transformation, without medication and without the need for long hours of verbal analysis.
The Pestana Method offers a safe, effective, and accessible alternative, integrating the insights of modern psychology with the ancestral practices of energy medicine — providing a concrete path forward for those who feel they have “tried everything” yet still have not found lasting results.
Método Pestana
A Natural Path to Reclaiming Balance
The Pestana Method is grounded in the premise that our natural state is one of balance, and that we carry within us an innate capacity to return to that state in a natural way.
This perspective is built upon three fundamental principles:
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The interdependence between mind and body — two systems that continuously and mutually influence one another.
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Ancestral wisdom recognizing the existence of subtle energetic systems that permeate the human organism and have a direct impact on the development of illness and the healing process.
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The ability to objectively assess and consciously activate the mind‑body connection and the body’s energetic systems to promote health, prevent imbalances, and enhance human performance.
Inspired by this integrative vision, the Pestana Method is deeply influenced by two major fields of knowledge: Clinical Health Psychology and Energy Medicine.
These fields represent the convergence of two models that we view as complementary:
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the scientific, material, and structured model of Western Psychology;
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the empirical and holistic model of Eastern/Energetic Medicine.
Although complementary, the key difference between these two paradigms lies in the recognition — within Energy Medicine — that the human being is more than a collection of organs and biochemical processes. Humans are also composed of energetic systems that can be consciously stimulated to support physical and mental health and wellbeing.
It is at this convergence of knowledge that the Pestana Method is grounded: an integrative, natural, and non‑invasive approach that has been gaining the interest of healthcare professionals — who recognize in it a pathway to more effective, faster, and longer‑lasting treatments — as well as the general public, who have adopted many of these techniques as simple and accessible strategies for managing the stress and tension of modern life, naturally supporting their physical and psychological well‑being.
Vision
Over time, I began to realize that we live in a society that teaches us to trust what comes from the outside more than the wisdom that lives within us. I too spent many years searching for answers elsewhere — until I understood that the body and mind have a natural capacity for self‑regulation, regeneration, and returning to balance. And that this inner wisdom deserves to be heard.
I started to see the human being not as a machine, but as a living, energetic, and deeply interconnected system. And the more I integrated this perspective into my personal and professional life, the more it made sense — both to me and to those around me.
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Today, I see more and more people feeling that same call to look beyond the physical world.
People who are no longer satisfied with superficial solutions. Who want to care for themselves in a more natural, more conscious way — more aligned with who they truly are.
People who, instead of waiting for a better world, choose to build it through small daily gestures — with presence, intention, and positive energy.
I believe in a world where each person steps into their personal power and cares for their health — physical, emotional, mental, and energetic.
A world where care begins within us and extends to our relationships, our communities, and the planet. A world that is more vibrant, healthier, and more human.
And that is precisely the world I want to help create. If this path resonates with you, you are warmly welcome. I am here to share it with you.
