What Approaches do I Use?
I have provided several explanations of the various modalities I use in my practice. Ultimately, I work with your individual presentation and might use a combination of the following. Sometimes I encourage the use of Art making as this helps develop and deepen insight. If Art making is not right for you then we take a different approach. There is no requirement for skill or experience in art making to benefit.
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
― Carl Gustav Jung
What is Life Span Integration?
Lifespan Integration is a gentle body-mind therapy that works on a deep level to change unhelpful emotional responses and defensive strategies that exist as protection from the affect of past traumas. People who have experienced trauma in childhood often continue to have the same emotional reactions in their present lives. Trauma memories can trigger people to once again feel under threat, causing them to react in the same way as they did in the past. However, people have reported that after Lifespan Integration, they enjoy life, have better self-acceptance and are more able to enjoy their intimate relationships. Lifespan Integration has a number of protocols that integrate painful past experiences. The LI therapist invites their client/patient to listen to repetitions of their timeline (short memory cues) proving to their body/mind (neural system) that the trauma is over. Placing the painful memory chronologically in the past helps the person to under-stand mentally, emotionally and bodily, that they have survived and are no longer under threat. LI allows the client to embrace the present, free from being triggered into old ways of feeling and behaving.
LI enables you to work out your knots. This enables your system to flow more freely. You feel integrated, light, playful and expressive.
EMDR is a structured therapy that encourages the patient to focus briefly on the trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements), which is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion associated with the trauma memories. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an extensively researched, effective psychotherapy method proven to help people recover from trauma and PTSD symptoms. Ongoing research supports positive clinical outcomes showing EMDR therapy as a helpful treatment for disorders such as anxiety, depression, OCD, chronic pain, addictions, and other distressing life experiences (Maxfield, 2019). EMDR therapy has even been superior to Prozac in trauma treatment (Van der Kolk et al., 2007). Shapiro and Forrest (2016) share that more than 7 million people have been treated successfully by 110,000 therapists in 130 countries since 2016
EMDR initiates your psyche’s capacity to heal itself. Your brain pulls resources from other areas of your psyche to process and heal trauma.
The goal of art therapy is to utilize the creative process to help people explore self-expression and, in doing so, find new ways to gain personal insight and develop new coping skills.
The creation or appreciation of art is used to help people explore emotions, develop self-awareness, cope with stress, boost self-esteem, and work on social skills.
As clients create art, they may analyze what they have made and how it makes them feel. Through exploring their art, people can look for themes and conflicts that may be affecting their thoughts, emotions, and behaviours.
A picture says a thousand words. Art says the unsayable and allows the body to express what the mind cannot think. Art is the language of feeling.
What is Psychodynamic Psychotherapy?
Psychodynamic therapy helps you understand how your current feelings and behaviour are shaped by your past experiences and your unconscious mind and impulses.
The relationship with your therapist is key to this therapeutic approach. Having an accepting and trusting relationship with them encourages you to talk freely and openly about topics like your childhood and your relationship with your parents. This can help you understand what you’re feeling now, why you behave in a certain way and how this affects your relationships.
Psychodynamic therapy – also known as the psychodynamic approach or psychodynamic psychotherapy – is derived from psychoanalysis and the theories of Freud. There may be things in your unconscious that you’re not aware of and are painful or keeping you stuck. A psychodynamic therapist will help you look for these patterns and understand them. We find that knot so you can start unravelling all the strands and move on with your life.
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Psychodynamic therapy dives beneath and explores the unconscious. We discover, then we process adversity and finally, integrate. The result is a calm, confident, playful way of being.