Therapy Modalities

Relational Gestalt Therapy

Relational Gestalt Therapy promotes self-awareness and holds that therapeutic change occurs through authentic meeting with another. A key focus is on supporting the client to relate, embody and live in the here-and-now. Emphasis is on personal responsibility, the experience in the present moment, the environment and social contexts of a person’s life.

Somatic
Experiencing

Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing is a body-based therapeutic approach to heal from trauma and other stress related disorders. Dr. Levine holds doctorate degrees in both biophysics and psychology. During his studies he noticed and became curious about how mammals in the wild can endure large doses of high stress (escaping a predator!) and do not live with effects such as PTSD in the way that human mammals can.

Somatic Experiencing offers a framework to assess where a person’s nervous system may be ‘stuck’, in fight, flight or freeze responses and provides the clinical tools to move from states of fixity to fluidity and mobility.

Somatic Experiencing (SE) does not seek to erase the trauma response system of fight, flight, freeze, dissociate but to free up energy resources that have become rigid or immobile. We hold SE in context of the bio-psycho-spiritual-social which means that we live in a society marked by supremacies of all types, race, sex, gender, ablism, religion, citizenship, location, class. There are times when we all need to stand and fight or run and flee or to freeze and be invisible. The point of SE is to learn where we are at, how we got there and how does this state serve or not serve us in present time.

EMDR

"Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference. It is widely assumed that severe emotional pain requires a long time to heal.

EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. Using the detailed protocols and procedures learned in EMDR therapy training sessions, clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes."

Source: EMDR Institute

NARM

"The NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) is a method of psychotherapy specifically aimed at treating attachment, relational and developmental trauma, otherwise referred to as “Complex Trauma” (Complex-PTSD or C-PTSD). This developmentally-oriented, neuroscientifically-informed model emerged out of earlier psychotherapeutic orientations including Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Attachment Theory, Gestalt Therapy, and diverse Somatic Psychotherapy approaches. Integrating top-down psychotherapy with bottom-up somatic approaches within a relational context.

NARM holds that while what happened in the past is significant, it is not what happened in the past that creates the symptoms that people experience as adults. It is the persistence of survival styles appropriate to the past that distorts present experience and creates symptoms. These survival patterns, having outlived their usefulness, create ongoing disconnection from our authentic self and from others. For example, dissociation and isolation are the primary coping mechanisms for dealing with the earliest trauma. While dissociation and isolation have literally saved people’s lives, as this pattern continues into adulthood, it creates endless symptoms.

It is also the distortions of identity that develop in response to early trauma which create ongoing suffering. For example, children always experience environmental failure as their own failure. A simple example: if a child grows up with unloving parents, he or she is unable to see that this is their parents’ failure. Children tend to develop the sense of self that they are unlovable. A core element in the NARM model is working with the child’s and then the adult’s unconscious need to protect the attachment relationship. They do this in a process called splitting, which protects the image of the caregiver at the expense of their own positive sense of self. This has profound repercussions for all of us on a psychobiological level."

Source: Dr. Heller, NARM

NATouch

"NeuroAffective Touch® (NATouch) helps repair developmental trauma by offering clients the fundamental missing nonverbal experiences of connection, support, attunement, and nurturing. Sessions help build an in-the-body, bottom-up connection to physical sensations of trust and comfort that generate new emotional and cognitive options, and foster an enriched top-down life experience.

We help clients who suffer from nonverbal or preverbal distress, as reflected in difficulties with:

Experiencing that they actually exist
Developing autonomic regulation and soothing themselves
Trusting relationship
Identifying and communicating their needs
Feeling trapped in states of self-judgment, shame, and guilt

NeuroAffective Touch® demystifies the seemingly endless number of emotional and cognitive problems that result from developmental, emotional, and relational distress and trauma. Without realizing it, many individuals develop adaptive behavior patterns that work against them. NeuroAffective Touch® identifies these dysfunctional patterns and shows how what happens at each stage of development can impair the capacity to connect with self and others, and negatively affect future relationships and life choices."

Source: neuroaffectivetouch.com

EFT

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is a humanistic approach to psychotherapy. The approach has a focus on adult attachment, the model prioritizes emotions and emotional regulation. Learn more about EFT