A Safe Space Counseling Center
What Can I Expect As I Get Started With You?
After our initial phone consultation, we will schedule a 90 to 120-minute assessment session. This session will engage you in sharing specific details about the issues you are struggling with, your symptoms, your history and relationships, and what you are hoping to get out of therapy. It will allow you to engage with me, get a sense of how I receive and respond to your unique situation and, most importantly, form a beginning impression about how comfortable you are with me. If you feel that we are a good fit, and that you feel comfortable and safe with me sharing your journey, we will work together to make a treatment plan that will focus on what you want to accomplish, and how you can do that with me. From there, we will move into scheduling sessions and working together.
What Therapy Will Look Like With Me?
Many of you, along with many others, have worked with methods that have been focused on coping skills, modifying behavior, managing thoughts, and pushing yourself through difficult and painful moments to deal with present day symptoms and crisis. While this can be useful in decreasing the intensity of the feelings you are having in the moment, the relief is often short lived, and does not promote true, lasting healing from the wounds driving the patterns you find yourself stuck in.
Current research shows that evidenced base approaches such as Internal Family Systems (IFS), Attachment Therapy, and Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), especially when combined together in a personalized, integrated way, can lead to lasting healing, and break the negative cycles originating from the wounds we all hold. They allow us to look beyond surface level symptoms, and consider your body, mind, internal experiences and emotions, to target and heal the root causes of your pain.
If you work with me, you will engage in a healing process utilizing IFS, ART, and Attachment therapy that will help you repair the painful situations that impacted your nervous system and keep you stuck to this day in shame, fear, and negative beliefs about yourself, others and the world in general.
But What is Internal Family Systems Therapy?
IFS is an evidenced based approach to healing that engages you in exploring the dynamics of the rich inner world each of us has. It allows you to get to know the many different “parts” or aspects of yourself and how they have helped you survive and cope. IFS teaches that when something happens to us that is beyond our ability to tolerate at that moment, and we don’t have a supportive adult or person to help us make sense of what happened, our brains protect us by disconnecting from the present moment and turning immediately to other strategies, or parts, so we don’t have to deal with the intensity of the painful emotions coming up. At that moment, the wounded aspect of ourself is “put away” or “exiled” so that the pain they carry is not overwhelming. Instead, other strategies, or parts of our psyche, emerge to avoid ever feeling that pain again.
In other words, our brains internalize these deeply painful experiences, and other aspects of our psyche come forward to keep us moving through our lives in any way we can. Sometimes those parts take on extreme roles/strategies that look like perfectionism, caretaking, people pleasing, avoiding or numbing out, or seeking to be in control, among many others. These aspects of our psyche show up in the form of different emotions, memories, narratives or body sensations that can feel confusing and chaotic, leaving you to wonder how you can be thinking and feeling so many different ways about a situation all at the same time. You may make reactive choices that make complete sense in the moment, while blended with one part of your psyche, but then you find yourself caught in shame, regret or self-criticism in reaction to your choices, coming from other parts of your psyche. No wonder we feel confused and “crazy”!
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Take for example an issue coming up at work where your boss tells you they feel you are capable of doing something you’ve never done before. You may have several parts or aspects of your psyche show up at once, such as one that feels proud you are being noticed, and there is a level of confidence about your work; one that is scared to death of failing and has a critical narrative like “now I wont be able to fake this, they will see that I am incompetent! Im going to fail and lose my job!”; one that immediately begins to problem solve and think of ways to start the process of what has been asked of you; and one that wants to come up with an excuse to say no. Maybe one shows up that says to your boss “Of course I can do that!”, while at the same time another is thinking in the background “There is NO WAY!”.
Maybe as a child you had a critical parent, teacher, or peer who caused wounding related to shame and beliefs that you are defective and incapable, and that if anyone sees who you really are, they will hate you. This may have caused different parts or aspects of your psyche to form the strategies of perfectionism, avoidance, and people pleasing to prevent that shame you felt when criticized from coming up. For example, perfectionism may have helped you feel that if you got everything exactly right, criticism would not come. Avoidance may have allowed you to numb out and escape immediate criticism. People pleasing and focusing on everyone else’s needs may have helped you feel others valued you rather than criticized you. That may have worked in the moment, but the strategy may not be as effective in your current adult life, or in the long term, when situations happen that can potentially cause you to worry about criticism again.
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Instead, when the fear of shame is triggered, the strategies the parts use may seem extreme, and may cause you to act in a way that is out of balance and harmful in your life. Perhaps a perfectionist part will push you to be a work-a-holic, spending all of your time on the project at the expense of your own self care or of your relationships. Perhaps an avoidant part will push you to go to bed and call in sick to work causing your job to be at risk. Perhaps a people pleasing part will cause you to say yes to everything, even things that are not reasonable, causing you to be caught in a double bind where you cant ask for the help you may need. Maybe a part that just wants to check out will cause you to spend hours playing video games, binge watching shows, eating, or drinking too much, affecting your ability to be present and connect with yourself and others.
In IFS you will spend time engaging with the different parts of your psyche, getting to know their origins, positive protective intentions and strategies, and concerns. You will also come to know and heal the wounded parts they work so hard to protect. When you engage with and witness the inner messages coming from your internal system, you have a chance to heal wounds by offering a corrective experience, or “re do” from a place of curiosity, compassion, love, and caring. Together we will work to bring those wounded parts of your psyche the support and safety they needed, but did not have, for whatever reason, during the moments they were wounded, and we will help them to release the pain they have been stuck holding all of this time. This literally rewires your brain, decreases the traumatic responses you find yourself having now, and allows all parts of your psyche to work together in a Self led, cooperative, unified way. It will deepen your relationship with yourself, and allow for transformative healing, Self-compassion, and Self love.
“It takes an act of great Courage to journey
Into the depths of the mind.
Courage that we all have.
We just need to tap into it.
And when we arrive, what we find is a
Scared child who thinks it’s still battling
Ghosts and monsters that are
Y E A R S long gone.
This is where the healing begins”
But what is Accelerated Resolution Therapy?
According to Helen Rosenzweig, the creator of Accelerated Resolution Therapy, ART is an evidenced-based form of psychotherapy that uses back and forth eye movements to help you heal from issues such as depression, anxiety, phobias, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It isn’t the same as EMDR, however it does use Eye movements in a similar way. As you participate in ART sessions, your brain, while focused on a problem and concurrently using eye movements, will make new connections with your strengths and problem-solving abilities. As an ART therapist I will guide you through the process in a directive way, and empower you to take control over the content of the changes you choose to make in order to uniquely resolve your problems. The structured protocol I use will help you decrease the fear response related to your issue, and will also remove distressing images and sensations from the memories you have associated with negative situations in your life. Once these images or sensations are removed, you will no longer be triggered by things happening in the present moment. Instead, you will naturally replace your negative thoughts with positive ones and be able to recall difficult or traumatic memories without becoming as distressed as you do now.
During a session, you can expect to be in total control of the therapy, and to be able to talk to me just as you would during a session that does not involve eye movements. I will sit in front of you slightly to your left or right, and have you follow my fingers with your eyes while you think about your problem. I will ask you to describe to me what you experience during the brief time of moving your eyes. Physical sensations will also be processed by using the eye movements so that disturbing sensations can disappear and positive feelings can be enhanced. Often, clients are able to replace a negative image with positive images so that when you think about your problem, it will be the positive images you recall. I may ask you direct questions that you can focus on while using the eye movements. We may also use some creative visualization to aid in the resolution of your problem. Even though we are looking at troublesome events or problems in your life, ART often has a calming effect, and it is normal for clients to leave the session feeling like a weight has been lifted off of their shoulders. This literally creates changes in your brain that allow you to remember all of the facts about your experiences, without the negatively charged emotions that can hijack your life, and keep you stuck in past shame and pain, rather than allowing you to be engaged and present in your life, able to experience connection and joy.
Adult Explanation 061916 Copyrighted 2011 Helene Rosenzweig & RCRR- All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced or distributed.