My approach
Person-Centered Therapy
Person-centered therapy is at once a radical and surprisingly simple approach. It focuses on the core tenets of counselling: Being genuine and present, non-judgemental, holding others in unconditional positive regard, and knowing that the client is the expert on themself.
For me this approach is more about being than doing. I view my work as a lifelong commitment to my own nervous system. My job is to provide the opportunity to coregulate and share in connection. I act as a tether for my clients so they can be curious and brave in their explorations.
I also view nervous systems as inherently self-healing. I believe that every nervous system seeks out its own injuries in an attempt to bring them to the surface and heal. This is what it means to get triggered.
Given the right environment (safety, security, connection), these wounds can be explored and integrated in such a way as to make normal memories out of traumatic ones, freeing you to be more you more of the time.
Narrative Therapy
In narrative therapy we seek to understand our stories, and what purpose they serve for us. If we approach these stories with warmth and curiosity we have a better shot at understand what it did for us and why it may be hard to let it go.
We start by seeking out new evidence. Perhaps some new piece fits and supports the story, but perhaps some don’t. Eventually there may come a point where there is enough evidence challenging a story that a new alternative story starts to emerge. We get to create our own stories, ones that support us becoming who we want to be.
Narrative therapy feels creative and non-pathologizilipng. It is kind to client and therapist alike. It is also post-colonial and feminist and allows for multiple truths and perspectives.
Internal Family Systems
IFS is a powerful tool to get to know ourselves. It is technique where we identify and talk to parts of ourselves, forming relationships internally. It is elegantly described in the kid's movie "Inside Out" which has become required reading for my interested clients.
As an IFS therapist I believe that at the core of every person there are the 8 C's and 5 P's of "self":
Curiosity, Calm, Compassion, Courage, Creativity, Connectedness, Clarity, Confidence
Presence, Perspective, Persistence, Playfullness, Patience
Once we know ourselves well we can often feel a sense of wholeness and less like we are fighting against ourselves. This allows us to move through the world with more presence and all the core values above.
Like narrative therapy, IFS is non-pathologizing, following in Dick Schwartz's (founder of IFS) ethos of "no bad parts."
What does this look like in Practice?
How is more important that what
I am a lot less committed to what we do together, and a lot more interested in how we do it. I have also found that when we are in the state of safety, security and connection, that I have fun ideas for play as well. My most joyous moments are when my client gets their own ideas for play, using me as a safety net. I always introduce play as an invitation, but my client is ultimately in charge of what we do. Some of the ways it can look like are:
Somatics
Locating where feelings are stored in the body. We can play at trying on a feeling we get from a story and seeing where it lands, how it shifts when we get deeper into the story, how it shifts when we come out. Where different feelings seem to reside, how their texture changes with our attention. And so on. Sometimes this can involve movement. Lying on the floor or swinging our arms around.
Visualizations
Letting our imagination drift after setting intentions and seeing if we can reason through our feelings with visual representations of them. We can add colour and shape and size, and relative position in the room and so on. Sometimes getting out of the linguistic and rational brain allows us to engage with our emotional reality more readily.
Role Playing
Maybe you are your parent and I’m you. Maybe you’re the angry version of yourself and I’m the little you. Maybe you’re you doing a thing that’s a little outside your comfort zone and I’m the rest of the people at the gathering. Maybe we play the scene from either side a few times and by the end the scenario has a little less heat than at the beginning.
Exposure/Experiential
For social anxiety barriers, we can practice exposure. Perhaps that starts with imaginings in the confines of an office, but proceeds out into the world where we actually get that coffee in public that felt like a remote possibility on the far side of fear. Perhaps what’s needed is being together and sharing a song, or a walk in nature. As long as we engage within ethical restraint, then I am open to what works for you.