INDIVIDUAL THERAPY
When life gets overwhelming, you cope by over or under reacting with fight, flight, or freeze. Once there to protect you, these short-term coping strategies can become stuck habits that no longer help you. If unaddressed, these habits can impact your daily life and how you connect with others. The more you protect, the harder it is to connect.
To restore functioning and strengthen relationships, we will reframe how your coping strategies work for and against you. We can begin to make sense of your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. We can develop safer strategies to connect and protect. You can learn new ways to be seen and accepted. You can learn new ways to feel safe and secure. Research shows that when one faces the underlying source of anguish and disconnection, new neural networks can be rewired to form a more secure sense of self. Through the safety of the therapeutic relationship, vulnerabilities that were once experienced as weakness can now be experienced as strength, becoming the source of resilience and growth.
"If one has no internal sense of security, it is difficult to determine the difference between safety and danger." Bessel van der Kolk
What can I expect from therapy? A client can expect to go through the Three Stages of Growth in Emotionally Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT):
STAGE 1: STABALIZATION
Increased awareness of emotional responses to stress, as well as interactions with others
Improved emotional balance and wider window of tolerance; more flexibility, less numbing/reactivity
A reduction of symptoms, e.g., less anxiety, depression, anger
More self-acceptance with a newer view of self
STAGE 2: RESTRUCTURING
Vulnerability is experienced as strength
Can move into deeper levels of experience for longer periods
A more accurate awareness of felt emotional experiences
Rather than seeking external reassurance, security comes from within for improved self-regulation
A more authentic view of self arises, becoming more responsive and adaptive
STAGE 3: CONSOLIDATION
Increased flexibility with others takes shape in relationships -
Deeper confidence with new behavioural responses
Relapse of old patterns is predicted and prepared for
New view of self and engagement with others are consolidated
Instead of isolation or criticism, one can be open for support and find self-worth and assurance
Clients move from chaos to order, reactivity to balance, from self-denial to self-acceptance, from helplessness to agency
Source: Campbell & Johnson
RESOURCES
In this interview with Gabor Maté, he explores the impact of suppressing one's internal needs of the self (authenticity) to seek out external acceptance by others (attachment).
This interview is a similar but shorter version of the longer interview above on Authenticity and Attachment.
This episode explores the intersection of Polyvagal Theory, neuroscience, and attachment with Deb Dana. We will investigate how the mind creates stories from information relayed by the nervous system, and how we can rewrite the script to move toward security.
Stress isn’t always a bad thing; it can be handy for a burst of extra energy and focus. But when it’s continuous, it actually begins to change your brain. This short video shows how chronic stress can affect brain size, its structure, and how it functions, right down to the level of your genes.
A short and powerful video by Dr. Bruce Perry that explores how stress response patterns can either become a protective factor or a risk factor.
When triggered we react without thinking about the consequences, often causing ruptures in our relationships. Dr. Bruce Perry explains the reasons behind our reactions.