I practice emotion focused and experiential therapy. I use a mix of Affect Phobia Therapy (APT) and ISTDP.
What are those therapies?
Basically, these are treatments designed to help you address the internal causes of your symptoms and suffering. With your permission, I will help you see unconscious anxiety and defenses and how they cause your problems, while also inviting you to actively turn against these forces in session on behalf of your healthy longings, feelings, and impulses.
As we do this, you will (quickly) begin to notice an internal crisis developing between your wish to become healthier and a pull to maintain the familiar status quo of anxiety and self-punishment. And when you start to see and choose health, you will experience growth, insight, and emotional healing.
One of the things that sets this therapy apart is the methodical way we’ll help you differentiate your true self from the false self created by your defenses. Many therapies are reluctant to talk about defenses because addressing them can trigger shame and anxiety. That’s understandable, and true.
That’s why in APT and ISTDP we use a careful step-wise approach to help you free yourself from these old avoidance strategies (read: defenses) while also keeping a close eye on your physical anxiety signals and bolstering your healthy side to rise up and replace outmoded defenses. Together we will keep your anxiety well-regulated and carefully observe the ways your body and mind are adjusting to the de-repression of your unconscious feelings and impulses. Ultimately, we will be working together to help you feel old feelings so you can end the cycle of self-punishment.
*ISTDP is shorter than most dynamic, psychoanalytic, or even emotionally focused or experiential therapies. That being said, there is no easy cure and every case is unique, so treatment length is determined by a number of variables. For example, many individuals require a period of capacity building before they can consciously tolerate their unconscious feelings. Other folks may need to gradually build their ability to tolerate feelings and anxiety while also getting help seeing and restructuring defenses that keep their anxiety and destructive behavior very high. Finally, other folks can tolerate their feelings, but aren’t sure they’re ready to give up certain defenses. The key is to allow yourself the time you need for your process, so you can achieve your goals in a sustainable way.
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