THERAPEUTIC APPROACHES
Somatic Therapy (Sensorimotor Psychotherapy by Pat Ogden PhD):
(SP) is a talk therapy that uses guided, mindful focused awareness of the mind-body connection to gently bring salient information to the surface to be healed. It enables the discovery and healing of limiting patterns and trauma symptoms. These could include panic, anxiety, limiting beliefs, emotional overwhelm, and distrust. SP is particularly effective in healing childhood wounds and rewiring the nervous system. It helps convert trauma's activation (reliving trauma) into a non-activating distant memory. This process helps build resilience, internal safety, and embodied empowerment.
Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR by Laurel Parnell PhD):
Attachment-Focused EMDR (AF-EMDR) is a powerful process that helps remove the residue of painful early relational trauma caused by stressful, hurtful, and/or neglectful upbringings. By addressing insecurity and undoing persistent early “adaptations” such as codependency, perfectionism, poor boundaries, and difficulty with intimate relationships, AF-EMDR promotes healing and growth. This approach also creates a needed missing experience such as being protected or nurtured at a critical moment in the past. By using the imagination and alternating taps or tones from headphones, it promotes updating, or reprocessing, of negative or disturbing formative events. It also integrates a sense of internal safety and peace.
Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST):
Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST) is a gentle talk therapy that is especially effective in working with dissociative states and general trauma symptoms. This approach supports clients in getting to know and "befriending" their disowned hijacking parts. This helps create a sense of inner safety, control, and emotional tolerance in daily life. TIST is also helpful in addressing addictions, which are often attempts to re-regulate the nervous system. Grounded in neuroscience and structural dissociation theory, TIST blends Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems, and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.
Internal Family Systems (IFS):
Similar to TIST, IFS is an approach that seeks to understand different internal sub-personalities, or parts, that developed in childhood to navigate overwhelming situations. While their intent is positive, their unique viewpoints and actions tend to be disruptive. As with all family systems, they interact with each other in ways that can also be disruptive. IFS aims to understand each part’s positive intent and heal those who are wounded. It is also to let them know they are appreciated and do not need to work so hard. This way, balance and peace can be restored. There are four general types of parts: protectors, exiles, managers, and firefighters. Also, there is a true self that can emerge more prominently once the relationships between the parts are understood, appreciated, and encouraged to relax. This restores inner balance and mental well-being.
If you’re curious to see if working together might help you too, please schedule a free consultation to discover more.