Therapy Modalities
Brainspotting
Brainspotting therapy is a form of EMDR that adapts to the clients needs. We use bilateral music to slow down the brainstem, whos job is to prioritize danger, and fear, to keep you alive. Next we discuss an emotion, thought, feeling, or specific event to reprocess.
Clients note that Brainspotting is the strangest, impossible to explain but most impactful therapy they have ever had.
Cognitive Processing therapy
A talk therapy method used by the Veteran Affairs. We look at the difference between unhelpful thoughts of shame and guilt while tapping into learning to use your automatic emotions as tools to guide you.
We will identify the point where you are stuck and help you intervene in your unhelpful thoughts.
Psychodrama Techniques
Psychodrama Techniques are what brings Internal Family Systems Therapy alive. IFS is a therapy that looks at your internal conflicting voices from shame and generational trauma. It is a non-pathologizing approach, we welcome each part of you to speak its truth and show its strength.
Many people ask the difference between IFS and Drama/Experiential Therapy:
Both are influenced by Jacob Morenos work, making them extremely similar.
Both focus on the family system and anxiety passed down through generations.
One uses the term “self-energy” (IFS) the other “autonomous healing center within” (Drama).
IFS interfaces parts with the self with meditations, Drama externalizes parts so we can see parts outside of ourselves.
One major benefit to externalizing a part played out by another group member or projected onto an object is we are also able to practice setting boundaries with other family members parts, see things from an external empathetic viewpoint, switch places with our parts, and even walk around our parts to sense them at another level. We may even place our parts in different parts of the room or hide them behind a chair.
IFS places a significant amount of time asking defense mechanisms permission before engaging with painful parts. With Drama it feels safer as the part is externalized, and we are able to move the object representing the part where we want it in proximity to ourselves.
While Jacob Mereno brought the true gift of Drama Therapy (in the 1920s) many people are more familiar with Gestalt and IFS. Clients have been known to talk to to family members, different dialogues, between themselves, their higher power, and even comedians they looked up to as a child. It is not possible to know where a session will go.
We are opening 80% of the mind compared to 20% with talk therapy methods. Many clients note it could have taken ten sessions to explain to a therapist versus just showing it to them in one session.
Jerry is a Certified Experiential Therapist with the International Society for Experiential Professionals.
Research
Other Experiential Approaches Similar to Psychodrama - PMC (nih.gov)
Research Articles from the Brainspotting website
The Role of Somatic Therapy in Treating First Responders
