Holistic Therapy Focused on Healing, Connection, and Emotional Processing
At Turning Point Therapy, we use approaches that recognise the importance of experiential awareness, the impact of trauma on our nervous system activation and behaviour, present-day struggles that have root causes in past experiences and the importance of emotional processing in healing. We also recognise that fundamental to therapy is the therapeutic relationship that offers human connection, safety and encouragement.
The essence of transformation and change starts with awareness. As trauma specialists, we do in-depth work that addresses the things that have happened to us that have left their imprint on our present life. This involves more aspects of ourselves than an intellectual insight.
This perspective focuses on the present moment, mindfulness, and a holistic experience (mind, body, and spirit). Our past experiences are alive in the present moment so that we can access our emotions, sensations, movements, reactions, and behaviour that are part of our memories. Neuroscience research also informs us that emotions are key to integrating new information and, therefore key to any transformational experience.
Our therapists incorporate many approaches and studies within our overall experiential and relational perspective. The following approaches are some of the primary interventions we use with a relational perspective.
Internal Family Systems is a comprehensive approach that views the human psyche from a multiplicity perspective. This means we develop our personality as parts of us rather than a unified whole. Even though, in each moment, we experience ourselves as a unified self (this is me right now), we have many different aspects and reactions that are expressed over and over as a way of managing the world. For example, I keep reacting angrily whenever I think someone is lying to me. This reaction contains emotions, sensations, memories, thoughts, and meaning. IFS conceptualises this cluster of experience as a part of you. So, experiencing ourselves as many parts is a natural way of relating to ourselves and our identity is made up of the various parts of us.
The IFS Model views these parts as developing within us from birth in response to managing conflicts externally and in our internal world as our environment cannot support our needs. This lack of response and support for who we are and what we need causes an emotional wound (pain) with which we must do something. So we develop these parts to manage the pain by minimising, forgetting, distracting, etc. These parts become increasingly extreme throughout our lives through repetitive use.
Internal Family Systems work experientially by accessing these parts in the moment where we notice how they sit and live in our minds and body. To bring an internal experiential focus to resolve the original wound they carry. As we work in this way we can develop a relationship to ourselves that releases us from the outdated ways of managing the world based on the past and brings compassion and acceptance to all parts of us.
Main elements of mindfulness.
In The Mindful Brain (2007), Daniel Siegal proposed that mindfulness is a form of a healthy relationship or attunement to oneself. In many ways, mindfulness is less about being a complete therapy method but more a practice that affects the ability of the therapist to be present and attuned to the client.
Mindfulness can be taught and practised within therapy to help process psychological material and increase self-awareness. In some ways, mindfulness is the present-day term for awareness.
Nonconceptual. Mindfulness is awareness without absorption in our thought processes.
Present-centered. Mindfulness is always in the present moment. Thoughts about our experience are one step removed from the present moment.
Nonjudgemental. Awareness cannot occur freely if we would like our experience to be other than it is.
Intentional. Mindfulness always includes an intention to direct attention somewhere. Returning attention to the present moment gives mindfulness continuity over time.
Participant observation. Mindfulness is our detached witnessing. It is experiencing the mind and body more intimately.
Focusing is a practice and approach to therapy that arose out of research done by Eugene Gendlin and Carl Rogers in the 1960s. They noticed that some therapy clients got better as a result of therapy, and others continued to struggle and feel stuck. When they looked closely, they noticed that the clients who got better all had a particular skill, a way of listening inside to what things were like for them. Gendlin studied these clients and discovered that this skill could be clearly defined and taught to those who didn’t do it naturally, improving therapy outcomes for more people.
The skill and practice of focusing is similar to mindfulness practice and the somatic awareness that is used in other types of therapy, but it’s also unique in some ways. Focusing helps us get in touch with the way something feels, which may include images, memories, emotions or body sensations, and may also be something more vague or unclear that exists underneath all that. Focusing also helps us to learn how to relate to that feeling with an attitude of friendly curiosity. When these two ingredients come together, there is very often a shift in the way things feel, which usually brings more clarity, lightness, relief, or a feeling of rightness.
There are several approaches that come under Somatic Psychotherapy, such as somatic experiencing, sensorimotor, and somatic transformation, that overlap in what they focus on. Essentially, they use interventions that focus on the release of trauma in the body. This focus is rooted in the present moment awareness of somatic experiences. It highlights the importance of a regulated nervous system, drawing on research from neurobiology and psychology on how trauma and developmental trauma are responded to and held within the body and mind.
From this perspective, the therapist will pay attention to your body’s specific language and what you may be expressing through posture, movement, sensations, tension, and gestures. Regulation is when our body and nervous system can tolerate our experience. When regulated, our emotions, sensations, and autonomic systems flow smoothly, and we feel connected to those around us. Our inbuilt relational systems (bonding, attachment, social engagement) provide the mechanisms to create a secure attachment. Experiences of safety and security are developed through the therapeutic relationship.
Some clinicians work solely from a somatic perspective. We tend to integrate somatic interventions within a therapeutic process that includes cognitive reflections and other approaches identified here.
Terry Real developed Relational Life Therapy (RLT), one of our main approaches to couples counselling. The principles and methods are also applicable in individual therapy. RLT helps us understand our relationship dynamics and how our reactivity affects our responses to the people in our lives. It gives a clear roadmap to develop healthy boundaries and self-esteem—two essential skills in healthy relationships. RLT also incorporates how the impact of our family of origin affects our relationship interactions.
You will learn:
AEDP heals trauma and helps to undo aloneness by championing our innate healing capacity in a safe, attached therapeutic relationship.
Through moment-to-moment, in-depth processing of difficult emotional and relational experiences, AEDP clinicians help clients recover their sense of core self and experience increased resilience and a renewed zest for life.
The AEDP model of psychotherapy:
Now that you’ve learned about our experiential approach—how it engages your mind, body, and emotions in the healing process—you may be feeling a mix of curiosity and vulnerability. We understand that taking the first step can be daunting, and we’re committed to making it as comfortable as possible.
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