Integrating Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Experiential Therapy

As a psychotherapist of nearly 30 years, I've found that many people still think of psychoanalysis as Freudian psychoanalysis--even though this is an outdated perspective.

Integrating Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Experiential Therapy

Why Does the Public Still Have Outdated Views on Psychoanalysis?

Since Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis, it's understandable that people still view psychoanalysis in this outdated way.

Contemporary psychoanalysis has undergone significant changes in the last 50 or so years but, unfortunately, it hasn't gotten much publicity outside of psychoanalytic circles.

Pop culture tends to focus on outdated and stereotypical perspectives on psychoanalysis related to the early days of psychoanalysis such as: 

• Clients lying on the couch 
• Therapists sitting behind them
• Clients free associating and talking about their childhood
• Therapists sitting silently maintaining a "neutral" presence
• Therapists taking notes and occasionally makes "interpretations"

What is Contemporary Psychoanalysis?

Contemporary psychoanalysis moves beyond classical analysis to emphasize the relationship between the client and the analyst.  They also incorporate various other disciplines (see later in this article). In addition, contemporary psychoanalysis includes:

• A Relational Dynamic: The relationship between the client and the therapist is seen as the primary vehicle for change. Contemporary psychoanalysis focuses on the "here and now" of the interaction. This is a shift from older models of psychoanalysis where the focus was historical and the analyst was viewed as a detached authority in the therapy.

• Collaboration and Mutuality: Contemporary psychoanalysis is seen as collaborative and interactive where both the client and the therapist are involved in a two-person psychology. The internal world of the therapist and client can intersection and the mutual influence is understood and worked (see my article: Psychotherapy as a Co-created Process Between Clients and Therapists - Part 1 and Part 2).

Integrating Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Experiential Therapy

• Integration of Research: Contemporary psychoanalysis incorporates findings from other disciplines to build a more comprehensive understanding of the mind, including:
• Child development
• Attachment theory
• Neuroscience
• Memory research

• Emphasis on Subjective Experience: Contemporary psychoanalysis values the unique and subjective experience of the client to understand their inner world in a way that is meaningful and transformative for the client.

• A Goal of Deeper Insight: Contemporary psychoanalysis strives to uncover unconscious processes and relational patterns that keep a client "stuck." It allows for a deeper understanding of the client and new ways of relating (see my article: Making the Unconscious Conscious).

Integrating Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Experiential Therapy

• Rigorous Training: To become a contemporary psychoanalyst, a therapist must undergo intensive training at a psychoanalytic institute and their own three-time-a-week psychoanalysis, clinical supervision and coursework. In addition, contemporary psychoanalysts usually continue to keep up with new theories, training and continue to work on their own personal development (see my article: Striving to Be a Lifelong Learner).

Integrating Contemporary Psychoanalysis With Experiential Therapies

I completed my four year psychoanalytic training in 2000. 

After I completed my psychoanalytic training, I trained in various Experiential Therapies including:

• Hypnotherapy (also known as Clinical Hypnosis)

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy

• Parts Work Therapy (Ego States Therapy and IFS: Internal Family Systems)

• Emotion Focused Therapy For Couples (EFT) (EFT)

• Somatic Experiencing

I also became certified in Sex Therapy to work with individuals and couples who are having sexual/relational problems. As of this writing, I also teach and supervise at a sex therapy institute in New York City.

As a psychotherapist who works in a contemporary way, I have found that integrating contemporary psychoanalysis with experiential therapy produces the best results, especially when working with a client's unresolved trauma (see my article: Integrating Contemporary Psychoanalysis and EMDR Therapy For Trauma Work: A Powerful Combination).

Combining contemporary psychoanalysis and experiential therapy provides an opportunity to integrate depth psychology and the embodied mind-body connection including:

• A Relational Focus: The "here-and-now" focus on contemporary psychoanalysis is also found in experiential therapy like AEDP, EMDR, IFS, Ego States Parts Work, hypnotherapy, Somatic Experiencing and other experiential therapies.

• An Embodied Experience: An integration of contemporary psychoanalysis and experiential therapies emphasize the client's and therapist's embodied experience. Together they link physical sensations and non-verbal cues (key components to all experiential therapies) to relational patterns, central to contemporary psychoanalysis (see my article: Experiential Therapy and the Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

Integrating Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Experiential Therapy

• Affect Regulation: Therapists who use experiential therapies help clients to regulate their emotions which would otherwise be overwhelming. At the same time, contemporary psychoanalysis helps the client to understand the historical perspective of their emotional responses.

• Trauma Work: Experiential therapies provide evidence-based protocols for processing trauma. At the same time, contemporary psychoanalysis helps to contextualize the client's personality and history. 

• Challenging the "Quick Fix" Mentality: Both contemporary psychoanalysis and experiential therapies challenge the idea that there can be a "quick fix" to long-standing problems. While it's generally true that experiential therapies can potentially bring about transformation in a more efficient way than psychoanalysis, especially for one-time trauma, both contemporary psychoanalysis and experiential therapies attempt to achieve a more meaningful and longer lasting transformation than "quick fix" modalities (see my article: Beyond the Band-Aid Approach to Overcoming Psychological Problems).

Conclusion

Contemporary psychoanalysts who integrate experiential therapies value a flexible, client-centered approach that provides the deep contextual understanding of modern psychoanalysis and with the application of powerful, targeted experiential therapy techniques.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), IFS/Ego States Parts Work, Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Discovering Your Core Self in IFS Parts Work Therapy?

I've written several articles about IFS Parts Work Therapy in the past (see the links at the end of this article).

Discovering Core Self in IFS Therapy

What is Core Self in IFS Parts Work Therapy?

IFS is Internal Family Systems, an evidence-based therapy developed by Dr. Richard C. Schwartz to help clients heal from psychological trauma.

From the IFS perspective, Core Self is an inate state of being that everyone possesses.

Unlike parts, which are like subpersonalities in IFS, Core Self isn't a part of the personality.  IFS posits that the Core Self is in a self leadership role in every person and one way to describe Core Self is in terms of the 8 Cs:

• Compassion
• Curiosity
• Clarity
• Creativity
• Calmness
• Confidence
• Courage
• Connectedness

How Can You Access Your Core Self?

The Core Self can be accessed through various practices including: 

• Mindfulness: A basic mindfulness exercise involves focusing on your breath while allowing whatever thoughts and feelings to come up without judgment.

• Meditation: Guided meditations can help you to connect with your Core Self so you can experience yourself in a deeper way.

Discovering Core Self in IFS Parts Therapy

• Self Compassion: Practicing self compassion is key to connecting with your Core Self. Self compassion allows you to connect with yourself in a loving nonjudgmental way. 

• Focusing on Your Body: Taking time to notice physical sensations in your body in a gentle and loving way can help you to connect with your body's innate wisdom (see my article: The Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

How is Core Self Different From Parts of Yourself?

• Parts: Everyone is made up of a multiplicity of selves.. In this case, I'm not talking about multiple personality disorder. Instead, I'm talking about the many subpersonalities that everyone possess that carry many emotions, beliefs and histories. There are no "bad parts" and it's not the goal of IFS to get rid of any of the parts. However, some of the parts might be in need of healing because they have taken on extreme roles due to trauma.

• Core Self: Core Self is distinct from parts. The Core Self, which is also called the True Self, Higher Self or the Self (with a capital "S"), is the source of your inner wisdom and healing. When you are within the perspective of your Core Self, the Core Self can work with your parts instead of being overwhelmed by parts.

The Core Self can be difficult to access when your parts are activated and "in charge" of you, but you can learn to access Core Self (as described in the vignette below).

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many cases, illustrates how a client in IFS Parts Work Therapy can access Core Self to heal from trauma:

Tina

When Tina sought help in IFS Parts Work Therapy, she felt overwhelmed by unresolved childhood trauma.

Discovering Your Core Self in IFS Therapy

Although she had close friends, Tina had difficulty maintaining romantic relationships once they became serious. Over time, Tina became emotionally distant in her relationships because she felt too emotionally vulnerable to express her feelings with the partner she was seeing at the time.

Her pattern was that she would be happy and excited to get into a new relationship, but when she and her partner developed deeper feelings for each other, her trauma symptoms got triggered.

She grew up in a family where her mother was emotionally distant and her father, whom she felt a closer connection to, disappeared one day when she was seven years old. After that, her mother became depressed and barely got out of bed, so Tina's aunt came to help them.

No one ever discussed what happened to her father and, as many children do, Tina blamed herself for her father abandoning the family.

Several years later, Tina found out from a neighbor that her father left her family to be with another woman and he started a new family. When Tina tried to contact him, her father refused to talk to her.

Many years later, when Tina was in her 30s, her father contacted her out of the blue because he had terminal cancer. By then, his second wife had left him and his children from the second marriage didn't want to maintain contact with him.

Since her father had no one to look after him, Tina allowed him to stay with her while he had cancer treatment. She had a lot of ambivalence about taking him in, but she didn't feel she could send him away.

During the next two years, Tina and her father worked towards reconciling their father-daughter relationship. Her father regretted how he left her and her mother and he asked for Tina's forgiveness. Knowing he was going to die, Tina told him that she forgave him, but deep down she still felt the hurt and pain of her younger self who was abandoned.

This hurt and pain related to her father's abandonment carried over into her romantic relationships as soon as she became emotionally invested in the relationship.  She feared she would be abandoned again and she dealt with it by becoming emotionally numb.

When Tina sought help in IFS Parts Work Therapy, her therapist provided her with psychoeducation about IFS.

She also helped Tina to develop the necessary tools and coping strategies to do the deep work involved with IFS, and Tina also journaled and meditated between sessions.

After her therapist discussed Core Self, Tina took time during her busy week to access this deeper part of herself through mindfulness meditation.

Over time, she also learned to distinguish between the fearful and anxious parts of herself and her Core Self. She knew that whenever she felt fearful or anxious, she was looking through the perspective of one or more parts. And when she felt calm and compassionate, she was in touch with her Core Self.

Discovering Your Core Self in IFS Parts Work Therapy

This was the early stage of her IFS therapy and she was aware she and her therapist needed to do work on the parts that were causing her to feel fear and anxiety.  But after she learned to switch her perspective from her parts to her Core Self, she felt calmer and more in charge of her life.

Over time, with the help of IFS Therapy, Tina was able to develop a new relationship beyond the initial honeymoon stage. Although it was challenging for her, she used the tools she learned in IFS to heal her trauma and remain in her relationship.

Conclusion

Core Self is the innate essence that everyone possesses.

It can be challenging to access Core Self when you are immersed in parts, including anxious, fearful, shamed or angry parts.

IFS Parts Work Therapy provides ways to access Core Self during the initial stage of IFS Therapy.

Once clients can access their Core Self, they can work in IFS to deal with the wounded and traumatized parts.

Getting Help in IFS Parts Work Therapy

IFS Parts Work Therapy is an evidence-based effective form of trauma therapy.

If you're struggling with unresolved trauma, you could benefit from working with an IFS therapist so you can free yourself from the effects of your traumatic history.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Parts Work (IFS and Ego States Therapy), Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individual adults and couples to overcome trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychtherapist.

To set up a consultation, call at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also See My Other IFS Articles:

How Does Parts Work Therapy, Like IFS and Ego States Therapy, Help You to Understand Yourself

Understanding the Different Parts of Yourself

Parts Work Therapy Can Be Empowering

How Can IFS Parts Work Therapy Help With Anxiety?

Is an Unconscious Part of Yourself Running Your Life?