How to "Get Out of Your Head" to Heal With Experiential Therapy

In an earlier article, Healing From the Inside Out: Why Insight Isn't Enough, I discussed how traditional psychotherapy has focused on helping clients to understand and develop intellectual insight into their problems.

How to Get Our of Your Head to Heal With Experiential Therapy

While intellectual insight is an important first step, it's usually not enough to heal and create change (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy For Trauma).

As I discussed in the prior article, traditional psychotherapy without the mind-body connection creates intellectual insight into clients' problems, but it often doesn't help with the necessary emotional shift necessary for healing and change.

This is why Experiential Therapy is more effective for healing and change.

What Are the Various Types Experiential Therapy?

Experiential Therapy includes many body-oriented therapies including:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
  

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Somatic Experiencing

• Parts Work Therapy (IFS and Ego States Therapy)

How Does Experiential Therapy Work?

Although each modality is set up in a different way, all Experiential Therapy has certain aspects in common:

• Creating Experiences: Compared to traditional psychotherapy, all Experiential Therapy involves creating experiences to bring about a deeper connection between thoughts and emotions. 

• Emotional Processing: After preparing a client by helping them through the Preparation and Resource Phase, Experiential Therapy allows thoughts, memories and emotions to come to the surface in a deeper way than traditional therapy. Most Experiential Therapists track clients' moment-to-moment experiences so that what comes up is within clients' window of tolerance within the safe environment of the therapist's office. This is important in terms of the work being neither overwhelming nor causing emotional numbing.

Getting Out of Your Head to Heal with Experiential Therapy

• Connecting the Mind and the Body: Experiential Therapy creates a bridge by connecting rational thoughts with deeper emotions, including unresolved trauma. This approach helps to identify and shift unconscious core beliefs (e.g., "I'm unlovable" or "I'm powerless") and patterns that often don't respond to therapy that is more cognitive talk therapy approaches (see my article: Experiential Psychotherapy and the Mind-Body Connection: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

• Memory Reconsolidation: By creating new experiences, Experiential Therapy can activate memory reconsolidation, rewiring neural pathways related to traumatic experiences from the past. Memory reconsolidation is essential for transformation (see my article: Riding the Waves From Trauma to Transformation With Experiential Therapy).

What Are the Benefits of Experiential Therapy?

The benefits include:

• Increased Self Awareness: Clients become more attuned to their thoughts and emotions and how these thoughts and emotions interact with their body and behavior (see my article: What is Self Reflective Awareness and Why Is It Important to You?).

• Developing New Skills: With Experiential Therapy clients learn and practice new and healthier ways of coping with stress, managing difficult emotions, resolving conflict and overcoming unresolved trauma.

Getting Out of Your Head to Heal With Experiential Therapy

• Reframing Negative Patterns: Clients learn how to experience situations in new ways by reframing negative thoughts and beliefs. This helps clients to stop harmful patterns from repeating. 

• Enhancing Empathy and Communication Skills: As enhanced empathy and communication skills emerge, clients can improve their relationship with themselves and others (see my article: What is Compassionate Empathy?).

• Providing Stress Relief: The process of engaging with and releasing suppressed emotions and processing unresolved trauma provides stress relief.

Getting Help in Experiential Therapy

If traditional therapy was only partially helpful, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who uses Experiential Therapy to help you to work through trauma and heal (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Getting Out of Your Head to Heal With Experiential Therapy

A skilled Experiential Therapist can help you to complete trauma processing so you can lead a more meaningful life.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help in Experiential Therapy so you can heal and move on with your life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing, Trauma Therapist and Certified Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

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.

The Anxiety of Waiting For the Other Shoe to Drop Due to Unresolved Trauma

A history of unresolved trauma can affect your outlook on life (see my article: How Trauma Therapy Can Help You to Overcome Unresolved Trauma).

Even when people, who had childhood trauma, overcome adversity and they are no longer struggling under traumatic circumstances in their current life, they can often experience anticipatory anxiety about the future--like they're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety

Many people who haven't had a traumatic childhood can experience this type of anticipatory anxiety after dealing with trauma in adulthood.

Clinical Vignettes

The following clinical vignettes, which are composite cases to protect confidentiality, illustrate how unresolved trauma can create a sense of anticipatory anxiety and foreboding about the future--like waiting for the other shoe to drop:

Sara: Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety

• Sara: When Sara was seven years old, her father's job loss plunged the family into dire financial straits. While her father looked for work, her mother took three jobs just to meet the family's basic needs. Her parents had so much shame about their financial situation that they made Sara promise not to talk about it with anyone outside their immediate family. It took her father two years to find another job that could support the family and, eventually, they were financially stable again. But Sara was profoundly affected by these childhood experiences. As an adult, she had a persistent sense that, at any moment, her circumstances could change and she could experience financial ruin. When her company began layoffs, even though she was assured by her manager that she would be spared, she became so anxious that she sought help in therapy to overcome her anxiety and unresolved trauma (see my article: Why is Unresolved Trauma From the Past Affecting You Now?)

John: Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety

• John: John sought help in therapy after he was treated for prostate cancer. Even though his doctor assured him that he had an excellent chance of living a long healthy life after John was cancer free for two years, John had persistent anxiety about the possibility of the cancer coming back or that he would experience another serious medical problem. Prior to his cancer diagnosis, John had experienced episodes of anxiety whenever he had to make major changes in his life. With regard to his family history, he told his therapist that his mother was an extremely anxious person due to her own unresolved childhood trauma. His mother had a terrible sense of foreboding whenever the family encountered even the possibility of change. When John's father was told his company might relocate down South, his father and mother knew they didn't want to move out of New York City,  so he began looking for another job immediately. John's father wasn't worried about finding a comparable job because he was a much sought after professional. But John's mother became so anxious because she recalled her own family's need to flee from a fascist regime.  Her sense of worry made her sick. Fortunately, the father was able to find another job at a higher paying salary within a relatively short period of time. But the mother continued to experience persistent bouts of anxiety and foreboding. While he was in therapy, John learned the connection between his anxiety and his mother's unresolved trauma (see my article: What is Intergenerational Trauma?).

Ellen: Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety

• Ellen: After Ellen's best friend, Alice, died suddenly from natural causes, Ellen felt like her world was completely shaken. She had never lost anyone close to her and Ellen felt existential dread about the possibility of her own death. Prior to Alice's death, Ellen would have occasional worries about death--even though Ellen was in excellent health. Although she had other close friends, Ellen felt lost without Alice, who had been her best friend since they were in elementary school. After listening to Ellen talk about her grief and her anxiety for a few months, her friends became impatient with her and told her she needed to "move on." But Alice didn't know how to move on. She didn't even know how to mourn. When Ellen sought help in therapy, she told her therapist she had a great childhood, she had loving parents, she had a loving husband and two wonderful adult children. There was no prior trauma in her history that seemed to be getting triggered. Her feeling that any moment the other shoe would drop was related to the loss of Alice, so her therapist helped Ellen to grieve and Ellen felt comfort in being able to process her loss in therapy without any of the judgment she experienced with her friends. After she completed therapy, Ellen felt she had the usual concerns that middle age people have about death, but her concerns didn't feel as catastrophic as they had been when Alice first died. Even though she felt better, she realized that she was forever changed by the loss of her best friend. But with help from her therapist, Ellen began to look forward to upcoming events in her life in a way she wasn't able to do immediately after Alice's death (see my article: Allowing Room For Grief).

Conclusion

In each of the composite vignettes the clients were affected by past or recent unresolved trauma so that they were apprehensive--even when it was clear that there was no need to worry about their current situation.

Traumatic events can create feelings of anticipatory anxiety and foreboding--even when a person's logical mind tells them that there seems to be no apparent reason for these feelings under their present circumstances.

Even though these experiences are common, people who have never experienced anything like this before might not understand. 

Well-meaning friends and family might tell you to "just get over it" or to "move on" and when you can't "move on", they might be surprised or even judgmental. 

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

If you have unresolved trauma that causes you to experience feelings of anxiety and foreboding, you could benefit from working with a trauma therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

A skilled trauma therapist can help you to work through unresolved trauma using therapy modalities specifically designed to help clients overcome trauma.

These modalities include (but are not limited to):

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Somatic Experiencing (also known as S.E.)

• Parts Work Therapy (including IFS and Ego States Therapy)

• Hypnotherapy (also known as Clinical Hypnosis)

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from an experienced trauma therapist so you  can overcome trauma and lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

I have over 20 years of experiencing helping individual adults and couples to overcome trauma.

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.

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

The current article discusses how Parts Work Therapy, including IFS (Internal Family Systems) and Ego States Therapy, can help you to understand yourself.

What is Parts Work Therapy?

Let's start with the basics about Parts Work.

Parts Work Therapy

Parts Work Therapy is a type of Experiential Therapy which incorporates the mind-body connection.

Parts Work Therapy is a general term that encompasses different types of therapy including IFS and Ego State Therapy.

Ego States Therapy was developed by John Watkins, Ph.D and Helen Watkins M.A. in the 1970s to treat traumatized clients. Ego States Therapy combines elements of psychodynamic psychotherapy and hypnotherapy to look at various parts of a client's personality.  The Watkins developed Ego States Therapy to work with traumatized clients.

IFS (Internal Family Systems) Therapy was developed by Richard C. Schwartz in the 1980s.  Similar to Ego States Therapy, IFS also looks at various aspects of a client's personality. Schwartz, who is a family therapist, began to notice patterns in his work as a family therapist, including certain alliances and conflicts between family members, which were similar to various parts of an individual client's personality. Similar to Ego States Therapy, IFS was developed to work with traumatized clients.

How Does Parts Work Therapy Work?

Regardless of whether a psychotherapist uses Ego States Therapy or IFS, she uses Parts Work to explore the various aspects of a client's personality.

Parts Work Therapy

IFS and Ego States Therapy practitioners believe that everyone is made up of various personality subparts that might be in conflict with each other or might be aligned (similar to individual family members who might be either aligned or in conflict with each other).

Each of these parts has their own individual perspectives, beliefs, thoughts and feelings. 

These parts are often unconscious, which makes it difficult to work with on your own before you're familiar with Parts Work.

The goal of Parts Work Therapy is to identify the various parts related to the client's presenting problem, engage with each part compassionately, resolve conflicts between parts and integrate the various parts so they work together in a healthy way.

Example of Parts Work Therapy   

The Client's Presenting Problem:

The following example,which is a composite of many cases with all identifying information omitted, is a simplified illustration of Parts Work Therapy:

Joe's presenting problem is that he feels scared and conflicted about whether to take a new job.  

Part of him would like to take the new job offer because he would make more money and he would advance in his career. But another part of him is afraid he will fail if he takes the new job.

Parts Work Therapy

The Parts Work therapist's job is to help the client to explore and identify the various parts involved in the presenting problem.

There can be many different types of parts and combinations of parts involved in any given presenting problem.  This example represents a simplified illustration where there are three parts involved (in many cases, there are more than three parts).

Using Parts Work Therapy,  Joe and his therapist identify three parts of himself that create his inner conflict:

• A Younger Child Part:  A six or seven years old frightened child part

• An Inner Critic Part: A part that developed around the age of seven that internalized the clients' critical parents

• A Caretaker Part: A part that developed in the client's early teens who has a compassionate attitude towards the client

Joe discovers that the younger child part of himself is frightened to make a change. He also realizes that this is the part that tends to get frightened whenever he is considering making a change.

He also discovers that the inner critic part is adding to the younger child part's fear by engaging in negative talk like, "You're not good enough to take this other job. You're better off sticking with the job you know, even though you're making less money, because if you take the new job, you're going to fail. Stick with what's familiar so you're safe."

Joe recognizes that this inner critic part, which integrated his critical parents, also developed early in his childhood. 

His Parts Work therapist helps Joe to see that, even though this part comes across as critical, it also has "good intentions" because it's trying to protect Joe from the possibility of failure.  

Joe identifies the caretaker part of himself which developed during his teenage years when he had to fend for himself most of the time because his parents were preoccupied with their own problems. Since he couldn't rely on them to help him, he had to develop (on an unconscious level) this caretaker part to help him through difficult situations.

Joe discovered in Parts Work Therapy that the caretaker part integrated aspects of several important people in his life including his high school basketball coach and his English teacher.

Joe's Parts Work therapist helped Joe to have a dialog with each of these parts so he could understand them better. Then, his therapist helped to facilitate a discussion among the three parts so he could understand their dynamic together and how their ongoing dialog created inner conflict for him.

Through these discussions, Joe's Parts Work therapist helped Joe to befriend and speak compassionately to his inner critic. 

He let the inner critic part know that he understood the inner critic's primary goal was to protect Joe from failure and disappointment. However, he needed the inner critic to step aside temporarily so he could make a decision about the new job offer.

In his dialog with the inner critic, Joe assured the part that he wasn't getting rid of him--he was merely asking him to take a back seat temporarily. 

In saying this, Joe recognized that there were aspects of this critical part that could be useful (without the criticism) to help him in the future. 

Parts Work Therapy

For instance, the inner critic part tended to be careful and cautious. If that part could be softened so it was no longer critical, it could be valuable in another situation that was risky. However, in the current presenting problem, Joe knew objectively that he would most likely succeed in the new job--he just didn't feel that way because of the conflict between the parts.

Once the inner critic part had a chance to be heard, it was willing to step aside, as many parts are often willing to do when asked to do so. That allowed the caretaker part to soothe the younger child part so that Joe no longer felt conflicted about his decision.

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

The example above, which is a simplified version of this type of therapy, illustrates how Parts Work Therapy can help you.

The client identified the presenting problem. Then, the Parts Work therapist helped the client to identify the various aspects of himself that were involved with the problem.

If the same client presented with a different problem, he might identify a different set of parts.

Parts Work Therapy Can Be Done Online

Once the parts were identified, the client discovered how each part functioned individually as well as how they interact with each other. He also realized how a certain part, the inner critic, was getting in the way.  

At the same time, he realized that no part is bad and no part is meant to be discarded or gotten rid of because every part has good intentions, even though they might be going about things in a distorted way. The problematic part just needs to be worked with so it can function in a healthy way.

Once Joe was able to ask the inner critic to step away, he was freed up to allow the caretaker part to nurture the frightened child part so that Joe could make the decision that he objectively knew was best for him.

Once Joe's dilemma was resolved, he could choose to end therapy or he could remain to deal with the underlying trauma that created aspects of these parts. It would be his choice.

There is more to Parts Work Therapy than can be presented in a blog article, but I hope this gives you an idea of how it works.

Conclusion

Parts Work Therapy recognizes that everyone is made up of many aspects.

Various parts work might together in a harmonious way while other conflicting parts need to be identified and worked with for the well-being of the client.

Parts Work Therapy

There are no bad parts.

As in the example above, there might be parts that need to temporarily step aside to work through the presenting problem. Sometimes this is easier said than done, especially with recalcitrant parts that are attempting to protect the client but who function in skewed way.

In the simplified example above, for the sake of explaining Parts Work Therapy, there was only one part that needed to step aside, but in many cases there might be many parts.  

Sometimes there are several parts and they function in a blended way so that each one needs to be identified separately, determine how they function together and how they might be in conflict with other parts.

Parts Work usually isn't accomplished in just one or two sessions. Depending upon the client, the presenting problem and the parts involved, it could take months or longer.

Parts Work Therapy can be used in combination with any other type of therapy, including psychodynamic therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, AEDP, hypnotherapy and other modalities.

As previously mentioned, Parts Work Therapy, both Ego States Therapy and IFS, was developed for trauma, but it can be used for any problem.

An important aspect of Parts Work Therapy is that, once a client becomes attuned to their parts, they can do aspects of the work on their own.  

I have had many clients who became adept at identifying their parts and having dialogs with these parts, including asking a particular part to step aside temporarily.

Getting Help in Parts Work Therapy

If you have been unable to work through problems on your own, you could benefit from getting help from a Parts Work therapist.

Parts Work Therapy

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who does Parts work so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

I have over 20 years of experience helping individual adults and couples to resolve their problems.

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.

See my other articles about Parts Work Therapy:

How Parts Work Therapy Can Be Empowering

How Parts Work Can Help You to Be More Creative

Understanding the Different Aspects of Yourself That Make You Who You Are

Is an Unconscious Part of You Running Your Life?

Discovering and Giving Voice to Different Parts of Yourself

 

Why is Family History Important in Psychotherapy?

New psychotherapy clients, who have never been in therapy before, often ask why therapists ask about family history as part of the beginning phase of therapy.

Talking About Family History as a First Step in Therapy

Why is Family History Important in Psychotherapy?

Here are the main reasons why asking about family history is so important to the success of therapy:

• Family Dynamics: The family dynamics often reflect how someone in that family sees themself and how they interact in their relationships with others, including romantic relationships. Family dynamics, which are internalized at an early age, often remain unconscious until someone begins therapy and learns to see connections between their early experiences and their adult relationships (see my article: Children's Roles in Dysfunctional Families).

• Attachment Patterns: Attachment patterns developed at an early age tend to affect adult relationships. Similar to internalized family dynamics, attachment patterns are often unconscious so that a client is often unaware of it until they develop insight about the affect of these dynamics in therapy (see my article: How Your Attachment Style Can Affect Your Relationship).

Attachment Styles Develop Early in Childhood

• Transmission of Psychological Trauma: It's not unusual for there to be unprocessed trauma that gets transmitted from one generation to the next in a family. When an individual gets help in trauma therapy, they can see the origins of their trauma and process the trauma so it no longer affects them and it doesn't get passed on to the next generation (see my article: What is Intergenerational Trauma?).

• Learned Behavior: Individuals often learn patterns of behavior early in their childhood. They might not be aware they learned this behavior, including how to express emotions, how to deal with stress and how to interact with others, until they become aware of these dynamics in therapy. During therapy their therapist helps them to make connections between their current behavior and what they learned (explicitly or implicitly) early in life (see my article: Developing Skills to Manage Your Emotions).

• Genetic Factors: Certain mental health conditions have a genetic component. This includes anxiety, depression, ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), autism spectrum disorder and other mental health conditions. Knowing about the possibility of genetic factors can help a client to understand their risk for developing these conditions, help with early detection and make informed mental health treatment decisions.

How Do Psychotherapists Use Family History Information?

Different therapists use family history information in different ways.

As an Experiential therapist with a specialty in trauma therapy, I like to get a family history during the early phase of therapy.  This is part of history taking which, depending upon what the client wants to work on, includes family history, current family dynamics, the history of other significant relationships as well as the history of the presenting problem.

By having the family history, the client and I can work towards:

• Identify recurring patterns

• Understand the context of the client's current problems

• Develop coping skills, strategies and internal resources to do trauma therapy.

• Process the trauma using various forms of therapy (see below)

Conclusion

Getting a family history during the beginning phase of therapy is an important first step in helping clients to overcome their emotional challenges.

Experiential therapists know the client's awareness and insight isn't enough to heal (see my article: Healing From the Inside Out: Why Insight Isn't Enough).

Insight is only the first step before the therapist helps clients to work through and overcome their problems through a variety of Experiential Therapy including:

• EMDR Therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

• Somatic Psychotherapy
  

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Hypnotherapy (also known as Clinical Hypnosis
  

• Parts Work Therapy (Internal Family System also known as IFS as well as Ego States Therapy)

• Contemporary Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (also known as depth therapy)

All of these Experiential therapy modalities are effective types of therapy depending upon the client and the presenting problem.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you're struggling with emotional issues you have been unable to resolve on your own, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional.

Getting Help in Therapy

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a skilled psychotherapist so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experience working with individual adults and couples.

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.

How Can Unresolved Trauma Affect Your Ability to Feel Self Compassion?:

For many people showing compassion towards others is a lot easier than feeling self  compassion (see my article: Developing Self Compassion as an Essential Part of Trauma Recovery).

The Impact of Trauma on Self Compassion

If self compassion is a problem for you, you might wonder what makes it so difficult for you.

This is the topic of the current article.

Why is Self Compassion Difficult For So Many People?

There's no one answer, but after more than 20 years of experience working with clients who have difficulty with self compassion, I have seen certain common themes that come up over and over again:

• Past Unresolved Traumatic Experiences: People who struggle with self compassion often didn't get much needed compassion when they were growing up. Many of them were emotionally neglected and abused and these children were powerless over their circumstances. As children, they learned to see themselves through eyes of abusive and neglectful family members so, over time, they came to believe they were unworthy. And  these feelings carried over into adulthood. Although, intellectually, they might understand they deserve self compassion, they don't feel it emotionally.

• A Tough Inner Critic: The aftermath of traumatic experiences often brings a tough inner critic who tells traumatized individuals that they're not worthy of love, self compassion or much of anything that is positive. This inner critic, which is often a part that gets internalized from abusive parents, gives a constant stream of negative messages to them  (see my article: Overcoming Your Inner Critic).

• An Inability to Identify and Feel Their Own Suffering: Many people who were abused or neglected as children aren't able to identify their own suffering. Many of those same people have difficulty even identifying their emotions--positive or negative. When they were growing up, their coping strategy was to use emotional numbing to blunt the pain that would have been too overwhelming. Although emotional numbing was probably an adaptive strategy at the time, it doesn't disappear when these people become adults. Many of these individuals continue to be cut off from their feelings, including feelings of self compassion (see my article: Growing Up Feeling Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated).

• Societal Expectations: In many cultures, including the U.S., which was founded on the idea of rugged individualism, individuals are expected to be "strong" and any emotional vulnerability is considered a "weakness" (see my article: Common Myths About Psychotherapy: Going to Therapy Means You're "Weak").

How to Overcome Problems With Self Compassion

Unfortunately, traumatized individuals aren't able to overcome problems with self compassion on their own.  Their inner critic is often too strong for them to overcome it on their own.

Overcoming Problems With Self Compassion

They need help from licensed mental health professionals who have the training and experience to help them. But not all therapists are trained to help clients to overcome trauma, so it's important to ask any therapist you're considering about their training and experience with regard to trauma.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

If you're struggling with unresolved trauma, you owe it to yourself to seek help from a trauma therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

There are specific therapy modalities that have been developed to help clients to overcome trauma. 

These modalities include:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy

• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)

• Somatic Experiencing
  

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

These trauma therapy modalities, which all come under the broad term of Experiential Therapy, are among the most effective types of therapy to overcome trauma (see my article: Why Experiential Therapy is More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy).

So, rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who is a trauma therapist so you can free yourself from your traumatic history.

About Me

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

I am a trauma therapist with over 20 years of experience helping individual adults and couples to overcome trauma.

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.

Trauma Therapy: Combining EMDR Therapy and Parts Work to Overcome Emotional Blocks

As a trauma therapist, I have found it especially helpful to combine EMDR and Parts Work to help clients overcome trauma experiences.

    See my article: Parts Work Can Be Empowering)

There are many ways that EMDR and Parts Work can be used together in trauma therapy. 

In this article, I'm focusing on how the combination of Parts Work and EMDR therapy is beneficial to overcome a blocking belief.

What is a Blocking Belief in EMDR?

A blocking belief is a negative thought or belief that acts as an obstacle to integrating the trauma during trauma therapy.

Combining EMDR and Parts Work Therapy

Blocking beliefs are often longstanding. 

Often these beliefs developed during early childhood. They can originate in memories, family experiences, cultural issues, relationships or other experiences.

Examples of blocking beliefs include (but are not limited to):

• "I'm not good enough."
• "I'm unlovable." (see my article: Overcoming the Pain of Feeling Unlovable)
• "I'm powerless."
• "I don't deserve to get better."

As long as a blocking belief exists, it can get in the way of processing the trauma in any type of therapy.

I usually provide clients with psychoeducation about blocking beliefs before we begin processing the trauma because these beliefs are so common.

That's also when I talk to clients about using Parts Work therapy--either Ego States therapy or IFS (Internal Family Systems) to help overcome the blocking belief.

Combining EMDR and Parts Work to Overcome Trauma

During Parts Work therapy, I help clients to identify the various aspects of themselves, including the part that contains the blocking belief, the part of them that wants to get better and other parts that might be involved.

Once these parts are identified, the client can understand how the blocking belief is preventing them from progressing in therapy. They can also understand the positive parts of themselves that they can nurture and strengthen.

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette illustrates how Parts Work can help to overcome a blocking belief in EMDR therapy:

John

John sought help in EMDR therapy to overcome complex trauma stemming from a childhood history of emotional neglect.

He was motivated to seek help in trauma therapy because he could see how his childhood history was affecting his adult relationships--both personal and work-related. 

Combining EMDR and Parts Work Therapy

In his personal life, he tended to choose partners who were hurtful and emotionally avoidant--people who were similar to his parents. 

At work, he wasn't able to assert himself to get a well deserved promotion and a raise because he lacked confidence.

His trauma therapist explained EMDR therapy to him. She also told him that during EMDR, it was common to find a blocking belief that becomes an obstacle to working through the trauma.

With his therapist's help, John identified the blocking belief, "I'm not good enough." After identifying this belief, John realized it had been an obstacle in his prior therapies. 

In the past, whenever John tried to work through his childhood trauma, he was overcome with a deep sense of shame and then he would drop out of therapy (see my article: Shame is at the Root of Most Emotional Problems).

He never understood before why he was overcome with shame to the point where he felt he had to leave therapy prematurely (see my article: Why Do Clients Leave Therapy Prematurely?).

It wasn't until his current trauma therapist helped him to identify the particular part of himself that carried this blocking belief that he began to understand why he left therapy in the past before his problems were worked through.

His current therapist helped him to give voice to this part, which John called "the sad boy." 

Using Ego States therapy, which is a type of Parts Work therapy, his therapist helped John to use the adult part of himself that felt strong and positive to show compassion and kindness to the "sad boy" part.

Over a period of time, John was able to transform the "sad boy" part so he could process his traumatic memories with EMDR therapy because he no longer had the blocking belief.

Combining EMDR and Parts Work Therapy

The work was neither quick nor easy, but John made steady progress with Parts Work therapy and EMDR and, eventually, he worked through his history of trauma so it no longer was an obstacle for him.

Conclusion

Combining EMDR therapy with Parts Work is an effective strategy for overcoming blocking beliefs.

Although I have focused on the combination of EMDR and Parts Work, Parts Work can be used in combination with any type of therapy.

Once the blocking belief part is identified, the trauma therapist helps the client to work with this part using other positive parts to transform the blocking belief so it is no longer a problem.

Getting Help in Trauma Therapy

Regular talk therapy usually isn't enough to help clients to overcome trauma, especially complex trauma (see my article: Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective Than Regular Talk Therapy?).

If you have been struggling with unresolved trauma, you could benefit from working with a trauma therapist who combines EMDR and Parts Work therapy.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who is who is an experienced trauma therapist.

Once you have overcome your trauma history, you can live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

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

I work with individual adults and couples.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many clients to overcome trauma (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

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.