Corrective Emotional Experiences in Therapy Help to Heal Trauma

In a prior article, What is the Corrective Emotional Experience in Therapy?, I discussed how a corrective emotional experience in therapy can occur when a client has an experience with the therapist that challenges the client's negative beliefs about him or herself and provides a new emotional experience that's healing.  

Corrective Emotional Experiences Help to Heal Trauma

A Corrective Emotional Experience in Therapy and a Change in Attachment Styles

A common example of this is when an adult client, who grew up feeling emotionally neglected, invisible and unloved by his parents, has a felt sense that his therapist cares about him.  

Usually, when people grow up emotionally neglected or abused, they develop an insecure attachment style.  Although insecure attachment styles are difficult to change, corrective emotional experiences can help someone to change from an insecure to a secure attachment style, which is called earned secure attachment (see my articles: What is Your Attachment Style?, How Your Attachment Style Affects Your Relationship and Developing a Secure Attachment Style: What is Earned Secure Attachment?)

In other words, this person, who grew up with a sense that he was unlovable, can have a new transformative experience in therapy.  So, not only does he feel understood, but he also has a visceral experience of being deeply cared about by his therapist.  

What Are Corrective Emotional Experiences in Your Personal Life?

In addition to transformative emotional experiences in therapy, corrective emotional experiences occur in everyday life, but people often don't notice them or can't feel them.

You might wonder how this is possible and you might ask: Wouldn't it be easier to feel these experiences in everyday personal interactions than it would be in therapy?  The answer is: It depends.  Some people are really adept at picking up on corrective emotional experiences, especially when they occur with a loved one, and others are not.

For instance, John, who grew up in a family where he felt unloved and neglected, believes he's unlovable and these feelings carry over into adulthood.  He doesn't realize that he wasn't the problem--it was his parents who had problems expressing their love for him.

As an adult, John married a woman who is affectionate, kind and attentive to his emotional needs.  At first, he's uncomfortable with taking in her love because he's not accustomed to feeling loved.  But, over time, he learns to take in her love and affection and these new emotional experiences with his wife disconfirm the way he felt about himself since childhood.  This is a transformative experience for John--whether he's consciously aware of it or not.

Other people have a harder time with corrective emotional experiences.  For instance, Sara, who was also emotionally neglected as a child, still feels unlovable even though she knows her spouse loves her.  In this second example, Sara's traumatic childhood has had such a profound effect on her that her spouse's love makes no difference in the way she feels about herself because it's split off from how she feels about herself.  

What is Experiential Trauma Therapy and How Does It Help Clients to Experience Corrective Emotional Experiences in Their Personal Lives?

Experiential trauma therapy is a bottom up approach (as opposed to a top down approach in regular talk therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy and other forms of talk therapy).  The bottom up approach is an embodied therapy that provides an integrated mind-body connection (see my articles: What is a Trauma Therapist? and Why is Experiential Therapy More Effective Than Talk Therapy to Resolve Trauma?)

The bottom up approach used in experiential trauma therapy focuses on the limbic system of the brain where traumatic memories are stored and where they get triggered (see my article: What's the Difference Between Top Down and Bottom Up Approaches to Therapy?).   

Clinical Vignette:  

The following clinical example illustrates how experiential trauma can provide a corrective emotional experience that is transformative and helps to heal trauma:

Ed:

After attempting on his own to work through childhood trauma that continued to affect him as an adult, Ed began seeing a trauma therapist who used an experiential approach to therapy.

As Ed explained to his therapist, he had pervasive feelings of not being lovable his whole life--even now that he had a loving wife, close friends, and a successful career with colleagues who cared about him.  

In other words, there was a disconnect for Ed between what he knew logically and what he felt emotionally, and no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't reconcile this disconnection, which was frustrating and discouraging for him.

His therapist recommended that they use EMDR therapy to work on Ed's sense of feeling unlovable.  With EMDR, Ed focused on his feelings of being unlovable and, gradually, he worked through much of his history of early trauma related to emotional neglect.  

Over time, as he continued in EMDR therapy, he developed an understanding, both mentally and emotionally, that his feelings of being unlovable developed because his parents were unable to express their love and affection for him. 

He also realized that they were unable to express their love because they grew up in home environments where they also felt unloved and so did their parents (see my article: Psychotherapy and Intergenerational Trauma).

Part of Ed's experience in EMDR therapy included grieving the loss of love he experienced as a child.  He also grieved for his parents' loss and the generations of families before them who also experienced this emotional loss.

Since his trauma therapist integrated EMDR therapy with other types of experiential therapy, like AEDP and Parts Work therapy, Ed's sense of himself changed to being a person that his wife and friends loved.  It was no longer just a thought or concept in his mind--he had a visceral sense of being lovable, which endured for him even after his therapy.

Conclusion

A corrective emotional experience comes in relationship with others--whether it's with someone in your personal life, like a significant other or a close friend or family member, or it's with a psychotherapist where you have a good therapeutic relationship and where you feel cared about.

Many people who have experienced developmental trauma, also known as unresolved childhood trauma, are unable to take in corrective emotional experiences, even when they have people close to them who love them.  

These people might know logically that their loved ones are now providing them with loving experiences that they didn't have when they were children but, due to their unresolved trauma, they're unable to feel it.

Experiential trauma therapy provides an opportunity to work through unresolved trauma and allows individuals to integrate corrective emotional experiences in an embodied way so they can have a new sense of feeling loved and cared about on an emotional level.  

Getting Help in Therapy

There are many people who spend their entire lives trying to overcome a history of trauma on their own without success.  As a result, their trauma continues to have a profound negative impact.

If you have tried on your own to overcome a traumatic history, you're not alone.  Help is available to you (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of Asking For Help).

If you work with an experiential trauma therapist, you can free yourself from your history so you can live a more fulfilling life. 

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article:  The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Therapy).

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.

How Experiential Therapy Can Help You to Discover Your Personal Strengths

In my prior article, Discovering Your Personal Strengths in Therapy: You're Much More Than Your Traumatic History, I began a discussion about seeing beyond your traumatic history to discover your personal strengths (see my article: You're Not Defined By Your Diagnosis and Discovering Your Personal Strengths in Psychotherapy).

How Experiential Therapy Can Help You to Discover Your Personal Strengths

As a trauma therapist in New York City, many clients come to see me to overcome their history of trauma. As I'm helping them to overcome their trauma, I'm also assisting them to discover their personal strengths (see my article: A Strengths-Based Perspective in Psychotherapy).

As I mentioned in my prior article, it's important to be able to appreciate the personal strengths that got you through difficult times as well as that you can use these same strengths to cope with whatever challenges you're dealing with now.

Fictionalized Clinical Vignette: How Experiential Therapy Can Help You to Discover and Use Your Personal Strengths:
The following fictionalized clinical vignette, which is representative of many cases in therapy, illustrates how an experiential therapist can help a client to explore and use his personal strengths:

Ed
Before Ed began experiential therapy, he had been in conventional talk therapy for several years trying to overcome the effects of the childhood trauma he experienced as a young child.

Ed explained to his new therapist that he was grateful for the work he did with his prior therapist in talk therapy, but he felt no relief from the traumatic effects of childhood emotional neglect and abuse.  This is why, at the suggestion of a friend, he was willing to try experiential therapy.

From the very first session in experiential therapy, Ed noticed the difference in the way his new psychotherapist interacted with him.  Whereas his former therapist, who practiced conventional talk therapy, said very little in his sessions, his new therapist, who was interactive and dynamic.  She also talked about working in a collaborative way so that the therapy would be meaningful and effective for Ed.

In addition, she explained the different types of experiential therapy that she did with individuals, which included EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy, AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy), Somatic Experiencing, and clinical hypnosis.  She also explained that her original training was in depth psychotherapy so she had an ability to work deep and do brief therapy at the same time.

Ed could tell from his new therapist's facial expressions, gestures and demeanor that she already seemed to care about him, even though they were just having their initial consultation.  This surprised him because he never experienced this before in therapy.

His therapist emphasized that, in addition to helping him to resolve the effects of his traumatic history, she thought it was equally important to help Ed to explore and experience his personal strengths on an emotional level.

When Ed thought about it, he realized that he never really thought about his personal strengths.  He knew, on an intellectual level, that he had somehow survived the effects of his parents' abuse and neglect, but he never explored how he was able to do this in his prior therapy.

As he thought about it more, he told his new therapist that friends and other relatives who knew him often commented to him that, considering his family history, he accomplished a lot in terms of his success at college and in his career.

But Ed only experienced their praise as mere words.  He knew they were sincere, but he didn't know how to relate to what they were telling him.  He didn't think he had done anything out of the ordinary with regard to surviving his childhood history and being successful.

After his therapist heard his traumatic history, she said she was amazed that he had accomplished so much, and she asked him how he did it.

Ed seemed confused at first, and he said that he didn't know what he did to succeed at college and in his career, "I just did it.  I didn't think it was such a big deal."

Even though, at that point in therapy, Ed couldn't identify his personal strengths, he began to get curious.

In order to help Ed to appreciate that he had personal strengths that helped him, his therapist recommended that he think of his early history and his subsequent successes as if they were about someone else.

After thinking about it for a few minutes, Ed said that he had a close friend, who had a similar family history and similar accomplishments.  Ed told his therapist that when he thought about his friend, he admired his friend for being able to overcome his early challenges so that he could succeed in his career.  But when he thought about his own history and accomplishments, he wasn't able to appreciate them as much as he appreciated his friend's, which made him curious as to why he couldn't appreciate his efforts.

Over time, Ed talked about how both of his parents, who were physically abusive, also told him repeatedly from a young age that he would never amount to anything.  Although on some level, he believed them, he said, he was also determined to be independent of them.

As a result, even though he had low self esteem, he persevered in his studies as if his life depended on it.  And, in many ways, he felt that his life did, in fact, depend on being able to get a good job so he could move out of his parents home.

Since he did well in high school, despite the ongoing abuse and neglect, he was able to get a scholarship to an out of state college where he excelled.  From the time he moved out to go to college, he never moved back home.  He only went for brief visits.

His therapist helped Ed to see that two of his personal strengths were his determination and perseverence despite the challenges at home.  She helped him to appreciate these personal strengths as well as his other strengths, on a visceral emotional level by having him identify the emotions that he felt when he was able to feel good about these strengths and where he felt these emotions in his body.

Initially, this was difficult for Ed because he was so accustomed to minimizing his strengths and accomplishments as being "no big deal."

But one of the things that made it easier for him to eventually appreciate his personal strengths was how his therapist reflected back to him, on a emotional level, how delighted she was that he had these strengths to help him to excel.  He was able to see in her eyes and in her face the genuine caring and delight--something he never experienced with his own parents.

Over time, Ed had what is called a "corrective emotional experience" with his experiential therapist (see my article:  What is the Corrective Emotional Experience in Therapy?).  In contrast to his early experience with his parents, who were angry, abusive and neglectful, Ed experienced his therapist as being genuinely caring, warm and empathetic.  Compared to his prior therapist, his new therapist was emotionally accessible and enthusiastic about his well-being.

In addition, rather than just having an intellectual understanding of his problems and his personal strengths, Ed was able to develop an ability to actually feel these experiences on a core emotional level. He learned that, in order to make positive changes, being able to experience his innermost, primary emotions was essential for transformation.

These experiences in therapy were new and exciting for Ed, and he looked forward to his therapy sessions with his experiential therapist as he continued to make progress in therapy.

Conclusion
Many clients, who have a history of trauma, are almost exclusively focused on the effects of their trauma and their emotional problems.

While, ultimately, the goal of therapy is to help clients to overcome their trauma, along the way, as part of experiential therapy, it's important for clients to also recognize their personal strengths that allowed them to survive and, in many cases, to thrive despite the obstacles.

Not only does it help clients to appreciate how their strengths helped them in the past, it also helps them to recognize that they have these internal resources to call on in the present.

An experiential therapist is focused on helping to undo the aloneness that clients experienced during their traumatic history by being emotionally accessible to clients as they work through their trauma. She also helps clients to access their personal strengths.

In addition, she strives to help clients to have a new corrective emotional experience in therapy that is healing to clients.  All of this helps clients to overcome trauma and make positive changes in their lives.

Getting Help in Experiential Therapy
If you have been unable to resolve your problems on your own or you feel frustrated by intellectual insight that doesn't lead to a healing experience, you owe it to yourself to get help in from a licensed psychotherapist who practices experiential therapy (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

Experiential therapy, like AEDP, is an evidence-based therapy that is effective and can lead to a transformation in your life.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, Somatic Experiencing and Emotionally Focused therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

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.

What is the Corrective Emotional Experience in Therapy?

Most contemporary psychotherapists today agree that intellectual insight alone isn't enough to repair traumatic experiences.  Many of them would agree that a corrective emotional experience in therapy can go a long way to healing trauma and is a much more transformative experience for clients than developing intellectual insight alone (see my articles: Experiential Therapy Can Lead to Emotional Breakthroughs and The Therapist's Empathic Attunement Can Be Emotionally Reparative For the Client).

What is the Corrective Emotional Experience in Therapy?

What is the Corrective Emotional Experience in Therapy?
The concept of the corrective emotional experience in therapy was developed by Franz Alexander and Thomas M. French.

The corrective emotional experience in therapy occurs when the client has an experience with the therapist that challenges old distorted beliefs and perceptions.

For instance, if a man grew up with an emotionally abusive or neglectful mother, he might have the distorted belief that "all women are abusive and neglectful, and they can't be trusted."

If this same man comes to therapy and he experiences a woman therapist as being empathetic, warm and trustworthy, he is having an experience with his therapist that challenges his belief about women.    He is now having a new experience that he and his therapist can explore further in therapy.

In other words, he is having a corrective emotional experience that can be healing for him and help him to grow.

A Fictionalized Vignette as an Example of the Corrective Emotional Experience in Therapy

Sam
As an only child, Sam grew up with parents who were preoccupied with their own lives and who didn't have much time for Sam.

Sam spent most of his time with his nanny, who provided basic care, but who wasn't especially warm or caring.

Even before Sam was born, his parents knew that they wanted a child who would eventually follow in his father's footsteps.  Sam's father had his own law firm, and he expected that any child of his would eventually join the firm.

From an early age, Sam was aware of his parents' wishes.  Although he loved to paint and he wanted to be an artist, he hid his passion for painting from his parents because he knew they would disapprove.  This made Sam feel invisible to his parents (see my article: Growing Up Feeling Invisible and Emotionally Invalidated).

Instead of showing his parents how passionately he loved to paint, he pretended that he wanted to be an attorney because he knew this was the only way that his parents would approve of him.

Whenever his parents talked to him about law school, Sam would pretend that he was interested and his parents were happy and praised him.  But hiding such an important part of himself and pretending to be someone that he wasn't made Sam feel ashamed, guilty, lonely and a fraud (see my articles: Understanding the False Self: Part 1 and Understanding the False Self - Part 2: Getting Help in Therapy).

As a result of pretending to be what his parents wanted him to be, Sam believed that no one would accept him for who he is and, if he wanted to get along in the world, he would need to pretend to be someone else.

Throughout law school, Sam felt depressed.  He did well academically because he was smart, but his heart wasn't in it.

Sam's parents never seemed to notice that Sam was unhappy.

Sam felt that his parents didn't see him for himself at all and had no idea who he really was.  They only cared that he gratified their wishes.

After he joined his father's law firm, Sam was miserable.  He hated the work and didn't feel suited for it.  He longed to paint and to be his own person.

Beyond casually dating, Sam avoided getting into a relationship because he didn't believe that any woman could appreciate him for who he really was.

What is the Corrective Emotional Experience in Therapy?

When it became too much of an emotional strain, Sam began therapy.

At first, Sam was afraid to express his true desire to become an artist.  He feared that his therapist would be like his parents and would show disdain for his passion.

But one day when he was talking about how miserable he was as a lawyer, his therapist asked him what he would really like to do, and Sam took a risk and told her that he loved to paint and he had always wanted to be an artist, but he feared displeasing his parents.  At that point, he discovered that his therapist worked with many different kinds of artists, and he was relieved.

This discussion opened up a much larger discussion for many sessions about how Sam believed that no one could really care for him as he really is and he needed to pretend to be someone else (see my article: Overcoming the Fear that People Won't Like You If They Knew the Real You).

What is the Corrective Emotional Experience in Therapy?

As Sam opened up more with his therapist, he sensed her compassion and genuine interest in him and his passion for painting and this allowed him to be more open and vulnerable with her (see my article: Why is Empathy Important in Psychotherapy? and The Holding Environment in Therapy: Maintaining a Safe Therapeutic Environment For the Client).

As they talked about what it was like for Sam to experience a caring, open and compassionate individual who was genuinely interested in Sam for who he really is--rather than who he thought he had to pretend to be--Sam had an emotional breakthrough.  This was his corrective emotional experience and he realized that his belief that no one could ever accept his true self was a distortion.

Sam mourned in therapy for what he didn't get from his parents.  He also continued to allow himself to be genuine and vulnerable with his therapist, which was emotionally healing.

Eventually, not withstanding his parents' disapproval, Sam began a Master in Fine Arts program to pursue his love of painting.

He also began dating and felt for the first time that he might meet a woman who would care for him as his true self (see my article: Becoming Your True Self).

Conclusion
Corrective emotional experiences can occur in therapy when the therapist is empathetic and can provide the client with a new healing experience that challenges distorted beliefs and perceptions.

In order to experience the corrective emotional experience, the client must feel safe enough with the therapist to have a new experience.  For some people, who are severely traumatized, it might take a while to trust the therapist enough to allow this experience to occur.

The corrective emotional experience is a transformative experience for the client and opens up the possibility for big changes and psychological growth.

Getting Help in Therapy
Traumatic childhood experiences are difficult to overcome on your own.

As a result of those traumatic experiences, you might have developed certain beliefs and perceptions about yourself and others that are distorted.

Psychotherapy with a skilled therapist, who knows how to provide a safe and trusting therapeutic environment, can lead to a corrective emotional experience that can transform your life.

Rather than allowing distorted beliefs perceptions to limit your sense of yourself and others, you could benefit from working with an experienced psychotherapist who can help you overcome these obstacles.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I provide an empathetic and supportive therapeutic environment for clients to allow them to have emotional breakthroughs in therapy.

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.