If you’ve read about my experiences with previous therapists, you’ll understand why I was on a quest this year to identify the ingredients for meaningful and effective therapy. As a client with anxiety, neurodivergence, high sensitivity, and complex trauma, here’s what meant the very most to me in therapy for 2023.
Tag: Bottom-Up Therapy
Bottom-up therapy approach, modalities, survival responses, trauma, EMDR, IFS, healing, brain, therapists, therapeutic relationship, somatic
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Is EMDR effective for trauma therapy?
“The goal of EMDR treatment is to rapidly metabolize the dysfunctional residue from the past and transform it into something useful.”
Dr. Francine Shapiro
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What does it mean to be a trauma-informed therapist?
“Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think… After trauma, the world is experienced with a different nervous system. The survivor’s energy now becomes focused on suppressing inner chaos, at the expense of spontaneous involvement in their lives.”
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
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The Most Important Qualities of Effective Therapists
“Study after study shows that the most important factor in the success of your treatment is your relationship with the therapist, your experience of ‘feeling felt.'”
Lori Gottlieb
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Dissociation, Depression, Freeze, and Shutdown: Dorsal Vagal Responses to Trauma
“It is when we feel as though we are trapped and can’t escape the danger that the dorsal vagal pathway pulls us all the way back to our evolutionary beginnings. In this state we are immobilized. We shut down to survive. From here, it is a long way back to feeling safe and social and a painful path to follow.”
Deb Dana
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Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Therapy for Trauma: Which is better?
“In my readings, I discovered some evidence that traditional talk therapy might not actually be particularly effective for C-PTSD. In The Body Keeps the Score, van der Kolk writes about how talk therapy can be useless for those whom ‘traumatic events are almost impossible to put into words.’ Some people are too dissociated and distanced from these traumatic experiences for talk therapy to work well. They might not be able to access their feelings, let alone convey them. For others, they’re in such an activated state that they have a hard time reaching into difficult memories, and the very act of recalling them could be retraumatizing.”
Stephanie Foo
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Understanding Complex Trauma: What is C-PTSD?
“You might have feelings of shame, unworthiness, or helplessness. Perhaps you feel plagued by anxiety or believe that you don’t belong in this world. These kinds of thoughts and feelings might lead you to withdraw from relationships in order to avoid further rejection or hurt…The painful emotions of complex PTSD are remnants of your past. More importantly, you can heal.”
Dr. Arielle Schwartz