When talk therapy isn’t enough

Most therapists are trained to practice empathic listening, to provide unconditional positive regard for our clients, to summarize and validate and share occasional nuggets of wisdom we’ve acquired along the way. And for some people, this is absolutely what they need at this stage of their life and personal growth. Maybe they don’t have many close friends or healthy family members to bounce the ups and downs of life off of. Maybe it’s nice to know that one hour a week is fully about you and your inner experience. Maybe you’re a verbal processor and it helps you understand yourself to process out loud to someone who will hear you out without judgement.

But there are instances in which traditional talk therapy isn’t going to cut it, and the reason is because we store our traumas and lived experiences (good and bad) in our bodies. We feel emotions deeply in our bodies (unless we are disconnected from that as a protection or we haven’t ever learned to listen to it). So it makes sense that cognitive work alone won’t touch some of those deeply rooted feelings and beliefs.

This is why I love attachment based work so much! I use EMDR to help clients reprocess trauma memories and shift unhealthy beliefs about self, and I use EFT ton help couples connect with their feelings, attachment wounds and longings, and to organize and make sense of it all while offering a corrective emotional experience in session. I help clients deepen and heighten emotion, get in touch with that feeling in their bodies, and make it come alive in the room so we can create lasting shifts.

So not everyone needs trauma and attachment work at every stage of their journey, but if you find that talk therapy isn’t helping with deeper problems, this may be why! We can’t fix a problem that lives in the body by way of the mind.