What is this psychoanalytic therapy thing?
See my previous post that describes what brings most people into therapy, “the problem”.
One of the ways we have for helping you create solutions that actually solve for your underlying emotional stress is through psychoanalytic therapy. In many ways this looks like regular therapy (attachment based, relational, emotion and neuroscience informed, etc.) but the main difference is being able to mine the therapy relationship. See, most therapies focus on what you experience with yourself and with others. This is helpful but often a step removed (since others are not in the room during therapy). Because the therapist is a human and you are in a human relationship with them (albeit a professional one) it is possible that you might start to experience some of your automatic solutions that don’t actually solve in reaction to the therapist. When that happens the therapist and you can recognize what’s happening (i.e. interrupt the automatic) and begin to understand how that came about (both of you can explore how you each contributed to the moment) and work to identify what is really being felt and needed. This is called working with transference. Doing this provides opportunity for your brain to rewire.
Mental Health Game Changer TOOL #1: Orienting
The Problem
Most people who come to therapy are stuck in anxiety or avoidance (intense enough avoidance is called depression). These are not choices they’ve made or flaws. Instead they are automated reactions that have been learned and are attempting to solve for an emotional they are feeling. Emotions tell us how we are doing in terms of surviving and thriving and what we need to do to adapt to the moment. Anxiety (a product of fear) alerts us to a perceived threat. But is the threat from the inside (other feelings you’re trying not to feel) or is it from the outside (something in your world that isn’t good for you: a toxic relationship, a negative situation, a demand that’s not sustainable or doable, etc.) or both (often an event triggers memories of a past event, even only slightly related, and we are flooded with the feelings of the past which cloud the present)? Wherever the problem is the current solution of over thinking and vigilance is not solving the problem (ie it’s not taking away the emotions). Instead the anxiety is only adding suffering on top of the emotions.
When that happens people naturally try to get away from the suffering of the extended anxiety with avoidance. They distract themselves. We use all kinds of things to do this. Some of them happen with a level of consciousness (although probably not with mindfulness) and some happen much more automatically: smoking, rage (or other emotions that mask the feelings being avoided), drinking, drugs, shopping, watching TV and movies, pornography, food, focusing more on others than ourselves, hobbies, sex, exercise, cleaning the house, playing on our phone, blaming others, becoming judgmental, getting paranoid (unconsciously putting the problem outside of us making others the threat so we don’t feel the emotions we have on the inside), becoming black and white in our thinking, causing a scene, becoming obsessive or compulsive, attributing our feelings to other people (saying they are the ones feeling this way instead of us), etc. These distractions help for a bit but don’t solve the emotional problem we have so when the distraction is over the anxiety returns (and sometimes if what we used to distract also caused problems or went against our personal morals we can feel ashamed or guilty on top of anxious which is already on top of the original emotional problem).
The Solution
What we do here at Analog is help you develop solutions that actually solve. We target your nervous system, memories and core emotions to create real change. A lot of therapies are too hot or too cold. Therapies that are too hot are all about the intesity and the cathartic experiences. This creates relief but actually creates an addiction cycle over time where the system learns it has to build up to a breaking point to release. It doesn’t learn how to release in a measured way that allows the nervous system to metabolize the stress. Additionally, too much too fast can re-overwhelm the nervous system causing shut down. So too hot can create three problems: you learn that the only way to have relief is the mountain top, you feel terrible all over again and you don’t create actual change.
The too cold are the therapies that just talk and think. They stay away from the heat of the visceral emotions. We know from neuroscience that without feeling something viscerally we can’t change how our brain is wired. And it really helps to feel something with someone else so they can help us co-regulate the feelings. Our brains need experience to cause neuroplasticity (the academic word for the fact that our brain can rewire) and emotion is what provides experience. So all talk will equal more knowledge and likely some emotion but little change to the automatic stuff.
We work on that Goldilocks solutions of not too hot or too cold. We help you build resource in your nervous system, the ability to feel calm and peace so that you can take on, slowly and little by little, the stress/pain/suffering/trauma you have. By going back and forth between resource and stress and by using a bunch of different ways of engaging those things (from both Somatic Experiencing and Psychoanalytic Therapy) we help you tackle the mountain you hold inside without major catharsis but with deep change and relief.
Game Changer Tool #1 : We start with attention in vs. attention out.
Step one is awareness. Can you notice how you are? Often we are so stuck in our routine of anxiety or avoidance we are unaware of the actual emotional problem that we are trying to solve (with a solution that doesn’t solve).
Step two is then moving from noticing the inside (attention in) to noticing your environment (attention out). This simple tool is a game changer. When you move from “attention in” to “attention out” you give your nervous system a break and a chance to reset. This is needed for being able to handle the stress inside eventually. This move of attention out comes from Somatic Experiencing and is called Orienting. You can orient by just slowly looking left to right or right to left, trying not to think but just taking in the visual of where you’re at. Notice colors, textures, lighting, images, shapes, etc. whatever catches your eye. Do this for a minute or two. If you start to feel negative because you’re environment is bothering you then stop and utilize touch instead. Notice a texture by feeling it and focusing on how it feels on your skin. By doing this you likely will feel more present and grounded but that is not what you’re trying to do - this is not about grounding. What you’re trying to do is move from attention in to attention out. This allows you to start to be able to have a hand you can put in the elevator to stop an automatic solution that doesn’t solve.
Somatic Experiencing: SIBAM
Somatic Experiencing is not as well known as some other therapies like EMDR or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or even Psychoanalysis but it is something that continues to amaze me with how versatile and effective it is. I want to tell you about just one piece of Somatic Experiencing, SIBAM.
SIBAM stands for Sensations, Images, Behavior, Affect and Meaning. These act as names for some of the basic channels of information we can draw on to understand life.
Sensations - these are the visceral experiences that you feel inside your body. You can feel them in your head, jaw, face, throat, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, chest, back, stomach, hips, legs, feet, etc. They can feel like tightness, looseness, whoosing, knots, vibrations, tingling, activation, energy, etc. They can have various temperatures associated with them (hot, cold) and can feel good, bad, neutral or some kind of combo.
Imagery - these are the images in the mind’s eye that can include what feels like random abstract imagery all the way to distinct memories being recalled.
Behavior - these can be movements, impulses for movements, impulses for other types of motion
Affect - feelings and emotions
Meaning - thinking and narrative making, creating understanding and meaning
What’s really helpful about Somatic Experiencing is that it helps people learn to tune into these various channels and shift between them in order to best help their nervous system and their body recover from the sufferings of life in a way that feels organic and right. We are over cultivated to use thinking to deal with life but learning to privilege our other information channels really expands our world and our potential for recovery and growth. Perhaps you want to take some time today and just see if you can notice each channel in you?
We want change and Don't want change at the same time
Many want to use left brained strategies and mechanisms to try to solve for right brained problems. We have issues with feelings, regulation, judgment, hate, stress, concentration, hopelessness, etc. and we want to be able to think about those feelings/body-based phenomenon without having to feel them. Though thinking is less vulnerable feeling than feeling emotions is it is also like trying to move a large pile of dirt with a teaspoon. It’s also kind of like trying to scratch the itch on your arm by blowing on it. By staying with left brain only strategies we reveal how we want change and we don't want change at the same time. Part of the issue is that we can feel like we don’t know how to feel our feelings and move through things towards change without becoming overwhelmed and shutting down or blowing up or feeling dysregulated, totally not ourselves, depressed or toxically ashamed, etc. That is not your fault!! We need more specific help in therapy for how to engage our right brain and body in ways that are sustainable for our nervous system. I have found that Somatic Experiencing is a real gem when it comes to providing some of these important steps with dignity. With it’s emphasis on expanding out from just talking to tracking and expressing sensations, images/memories, behavior and movement, affect and emotions and meaning (SIBAM), and doing so in a bit by bit kind of way that aids the nervous system in recovering and strengthening, Somatic Experiencing offers something incredibly simple and incredibly powerful!
Insight is not the end, it's the beginning.
Insight is not the end of the journey, it's the beginning. We have a current focus in our culture of defining ourselves. In our search for authenticity we can often allow ourselves to be labeled and then limited by the insights we discover. Whether it's the Strengths Finder, MBI, Enneagram, a book that's resonated, etc. the insights you discover about how you've been wired are invaluable! But don't mistake them for how you have to be. Don't get me wrong, understanding and acceptance of yourself as you are is hugely positive but not because it's the destination but because it starts the journey. Understanding and acceptance allows you to become present which is what is required to access yourself beyond what's been patterned inside. Some might say this is the beginning of true spirituality. So, even though the amount of change or growth possible is contextual and it might require some help/education you have the ability to grow, even starting today, all humans do.