Therapy Modalities
“The principle aim of psychotherapy is not to transport one to an impossible state of happiness, but to help acquire steadfastness and patience in the face of suffering.”
— Carl Jung
Theraplay
Theraplay uses practitioner guidance to create playful and caring child-adult interactions that foster joyful shared experiences. These activities build attunement and understanding of each other – replicating early relationship experiences that are proven to lead to secure attachment. The interactions are personal, physical and fun – a natural way for everyone to experience the healing power of being together.
Theraplay interactions focus on four essential qualities found in healthy parent-child relationships
Structure: The adult, the leader in the relationship, creates organization and predictability for the child which communicates safety
Nurture: The adult provides caring that can calm and soothe the child in a manner that makes them feel good physically and emotionally
Engagement: The adult is present in a manner that the child experiences being seen, heard, felt, and accepted
Challenge: The adult supports the child in the acquisition and mastery of new skills, enhancing the child’s sense of competence and confidence
Sandtray Therapy
Sand tray therapy is a therapeutic approach used for people who have experienced a traumatic event such as abuse or a catastrophic incident. Although this type of therapy is used most often with children, sandplay therapy also can be helpful for teens and adults.
When utilizing this therapy, psychotherapists use sand trays to assess, diagnose, or treat a variety of mental health struggles. Research shows that sand tray therapy can help increase emotional expression while reducing the psychological distress that may come from discussing traumatic events or experiences.
Child Centered Play Therapy
CCPT is a developmentally responsive, play-based mental health intervention for young children ages 3 to 10 who are experiencing social, emotional, behavioral and relational disorders. CCPT utilizes play, the natural language of children, and the therapeutic relationship to provide a safe, consistent therapeutic environment in which a child can experience full acceptance, empathy, and understanding from the counselor and process inner experiences and feelings through play and symbols. In CCPT, a child’s experience within the counseling relationship is the factor that is most healing and meaningful in creating lasting, positive change. Based on person-centered principles, the overarching goal of CCPT is to unleash the child’s potential to move toward integration and self-enhancing ways of being. Child outcomes following CCPT include decreased symptomatic behaviors and improvement in overall functioning.
Internal Family Systems Therapy
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a psychotherapeutic approach that identifies and addresses multiple sub-personalities or families within each person’s mental system. These sub-personalities consist of wounded parts and painful emotions such as anger, shame and sadness, as well as parts that try to control and protect the person from the pain of the wounded parts. The sub-personalities are often in conflict with each other and with one’s core Self, a concept that describes the confident, compassionate, whole person that is at the core of every human being. IFS focuses on healing the wounded parts and restoring mental balance and harmony by changing the dynamics that create discord among the sub-personalities and the Self.
IFS therapy is used to treat individuals, couples, and families. It is an evidence-based approach that has been shown to be effective for treating a variety of conditions and their symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, phobias, panic, and physical health conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, as well as improving general functioning and well-being.
Art Therapy
Art therapy is an integrative mental health and human services profession that enriches the lives of individuals, families, and communities through active art-making, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship.
Art therapy, facilitated by a professional therapist, effectively supports personal and relational treatment goals as well as community concerns. Art therapy is used to improve cognitive and sensorimotor functions, foster self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivate emotional resilience, promote insight, enhance social skills, reduce and resolve conflicts and distress, and advance societal and ecological change
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) for Individuals
EMDR is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress resulting from disturbing life experiences, i.e. trauma. Trauma results in the information processing system in the brain to be blocked or imbalanced. The blocked system increases emotional distress. The wound festers, and suffering increases. This festering results in symptoms such as anxiety, OCD, depression, panic attacks, and others. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. The detailed EMDR protocols help remove the blocks and activate the body’s natural healing process by utilizing bi-lateral stimulation.
EMDR has been studied extensively, and the results have shown that 84%-90% of sing trauma victims no longer have post-traumatic stress symptoms after only 3-90 minute sessions. In another study, 77% of combat veterans were free of PTSD in 12 sessions. EMDR is a recognized form of trauma treatment and other disturbing experiences by the American Psychiatric Society, the World Health Organization and the Department of Defence. (cited from the EMDRIA Website on 11.30.2020).
Our trained EMDR Therpists utilize the standard protocol as well as an attachment-based protocol. Attachment-focused EMDR uses the relationship between the therapist and the client to support healing. Resourcing and positive beliefs are strengthened to support individuals as they process long-standing trauma. Our qualified therapists use this therapy to help all clients. They find it especially useful when working with sexual assault victims, childhood sexual abuse, childhood physical and emotional abuse, and neglect. To find out more about how this type of therapy can support your healing, contact us at inquiry@turningpointcounsellingcentre.ca
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) for Children and Adolescents
When we have distressing things that happen to us, we have many mixed-up feelings and many mixed-up thoughts. We do not feel good in our minds, bodies, and hearts. It is like carrying bags of mixed-up stuff. When we are so busy carrying all these bags, we do not have space in our hearts, minds, and bodies for the good feelings and thoughts. EMDR can help kids by making those bags smaller or even get rid of them so kids will have space for the good feelings and the good thoughts. When kids receive EMDR, one of the things they do is move their eyes from one side to another while they think about the distressing things that happened to them. Most kids don’t know this, but they actually do this every night during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. EMDR therapists can also use other types of Bilateral Stimulations such as tapping your hands or knees back and forth or they can use sounds or music that move from one ear to the other.
When distressing things happen, the brain has a hard time putting all the pieces together and as a result, things that people say or do or things that kids see, hear, smell or touch can trigger those distressing memories, the mixed-up thoughts, feelings and body feelings connected to those things. EMDR helps the brain put all the pieces together so the difficult stuff can leave us and the good stuff or the things we learned from it can stay so we get stronger. Then, the brain can chew up and digest all the mixed-up feelings and thoughts as well as the stressful feelings we may have in the body.
M-MAT
Multi-Modal Attachment Therapy (M-MAT) brings a fresh, innovative approach to working with children and families struggling with attachment injuries. In a whole-brain strategy, M-MAT blends a number of modalities to target precisely those areas most impacted by the attachment injury: attachment and connection, self-concept, worldview, and skills deficits. The result is a powerful, cohesive, and comprehensive attachment-based therapy.
Multi-Modal Attachment Therapy (M-MAT) is a structured attachment-based therapy with the primary focus on healing attachment injuries* through adult/child interactions, integrating both play and talk therapies. M-MAT is a two-pronged approach with both a play and a talk component. The play component utilizes largely non-verbal, bottom-up, sensorimotor forms of communication, connection and nurturing, including mirroring, rhythm, touch and eye contact.
Sensory Motor Psychotherapy
Sensorimotor psychotherapy is body-based talk therapy, integrating current findings from neuroscience to transform traumatic memories into strengths and resources for the client. It works with developmental trauma, such as maternal lack of attunement, as well as acute or gross trauma like sexual abuse, violence, or verbal abuse. Sensorimotor therapists work on mindfulness and collaboration with the client, repeatedly asking permission to do each experiment or process along the way.
Somatic Therapy
Somatic experiencing is a form of therapy developed by Peter Levine that focuses on how the body holds trauma. Somatic means relating to or involving the body. Somatic practitioners explore through five levels of experience how the body is responding to trauma. These five elements are sensation, images, behaviour, affect and meaning. When the body experiences trauma, the nervous system is engaged to keep the individual safe. When there is a lack of safety for trauma processing, the nervous system becomes overly activated. The individual will remain in a constant state of arousal, followed by feelings of low mood. The fluctuation between the two is why many clients fluctuate between depression and anxiety. By exploring the five levels of sensation within a context of safety, the client can renegotiate their nervous system response. This renegotiation results in the body and mind returning to a state of balance/homeostasis. Somatic therapy emphasizes that we cannot “think” away trauma. To heal, we must address all levels of the experience. When we experience trauma, our upper-level thinking (cortex) is not working, as our nervous system works to keep us safe. It only makes sense that healing would require us to support this safety system and address how it is holding trauma.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Dialectic Behaviour Therapy
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Dialectic Behaviour therapy are commonly used talk therapies that help you identify, challenge and overcome your dysfunctional thoughts, behaviours and emotions. They are focused on the here and now that come up in daily life. Dialectic Behaviour therapy is focused on helping clients regulate intense emotions and improve interpersonal relationships through validation, acceptance and behaviour change. Both forms of therapy have been proven effective in treating depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and other mental health.
Altered States of Consciousness Healing
Altered States of Consciousness Healing: is a form of psychotherapy that involves the use of psychedelic substances such as psilocybin, MDMA and ketamine for the purpose of facilitating therapeutic breakthroughs and insight. This form of therapy has been used to treat many different forms of mental health with proven results with PTSD, treatment resistant depression, addiction and end of life. It can also be utilized for individuals seeking deeper insight into their mental health struggles, OCD, ADD, or who feel stuck or helpless. Currently, the use of psychedelic assisted therapy is accessed through SAP (special assistance program). If you would like to learn more about this new form of therapy please reach out at jodi@turningpointcounsellingcentre.ca
Psychedelic Integration Therapy
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