Experiential Therapy

When appropriate, I use experiential exercises into sessions. Examples are roles plays, visualizations, guided imagery. These are used to assist a person in going deeper into an experience and to bring it more to life to enable them to work through it rather than talk about it and around it, which generally does NOT lead to healing. In relationships, it deepens connection with oneself and with others.

Experiential therapy is about feeling the room and giving each client an experience that suits them best. It's basically "meeting each client where they're at", including mood, disposition and pace.

I was introduced to the radical immediate effectiveness of Experiential, Here and Now Therapy through the writings of Fritz Perls and the work of some of his students with whom I studied and trained in the early 1970's. Experiential Therapy simply means bringing awareness and attention to your experience in the present moment, as it unfolds, with the guidance and support of a skilled therapist, and reporting what you discover. It can be an effective path to healing.

In Experiential Therapy, the client uses their body to recreate or create neurological pathways that eventually can override 'destructive' behaviors that at one point in time were constructive and permitted the client to survive.

Since artmaking is inherently experiential, my graduate training incorporated an understanding of how experiential therapy works to create shifts in people at physical, emotional, and intellectual levels. Experiential therapy involves the use of in-session experiences to initiate positive and integrative changes in the mental images that become a client’s thoughts, feelings, words, and actions. The experiences that are introduced are specific to the client’s unique nervous system patterns.

Jodi's education in Contemplative Psychotherapy as well as her further training in body-centered Play Therapy and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy combines with her personal study of movement practices and expressive arts to create a perfect atmosphere for experiential therapy...beyond just talk.

You’ve been shaped by your experiences, good, bad, and otherwise. Art therapy is an inherently experiential and embodied way to re-work what’s not working and give you greater mastery of what’s going on inside so you can demonstrate greater mastery to the outside world. I am a board-certified art therapist and would love to help you create a new relationship with your experiences! See www.meganvanmeter.com for details about how I help helping professionals in Arizona, Indiana, and Texas.

Experiential Therapy brings the "story" of what's happening into life. Using carefully crafted re-enactments of specific situations w/another person - the argument you had last night, the talk you need to have with your boss, the conversation you wish you had w/ a parent - or connections between different parts of yourself - the parts that are "responsible" & the parts that are carefree. The endgame is to FEEL and KNOW your experience in the HERE and NOW, versus THINKing about things could be.

Hakomi is a type of experiential therapy, which means going beyond talk-therapy to focus on the moment.

I like experiential approaches because it gives us the freedom and ability to experience what is healing in that exact moment.

Do you remember grade school show and tell? The best presentations made you feel like you are having the experience with them, rather than just being told about it. Experiential therapy invites you to bring your experiences to life, so that you get to have a new and empowering experience with an old memory, thought or idea.

Experiential Therapy is experience based processes. It utilizes techniques such as role-playing, music, guided imagery and re-experiences of emotional situations or relationships. Through the processes clients begin to identify the emotions associated with their experiences. I empower clients with these processes to let go of negative feelings, shame, anger and hurt while recreating positive thinking patterns. Experiential Therapy is used to treat trauma, behaviors and debilitating emotions.

I make use of experiential techniques often during my meetings to invite processing of emotions, feelings, thoughts, and narratives, especially those that occur between myself and the participant(s). My study and research of experiential techniques have led me to incorporate these practices with my narrative framework to spur awareness and recognition within participants.

Experiential therapy helps clients to move through layers of understanding their coping styles, emotions, expectations, and beliefs to understand what is at the core of the self and determine more fully what they really need and want. The therapist can help clients process these layers of self through slowly inviting clients to create a deeper understanding of why they behave how they do and create changes.

Experiential therapy offers exercises designed to improve self-awareness, as well as to discover underlying emotions and unconscious beliefs that can better come to the forefront when experienced versus purely thinking about or talking about. It allows for an externalized experience which creates improved understanding for clients, which can then lead to change.

Since art therapy is inherently experiential, my graduate training incorporated an understanding of how experiential therapy works to create shifts in people at physical, emotional, and intellectual levels. Experiential therapy involves the use of in-session experiences to initiate positive and integrative changes in the mental images that become a client’s thoughts, feelings, words, and actions. The experiences that are introduced are specific to the client’s unique nervous system patterns.

There's nothing more memorable than an experience! Using a hands-on approach to therapy is helpful for individuals who are kinetic learners or don't want to sit still any longer. Sometimes this looks like experiencing emotions; other times, it can be a more literal approach. Experiences shape us and define who we are and whom we become; providing low-risk experiences can help rewire the brain to understand an experience, a current commitment, or a future endeavor differently.

Talk therapy is the primary method of my counseling work. However, I maintain that there are "multiple ways to the same goal". We might talk about the content to see if that gets us there. We might also write about it, draw about it, walk about it (internet and tele-space willing*), close our eyes and meditate on it.

I am currently in an intensive Core Training on Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy.

Therapy focused on the here and now. We will focus beyond your verbal experience, what your body is communicating to you and others through body language and somatic feeling (meaning what sensations and information the five senses are giving you about your experience). Sometimes this includes therapy interventions that are not as verbally-based, creating an experience or a roundabout way to getting to deeper feeling and emotions below the surface of what is discussed in conversation.