There is much empirical evidence that explains how our clients achieve lasting change and healing. There are many components to such change. I want to focus on one particular component that I believe is vital to healing. Healing is experienced and you, as the therapist, are invited to learn how to provide healing experiences in therapy.

You don’t have to go too much into neuroscience and behavioral science before you’ll learn that a behavior or thought, once continually repeated, crosses a neural pathway and our response takes the fastest route, like a six-lane highway. We also know that our bodies house our emotions. We know that the amygdala does not have a ‘time stamp’ it does not know if the trauma or negative experience was in the past or is currently happening, assuming the individual has not proactively worked on retraining the amygdala, that the past is the past. With that being said, following a traumatic experience, one may have many negative and disturbing thoughts about themselves. As neurosciences goes, working at a cognitive level is important and necessary. However, we are not in the business of convincing our clients that they have worth. For them to believe in their mind and heart that they have worth and for that belief to change their thoughts and behaviors, then they need to experience that they have worth. This is a task easier said than done. The reason for that is, as the evidence shows, by replaying the event over in their mind has created a six-lane highway, thus their negative belief about themselves is experienced, many, many times. 

Once I assist my clients in learning how to identify their negative core beliefs about themselves, I then ask what evidence supports such beliefs. The kicker is, they give me so much evidence. I was raped, my boyfriend was emotionaly abusive, my dad yelled at me, I was neglected growing up, my postpartum experience was hell and I was hopeless, etc. Our clients experience an emotional embodied experience that literally changed their neural pathway to believe they are worthless and unlovable because they are still living in their past emotions and such beliefs are creating havoc in their lives now. Thus, we need to help our clients change their beliefs and their narratives about themselves by changing the evidence that condemns them. I get really excited about this because it’s so amazing and mesmerizing to see healing actually occur right in front of me. I usually go about assisting them make this change by working with them to establish grounding skills and a ‘SUD’ list. A list of experiences that give evidence or tell the narratives about why they believe they are worthless. I walk with them into their stories, emotionally exposing the hurt. Once there, I invite my clients to say or physically do a behavior that would validate or honor their emotions in that time and place. This creates a new neural pathway that is different from the one before which creates a new core memory cognitively and within the brain. 

A victim of rape may remember being helpless when their attacker was above them. In order to create a new pathway, I encourage them to imagine pushing their attacker off and now their mind and body have experienced empowerment and overcome the belief that they are weak. I’ve had many clients that I’ve invited to say or do something that they didn’t say or do during a past experience. Some clients, who were on the soft-spoken side or were more proper would start explaining their hurt in a raw and vulgar manner. Some shared they want to kick a chair, punch a pillow, push away their attacker, or even scream. Others expressed needing to confirm their experience of feeling trapped and felt the urge to stand up and walk out… then come back in. 

I challenge them to do just that. I’ve encouraged my clients to use an empty chair to kindly talk to themselves during that negative experience. So many times I have invited my clients to say the words they have not allowed themselves to say for years. I activate behavior that they were unable to activate back then because they were too frozen or too afraid. The kicker is, because your emotional brain can’t tell time, activating these new behaviors in present time is neurologically changing the brain structure into perceiving that this is the new reality. When I ask my clients to validate new emotions through throwing the pillow on the floor or talking to an empty chair, they give me this funny smile and report it may feel awkward or weird at first. I reassure them that once they allow their brain to go there, they will be fully engulfed in the experience. Again, It’s so incredible to see the enormous courage of my clients to go back to these vulnerable and exposing events and to invite them to change their experience. And the best part is that it works.

Afterwards, my clients have reported experiencing a significant decrease of their emotional distress and an increase of freedom, peace, and relief. Over time they reported a change in their beliefs, happier daily life, an increase of confidence, and self appreciation. This also gives them the tools to proactively honor their experience out of the walls of the office.

Don’t just talk about change with your clients. Let your office be an opportunity to experience such change. Yes, it can be uniquely awkward to invite your client to stand up in front of you and have them reenact them pushing someone away or your client and slamming the chair pillow while expressing her anger or clients verbalizing what they would “have actually wanted to say”, but what a miracle it is to see the joy and peace that comes after. When they are no longer held down by the past but have found a new reality. There was a moment in the past where my client stated, “I was lying lifeless but now I’ve done something about it. I have created a new memory. This experience changed my negative belief and I know that I’m worth fighting for.” When beliefs change, so does one’s life.