Why thinking and talking your way through problems doesn't always work.
Many times I hear new clients tell me, "I've been in talk therapy for years, and I'm still not where I want to be." I feel for these folks. I get it. These people know they need to try something different, because what they've done thus far hasn't worked. But what constitutes as different?
The difference is in which area of the brain your therapist treats. Most traditional talk therapies are getting at the front of your brain, using the frontal lobe. You talk about stuff. You use logic and try to think about things differently as you verbally process. This can be helpful. The problem is, many of the things that bring us to therapy aren't rooted in the front of the brain; they're rooted in the back of the brain. When we want transformation, it's much more effective to root out the actual problem.
The back of our brain, and in particular our amygdala (threat assessment) and our hippocampus (memory), holds our reactivity to distress. This distress comes from our previous experiences, and our brain takes up strategies to cope with this distress. This can result in symptoms like anxiety, depression, addiction, trauma flashbacks, etc. The brain is an unbelievably complicated structure, don't get me wrong. Every brain is unique and every person's array of symptoms is complex in origin. This is not simple stuff. Most basically though, many of the problems you'll bring to a therapist are not truly rooted in the front of the brain. If they were, you probably would have been able to think them through, and come to a resolution about them. Our western society believes that if you can think, you are. But we are forgetting the back of our brains, and our bodies, with this limited view. Our bodies and the back of our brains hold testimonies of what we have experienced. We store the distress in these parts of us. We forget that in traditional talk therapy.
What to do, then? How do we get at the real problem? It's the difference between top-down therapy (leading with thought) versus bottom-up therapy (addressing the root cause). When we use therapies that are focused on the body and the emotions, we can eventually get to the process that traditional talk therapy starts at. Once the distress is resolved in the problem area, talking through, challenging your thoughts, and reorienting your mind works beautifully well.
Here are a few examples of bottom-up therapies:
-Neurofeedback and Biofeedback
-EMDR
-Somatic (body-based) therapies (Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing, Yoga Therapy, Animal-Assisted Psychotherapy)
-Parts work therapies (Internal Family Systems, Ego State Psychotherapy)
-Expressive Arts therapies (Play Therapy, Sand Tray Therapy, Drama Therapy, Art Therapy, Dance/Movement Therapy)
-Polyvagal Theory-informed therapies
-Attachment-focused therapies
-Emotion-focused therapies
And more!
Written by Mary Beth Stevens, M.Ed., LPC, BCN