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So much of our culture says we have to whip ourselves into shape—be mean to ourselves—in order to make changes. Through our Better Body Esteem® groups and client work over so many years, we’ve taught clients how to feel better about themselves instead.
It’s about being compassionate with ourselves, and gentle. This is a long-term, successful approach to making changes and living our best lives.
I’ve used many modalities in my therapy practice—besides talk therapy—that incorporate other parts of the body and brain, including yoga therapy, spirituality, guided meditation, collage, and more. Yet, there was still something missing from my toolbox as a clinician.
Clients would grow and progress to a certain point, and then there might be a bit of stuck-ness. A lot of times there was underlying trauma. While I was trained in general trauma treatment, and I address trauma a lot through yoga and the mind-body connection, I would also sometimes feel the need to refer clients to other practitioners (e.g., for EMDR).
Sadly, a lot of clients just don’t want to tell their story all over again and establish a rapport with someone new, so they might not necessarily follow through.
I’ve had clients with trauma tell me about a type of therapeutic intervention that was working well for them, and I decided it was time to add this important tool to what I can offer. They described it as “one and done,” although I’ve since learned it can take up to four or five sessions, with the average being three.
ART® stands for accelerated resolution therapy, and it incorporates a technique called voluntary memory/image replacement. As someone who has always been visual, I appreciate how ART® therapy uses images and pictures. You don’t need to be visual to benefit, but it’s a unique opportunity you don’t often get when you talk in therapy.
I’m now trained in basic ART® therapy, which means I can practice it, and I already am.
What I liked about the training was that we, as clinicians, also had to be the client and practice on each other. You may already know about my traumatic fall when I fractured my patella (kneecap), and it was remarkable what came up for me about this, and what cleared.
The classmate acting as my therapist asked if I felt pain in my knee and I didn’t, but over the course of doing that work, I would feel pain, then it would leave; I would feel pain, then it would leave.
It’s only been a short time since the training, but these effects are staying with me—this sense of release and having cleared something that had been stuck. In fact, last week when I visited a friend and colleague, she noted that I seemed so “unencumbered.” Together we went tubing down the river and hiking up and down all over hers and nearby properties. I didn’t give one thought to my knee—other than to be in awe of the missing angst.
You can use ART® therapy for grief, loss, stress, and anxiety—things that affect us all on a daily basis. I’m looking forward to helping clients heal their emotional pain and set aside those things that have kept them stuck and not able to move forward in their healing and recovery journeys.
I’m excited to share ART® therapy with people. If you’d like to learn more, visit their website, speak to your own therapist, or contact me.