Therapy
Although at times there can be a fine line between coaching and therapy, the role of therapeutic techniques and methodologies in resolving emotional trauma, grief and phobia is invaluable. A number of modalities are used in this area including brief solution-focused therapy, NLP and the Satir Model.
Brief solution-focused therapy
As simple as it sounds, this approach can be brief because it is future-focused and because it works with the strengths of the client, making the best use of their resources. It can bring about lasting change precisely because it explores solutions rather than solve problems. There are now over 32 published research studies in solution focused brief therapy, which show successful outcomes in 65-83% of cases.
Neuro Linguistic Programming
It's easy to feel as if we have no option but to feel emotions, because we sometimes experience them so suddenly and seemingly out of our control. When a 'trigger' such as a particular sound or event sets off an emotion such as grief, it's a bit like going down a neural super highway at great speed. It happens before we can even think about it.
These automatic responses can be reset so that we do have a choice about whether to feel an emotion or not. The super highway gets 'dismantled' so we can choose which path to go down. So, while in one moment someone may feel grief, in another moment they may feel nostalgic, and in another, a little sad.
When healing emotions, although they change, nothing is ever taken away. NLP processes always work towards creating wholeness. A traumatic memory won't be 'deleted', only the way the person thinks and feels about it will be changed.
Phobias and trauma are able to be healed easily and effortlessly with NLP. The success of NLP techniques in this area has been proven around the world. Examples include British police officers involved in the Lockerbie plane bombing overcoming Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and psychiatrists in Bosnia and Kosovo treating survivors of the Bosnian war with immediate results.
It is possible to identify and change the strategies of anxiety and depression and heal the part of a person that feels that way. When anxiety or depression is experienced, the patterns are already running automatically at an unconscious level. So, in gentle ways, the 'instructions' in the mind can be changed to carry out different strategies and behaviours to create new ways of feeling.
Virginia Satir developed this model of therapy during her 35 year career. A noted American author and psychotherapist, she was known especially for her approach to family therapy. Her legacy is a holistic model for human transformation that is instinctive, practical and very accessible.
Working with her model means we focus on helping the client connect with themselves and become choice makers. We look at the way they cope (Virginia said that someone's problem is not the problem, it's coping that's the problem). Focusing on healing the past, the client then feels a new sense of possibility in the future, and learns that they can live differently now even if they can't change the past.
Significant emphasis is placed on nurturing self esteem because Virginia found that this was vital for enabling people to have healthy happy relationships. Some of the models and tools are used during sessions and some are also taught to the client for their own self-support.
Virginia believed:
- Change is always possible; even if external change is limited, internal change is possible.
- We cannot change past events, but we can change the impact they have on us.
- Hope is a significant component or ingredient for change.
- Appreciating and accepting the past increases our ability to manage our future.
- Feelings belong to us; we all have them and can learn to be in charge of them.
- Most people do the best they can at any given time.
- We all have the internal resources we need in order to cope successfully and to grow.
- People's coping is often their way of surviving a painful experience and should be acknowledged as such.
- Coping is the manifestation of the level of self-worth. The higher one's self-worth, the more wholesome the coping.
- Most people choose familiarity over the discomfort of change, especially during times of stress.
