Psychodynamic
Psychodynamic is a therapy that focuses on a safe holding environment to establish connection. It explores underlying conflicts and patterns in attachment that are repeated and sometimes barrier intimacy and our relationships. Past influences of previous wounds can foreshadow our experiences by recapitulating themselves. It explores defense mechanisms, which are unconscious techniques used to protect ourselves from negative thoughts and feelings. Psychodynamic therapy can increase our ego strength, make the unconcious conscious, and help us decrease unhealthy defense mechanisms.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS is a therapy that focuses on depth and explores our multiplicity, which is different parts of us that feel different ways about the same thing, to navigate internal conflict. IFS encourages us to be compassionate toward all of our parts and curious about them. IFS helps us practice becoming more conscious of separating our higher self from parts that want to protect us that often feel burdened, and getting curious how they came to be. This can create more harmony and well being in our internal system. IFS can be a useful lens to work with anxiety, depression, addiction, and a spectrum of self harm or self-injurious behavior.
Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is a therapy that reprocesses how our brain stores difficult experiences, creating new neural pathways and signaling feelings of safety. It reduces activation and reactivity, distress to triggers, and helps us be more with traumatic material and less in it. This can help us install a new sense of self from the one we felt in a difficult experience. It can also help with impulses, addiction, or other trauma rooted issues.
Somatic Experiencing (SE)
Somatic experiencing explores the states of our nervous system and how we can resource those states. Our felt sense in our body and how we self-regulate with our body is often an important practice for people who are reprocessing trauma or experience hyper vigilance. It explores how our body stores emotions and using the body as a tool for self-regulating and establishing safety. It encourages the connection between the mind and the body and how trauma can be ingrained in both, which somatic experiencing aims to harmonize. Some people who have a nervous system that reacts strongly even when they cognitively know they are safe often benefit from somatic experiencing.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
DBT is a modality that is similar to CBT with components of mindfulness. It has practical steps to focus on stability and manage intense emotions, building emotion regulation. It has practical approaches to communication skills, increasing interpersonal effectiveness. DBT has techniques to help cope with overwhelm, building distress tolerance. DBT emphasizes dialectics, the idea of embracing duality of two opposing parts of ourselves as true.