More About Specific Therapies.
Observed and Experiential Integration.
OEI is especially beneficial for those whose nervous systems have been activated by life events, anxiety, trauma, or other reasons. The nervous system is designed to alert us when we are in danger, wether emotional or physical. After some such experiences, the fight/flight/freeze response can become generalized. This means that it becomes triggered by smaller, less threatening situations that in fact feel very large and threatening to our brain, body, and emotion. OEI can help calm the nervous system so that an individual feels the ability to decipher between threat, discomfort, and safety.
Often times, people who complete treatment with OEI find that they are less triggered by things that happen in their daily life and able to engage in activities, relationships, and peace once again.
Emotion Focused Family Therapy.
EFFT is especially beneficial for parents and families but is also used to help people connect to themselves at a deeper level. Wether it is you, your child, adolescent, teenager, or adult child who is the client, this approach provides many wonderful tools to bring home. These tool help strengthen relationships, lessen difficult behaviours, and increase a child/adolescent/adult child’s ability to regulate their emotions. When I see children or youth, I encourage their parents to become part of the process, meeting with me occasionally to bring these tools home. How much more powerful it is when a parent can apply therapeutic tools on a daily basis; the results are magnified and the relationships deepened.
There are times individual adult clients experience the need for validation of emotion and restructuring the way their family of origin approached emotion. EFFT provides some emotion focused parenting tools that can be of great benefit to clients re-parenting themselves. This can encourage stronger and more adaptive relationships with emotions and abilities to self-regulate.