These days, I work in a new and emergent way that I’ve developed over the past eight years. Over this time, I’ve moved into a more secure relationship with EFT while expanding to divergent experiential models. I’ve named this approach Better Together, which supports me in embracing EFT, Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic psychotherapies, personal literature reviews, and recent advances in psychedelic-assisted therapy, particularly, PSIP. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Psychedelic Somatic Interactional Psychotherapy (PSIP) is a relational and somatic protocol for facilitating more profound and rapid processing of attachment trauma at the level of the autonomic nervous system, facilitated by legal psychedelics.
How secure do you feel in your relationship with whatever therapeutic model you are most closely aligned with? Personally, for many years, my relationship with my primary model, EFT, was insecure. I mistakenly and unconsciously believed that if I became good enough at it, I would feel more belonging and better about myself and my relationships. I also felt responsible for caretaking the model, demanding of myself obedience and loyalty.
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
Most of my conversations about my emergent model have been with EFT therapists, and I’ll assume that you have a basic understanding of this model. EFT asserts that it is the therapist’s job to accurately see, understand, and support people at the emotional and process levels as they attempt to find safety and security inside themselves and with others.
By providing accurate and compassionate reflection and guidance EFT therapists provide loving but firm experiences that transform previously unconscious, negative views of self and others. For clients, these experiences are surprisingly different from the misunderstanding and neglect they are used to in society and close personal relationships.
In my learning and teaching experience, EFT is among the most challenging therapy models to master. While expert EFT therapists are awe-inspiring in the power and beauty of their work, few therapists reach this level, even after extensive training.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
I’ll also assume a basic understanding of IFS. Internal Family Systems, now wildly popular, was revolutionary in bridging psychotherapy and spirituality. Core to IFS is the assumption that each person has an entire world of functioning beings inside them, called parts. Like a large family, parts exist in relationship to each other. Some parts are more favored than others, and some are outcast. Each part, to varying degrees, is supportive of, ignorant of, or opposed to each of the other parts.
At some point, even perhaps in a past generation, each part developed its role because it was necessary for survival. No matter how destructive they seem, all parts have positive intentions and fears based on lived experience.
In IFS therapy, people are guided to get to know their parts from a place of curiosity and compassion. When parts finally feel safely seen and supported, they can relax, unburden past traumatic material, update their roles, and allow the person to be more of their true, spiritual Self.
Autonomic Nervous System and PSIP
Finally, I’ll assume some knowledge of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Aptly called the “floor of the mind” by the 19th-century neurologist Hughlings Jackson, it works primarily outside of conscious awareness, regulating the body at a physiological level to maximize chances of survival. The ANS produces a rapid, constant cascade of neural, chemical, and hormonal reactions in response to moment-to-moment fluctuations in levels of perceived safety and threat.
At the highest levels of safety, the ventral vagus branch of one “side” of the ANS, the parasympathetic nervous system, regulates restoration, recovery, and feelings of connection with others, nature, and spirit. On the other side of the ANS, the sympathetic nervous system mediates responding to threat with alertness and preparedness, and full-blown fight or flight in response to present danger. Finally, in the face of overwhelming threat, the dorsal branch of the parasympathetic nervous system sends the body into collapse and immobilization.
In ideal conditions of health and trust in one’s own own body, people are naturally empowered by their ANS to reach for and receive support and restoration and respond successfully to any level of threat as it arises. However, people who have repeatedly experienced threats without solutions, particularly during childhood, can have a more exhausting experience of living. Stuck in chronic stress, panic, and overwhelm, their ANS may no longer be flexibly and regularly returning them to safety and connection.
PSIP works to restore the body’s own sense of goodness and empowerment by providing enough resources, safety, and support for the ANS to “thaw” regions of the body that have been stuck in disconnection, first into body sensations of collapse and immobilization. From there, the body can further unfreeze, coming into previously thwarted or unsuccessful fight or flight responses, then alertness and re-orientation, and finally into new states of being awake, restored, and belonging.
In my conversations, I won’t assume you are familiar with PSIP or psychedelics. While for some people this modality can be invaluable, in general, I don’t promote psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Typically, I believe the use of these medicines is unnecessary for deep healing and transformation to occur, and often counter-indicated. If you’d like to learn more, I recommend PSI’s white paper. You can download it HERE.
