How We Do Therapy.

Charlie had done his fair share of therapy in the past and knew what did (and did not) work for him. He was specifically looking for Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Somatic Psychotherapy, and luckily, we came up in his search results.

Charlie had what he called “high functioning depression” - he still did what he needed to do, but it felt like going through the motions. He felt numb, disconnected, and just sort of beige. Since Charlie had found IFS helpful in the past, we started by exploring the parts of him that were connected to this numb-disconnected feeling.

Charlie noticed a lot of anger towards the depressed part because he saw it as the cause of his unhappiness. He realized this was a cycle; he felt bad, got angry and blamed himself, felt worse, got more angry with himself, and on and on it went until something inside just “turned out the lights” to stop it. We used IFS to work with the parts of him that were caught in this cycle and Somatic Psychotherapy to help him connect to and work with his feelings.

He found tools that helped him work with his nervous system when it went into OFF mode. During this part of our work, Charlie discovered his depression gradually lifting and that things weren’t as beige.

When Charlie recognized the anger, self-blame, shame, and shutdown cycle, he could immediately identify where it came from. He joked that it was a “family tradition,” something that had been passed down for generations.

It wasn’t a family legacy he wanted to be tied to anymore, so we used a combination of IFS and Somatic Psychotherapy to process some of the experiences and beliefs that he had absorbed in his early years. As we did, Charlie realized that something he hadn’t even known he was carrying - a deep sense of inadequacy - was releasing.

Charlie noticed a growing sense of peace and ease within himself as the “old programming and junk code” was updated and replaced. He said it was like he had a full crayon box now, which led us to use art therapy and other embodiment techniques to explore and deepen this change.

Sam had been looking for support for a long time but was worried about finding someone who could emotionally support both herself and Emilio. She was looking for an Emotionally Focused Therapy approach to couples work and was drawn to us because of our emphasis on finding a good fit.

In the early stages of therapy, Sam and Emilio worked on understanding the sequence of their own emotional triggers and expressing their internal patterns to one another. Sam realized that she often felt unimportant and left behind, which led her to reach for Emilio with intensity and anger. Emilio didn't feel able to respond to that, which led him to feel inadequate and shut down.

They began to recognize how their individual patterns impacted their relationship and named this emotional dance “the twister.” They practiced catching and diffusing these cycles, and as they resolved these moments more adaptively, they began to feel more hopeful about their relationship and felt a sense of unity in addressing the twister.

In the next phase of therapy, Sam and Emilio examined their early attachment templates. They began to understand how their childhood upbringing impacted their beliefs about themselves and their needs and fears in relationships.

Emilio had acquired the belief that “if I can’t fix things, I am worthless and unlovable,” while Sam had been taught that she would always be alone because she is inherently broken. They came to recognize how frequently these old templates get replayed in their negative emotional dance and how these enactments exacerbate the breakdown of trust and intimacy.

Step by step, their therapist guided them to express their emotional wounds, witness one another’s experiences, and express compassion to strengthen their bond. These exchanges brought a level of closeness they had not experienced in their life and translated into meeting each other’s physical, sexual, and emotional intimacy needs.

Emilio and Sam no longer felt trapped and distant. They began to formulate and practice new templates for being with each other. They worked on increasing trust and healthy interdependence while allowing for mistakes and forgiveness when needed. It’s like they had a new roadmap for tackling the twister during emotionally charged situations, and conflict was now viewed as an opportunity to come together as a team and deepen their bond.

Max was referred by his physician, who recognized he needed a trauma-informed, mind-body approach. He went through our therapist-matching process and found a therapist who specialized in PTSD.

Besides the recent trauma, Max was psychologically and emotionally well off. He was well-resourced and skilled at working with his emotions, so the Warm-Up phase was brief.

We spent some time building an understanding of how the event had impacted his nervous system and used Sensorimotor Psychotherapy to build a few somatic skills that would allow him to feel confident in navigating his trauma responses.

Together, we decided that a combination of EMDR and Somatic Experiencing would be the best approach to processing the trauma. By the end of the first Somatic EMDR session, Max’s trauma symptoms had significantly reduced, and his muscle twitch was gone. We spent two more sessions working through the traumatic parts of the event, at which point Max’s symptoms had resolved.

We used embodiment exercises to anchor the sense of being safe and at ease that came after processing the trauma and a combination of visualization exercises and EMDR to explore the idea of being out after dark. With his symptoms resolved and a sense of confidence in his ability to be in similar settings without being triggered, Max finished therapy.

Paige found us after many previous attempts at therapy were either unsuccessful or counter-productive. Paige had done a great deal of research and had come to the conclusion that her previous therapists had lacked an understanding of trauma and dissociation, so she went looking for someone more experienced in that area.

Paige’s system used dissociation and somatization as a way to cope with the difficult events in her life, so we started with building insight and understanding into how her internal system was organized.

We used Internal Family Systems (IFS) to map and work with the dissociation and Somatic Psychotherapy to help her reconnect to and feel safe in her body. As she worked with these tools, Paige began to feel less fragmented, and her dissociative symptoms lessened. She also gained confidence in her body and her ability to regulate her nervous system.

Paige had responded well to a combination of IFS and Somatic Psychotherapy, so we decided to continue to use those therapies to process the traumas her system was holding. We used IFS to find and work with the parts of her that held the trauma imprints and a combination of EMDR and Somatic Psychotherapy to help those parts process the traumas.

As Paige repaired and released more and more of the memories, she became more and more connected to feelings of joy and aliveness - what she called “the real me.”

Paige had spent a long time in the fog of trauma and dissociation, so we took time to explore what it’s like to live life as “the real me.” Continuing to use IFS and embodiment approaches, Paige found she connected with herself, with others, and with the world very differently as “the real me.” She felt strong, capable, and joyful and decided to return to university. Then graduate school.

Joyce was referred to our clinic by her neurologist when traditional pain management strategies proved ineffective. After our initial consultation, she became hopeful and enthusiastic about understanding a mind-body perspective and treatment approach to her chronic pain condition.

As we explored the neuroplasticity aspect of chronic pain, Joyce realized that there was a connection between her physical pain and her emotions. Through somatic therapy, she learned how to interrupt her nervous system’s threat response (fight or flight) and calm her body. By doing this, she found she could better mitigate and, in many cases, “turn off” the misfiring pain signals.

Using Internal Family Systems (IFS), Joyce also began to map out the psychological states - such as anxiety, fear, and self-loathing - that were intertwined with the pain cycles. She learned that by actively addressing these parts of her, rather than trying to make them go away, the intensity of her physical pain dramatically decreased over time. She noted, “It’s like I can speak to my body now and let it know I’m not in danger.”

Joyce stayed curious about the triggers of her psychological states and the meaning of pain in her life. Through IFS and somatic mindfulness techniques, we uncovered that getting hurt in the car accident mirrored her history of being bullied as a teenager. She felt like the accident had re-triggered all the emotional wounds and fears of that time, leaving her once again feeling helpless and humiliated.

Using EMDR, Joyce could revisit and emotionally digest these stuck and painful memories and feel a sense of “it’s over now” at a gut level.

We used neurofeedback to reinforce the new, adaptive neural pathways that she had built and breathwork practices to help her access and release naturally occurring strong emotions in daily life. Joyce experiences periodic physical pain but reports that this is short-lived and far less intense. She reports feeling like she is finally in synchrony with her body and has control of pain when it surfaces.

Taylor was specifically looking for someone who understands the depth and complexities of expanded states of consciousness and found our centre through an online directory.

Taylor began to articulate the highlights and lowlights of her psychedelic journey, including moments of insight and enlightenment as well as fear and confusion. With the help of her therapists, Taylor was able to normalize and understand both the mystical and pragmatic elements of her experience. Through art and somatic therapy techniques, Taylor was able to express the things she felt and saw during her journey that couldn’t be put into words.

Bit by bit, she began to make sense of her journey and translated images and symbols into insights about herself. Taylor was also given tools to slow down any flooding of raw emotions that emerged and take steps to protect herself from unhelpful socio-cultural messages. She said it was “like I have a little valve now to dial into and away from my trip.”

During her psychedelic trip, Taylor had become aware of the damaging impact of being abandoned by her father as a child. Using Internal Family System therapy, Taylor was able to identify the young parts of her who continued to carry this pain and helped her process these undigested emotions through EMDR.

Taylor also expressed that she carried this familiar “icky” feeling from her trip without having any context or cognitive memories attached to it. She and her therapist used somatic therapy to access and process this body memory. She was surprised that she could help her nervous system “let go” of nonverbal pain without having a full story attached to it.

Taylor came to understand integration therapy as not just a single event but rather a long-term, gradual, and mindful effort to unfold information gained from expanded states of consciousness into daily life. Using music and somatic therapy, she was able to access and reinforce resources from her journey when she felt triggered at work or home.

Taylor also participated in breathwork groups to help her return to the insight from her psychedelic journey, make new meanings about her inner experience, and release emerging residual pain in small bite-size portions.