Embracing Experiential Therapy: A Path to Healing

The Shift in Therapeutic Approaches

This past July 4th, I sat around a shaded table, poolside. I watched my son and his friends swim while talking with a handful of other adults. There was another therapist there as well. When therapists attend social events, we often get asked many questions. With two of us present, the conversation was dominated by matters of human existence.

At one point, a man in his mid-50s said, "I like seeing my therapist. I see her maybe once a month now. It's good to have someone to vent to, but there's nothing else left to do. I know what my issues are. Once you know what they are, there's nothing more to really do in therapy." My heart sank.

A huge swath of my patients come to me saying something similar. They express feelings like, "I'm tired of just talking about it. I want to actually do something." There is a shift taking place in the therapeutic landscape. A movement toward models driven by experience accompanies this larger change. I certainly would call myself an "experiential therapist," but what exactly does this mean?

Understanding Experiential Therapy

For much of modern psychotherapy history, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) has dominated the marketplace. There are various reasons for this. However, the explanation of why CBT became so paramount is beyond the scope of this article. For at least the past 30 years, public discourse and popular conceptualization of psychotherapy have been oriented around CBT.

In CBT, the emphasis is on thoughts driving feelings and behaviors. Patients learn practical tools to reframe negative thinking. This is known as the "top-down" approach. However, not all paths toward therapeutic wellness lead through the brain in this way. Some go deeper—into the body, emotions, and even the nervous system.

The Models of Experiential Therapy

Two models primarily occupy the experiential therapy space: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Internal Family Systems (IFS). The two are related in many ways, and I often consider them cousins of one another. Both methods involve engaging with one's issues directly in the present moment, often through the body, emotions, or visualizations. These methods help patients experience and process emotions that are often stuck beneath the surface of conscious awareness.

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

IFS is based on the idea that the mind is made up of distinct parts, each with its own feelings, beliefs, and memories. Some parts carry pain or trauma, while others try to protect us from that pain. In IFS, the client learns to connect with their core Self, a calm, compassionate inner presence that can heal these wounded parts.

This is an internal, experiential process—not a purely intellectual one. Clients often use visualization, inner dialogue, and somatic awareness to build relationships with their parts and release emotional burdens.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

EMDR was originally designed specifically to help people reprocess traumatic memories. However, it is now used to address a variety of mood issues, anxiety disorders, and even chronic pain. EMDR involves bilateral stimulation, like eye movements or tapping, which activates the brain's natural capacity to integrate disturbing memories. Instead of retelling the trauma story over and over, patients process it on an emotional and sensory level. This allows the nervous system to resolve the stuck responses of fear, shame, or grief.

The Transformative Power of Experiential Therapy

While a good CBT or psychodynamic therapist can help people in truly tangible and powerful ways, nothing else feels quite like IFS, EMDR, or the other experiential approaches. In CBT, the change often takes place exclusively outside of the therapy office. Homework is assigned, and when completed with sustained frequency, people feel better.

With experiential treatment, transformative change begins during the session itself. Patients reawaken to long-sleeping, much younger wounded versions of themselves. They reparent their suffering inner children, imagining holding them and whispering reassurance. Patients physically quake and tremble as they finally experience and live the tremors held back during acutely traumatic events.

Repressed, forbidden memories are unlocked and held. People learn to notice how they feel physically in every part of their body. They locate where they are holding trauma and tension. The parts of us that work tirelessly to protect our vulnerable, sorrowful underbellies are offered rest and given compassionate appreciation.

People may experience a literal physical purging of traumatic memories long locked away. Middle-aged parents reach out to the inner children within them, hold their hands, and welcome them back to a safe place, warm with real love and compassion. These experiences cannot be rationalized with or brought on by logical conversation. They are deeply experiential in nature, awakening from imagination, emotion, and places deep within the body.

The Importance of Experiential Models

The change and healing that experiential approaches can bring about are beyond my use of language. Words do little justice to the potency and genuineness of the transformations I have been privileged to witness as part of my work. The realness and efficacy of the work in the experiential side of psychotherapy drive me to focus my career on these approaches.

The testimony of my patients, and the many millions who have come along with them in their own work, speak to the importance of embracing experiential models. After all, talking can only take us so far. In the world of therapy, it's time to actually do something.

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