Recently, I saw a client who had made a significant and rapid shift from being depressed, anxious and uncertain to being very self confident after only ten sessions of Affect Regulation Therapy. I thought this was a good illustration of how the client had done the bulk of his self development work using a variety of psychotherapies over several years and how Affect Regulation Therapy could complete the personal development process in an elegant way for the client.
So I asked the client to give a personal account of his therapy experience and this is what he wrote:
‘I believe that I am a victim of child trauma, which until recently, has been untreated, incorrectly treated, then well treated but with little effect.
About 25 years ago, the career stresses were so overwhelming that for the first time in my life I engaged in the abuse of prescription as well as recreational drugs. This led to anxiety attacks & adopting a psychiatric approach which involved minor tranquilizers as well as antidepressants. The whole exercise was a total disaster and made my symptoms worse. I decided to drop the meds and shrinks and learn to live with it.
About 10 years ago, the relationship woes that were sitting on top of my inner child injuries were so severe that I decided to disconnect from everyone who was causing me distress & had ever caused me distress.
As horrible as this move was for all concerned, it was the beginning of my healing.
My first long term therapy involved family systems study, mindfulness and inner child work, all of which I feel was on the right track but not powerful enough for my “condition”.
Next I tried ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), which is a fine method – I find it useful for everyday stresses – eg if the bills are hard to pay, I can practice cognitive defusion as a way of accepting the stress without being overwhelmed by it.
All of these methods enabled me to realise that I was living in a house with bad foundations, understanding & accepting the situation with grace, and getting on as best I could.
What Affect Regulation Therapy enabled me to do was to rebuild the foundations.
I didn’t just soothe my inner child. I was able to empower him. Now I feel assertive….and liberated. Not in an arrogant way – actually, I find that I have more empathy for others, because I am not as worried about my inner child. My question to those with a similar history would be: “Why accept, when you can rebuild?”
This testimonial illustrates how complementary Affect Regulation Therapy can be to other psychotherapies and how ideal for clients who need more long term work because of childhood trauma. The rapid and dramatic changes in the client are made possible because of his previous self development work. He had already laid a good foundation on which to build.
It is good for clients to know that any personal development work they do is always a building block towards future wellbeing. It is helpful to use different therapy methods. And Affect Regulation Therapy can be an ideal method to move the client to next level of wellbeing and health after other psychotherapies.