more than just talking: a layered approach to therapy for layered humans
I’ve recently been seeing some posts on social media where people share that they’re “over” talk therapy and talking about their challenges. While it makes a tonne of sense that therapy can feel like a fit or not during various phases of our lives, it’s also got me reflecting lots about the ways in which therapy is at times reduced to just talking when it can be so much more.
The Power of Language
As a lover of words, a long-time writer, and serial reader, I may be a little biased about the power of language! But, let’s start there. On a universal human level, using words to communicate our thoughts, feelings, desires, opinions and insights is a tool, and even a skill, that serves us in countless ways.
We’re relational creatures and words are one significant way that we connect with others and make sense of the world and our experiences in it. So often, people tell me how powerful it can be to say things out loud, to share parts of their stories with someone else, to relay things that have previously gone unsaid or unacknowledged, and also how meaningful it can be to receive words of affirmation, validation and empathy.
The Limits of Language
However, as someone who, myself, is sometimes prone to overthinking and over-explaining in my own life, I also intimately understand that words can fall short - that talking and thinking may not get to the heart of a wound, emotion or desire, and that we can feel extremely limited if we fall into using only the words-based part of us…intellectualizing, for example, what would benefit from being sensed and felt, or telling part of our story over and over again without connecting to the emotional component of it.
We’re not just our narrating minds, after all… we’re also our physical bodies and emotions. And so, there are aspects of our experience that are, inherently, out of the reach of words.
Even a basic understanding of neuroscience shows us that there are various parts of our brains responsible for these layers of who we are - for cognition, emotions, impulses, actions. And so, I want clients to know that psychotherapy can be so much more than just talking or thinking about our difficulties and that we can benefit in big ways from a layered approach to making sense of and navigating challenges.
Therapy That Addresses Our Whole Selves
Approaches to offering therapy that engage our higher or front brain (which is responsible for what’s called executive functioning, like logic, reason, awareness, verbal communication and planning) are often referred to as “top-down” approaches. We’re using a top-down approach when we tap into cognition or thinking, when we talk about our experiences in order to gain new insights, and when we practice awareness, map out plans, look at situations from various angles, and assign meaning. Essentially we use our front brain capacities to affect changes in how we feel and how we see and engage with the world, which can be incredibly useful.
But, when addressing challenges in an exclusively top-down manner, we might also be left feeling at some point like something important is missing, because other aspects of us aren’t being tended to.
An integrated approach to therapy weaves together the various parts of us and holistically addresses how we experience ourselves, others and the world.
“Bottom-up” ways of working target the lower parts of our brains which relate to our emotions, bodily senses/impulses/responses, and memory-making/processing.
Here are just a few simple examples of bottom-up, experiential practices that can be built into a therapy session and are intrinsic to many therapy modalities:
tuning into a felt-sense of what is happening in the body in the moment
using our bodies in various ways to explore how that might create shifts in our experience ex. moving slowly or vigorously, making sounds such as humming or sighing
engaging in tactile experiences of the body ex. placing our hands on our chest while we breathe, tapping, clasping and unclasping our hands to explore tension and release
expressing emotions nonverbally
I see therapy as a space where we’re not just talking about our experiences, but where we’re also having experiences that can be transformative – learning to attune to ourselves in new ways, for example, noticing not just what’s happening in our thoughts but also in our bodies and with our emotions; feeling attuned with by our therapist, which goes beyond being seen and heard but has to do with - as some put it - feeling felt; allowing emotions to be an embodied process.
Because we’re complex humans with complex systems interacting constantly with each other, it makes sense that we might find ourselves wanting more out of therapy than talking and thinking through our difficulties.
If you find yourself feeling all talked out, I recommend sharing your experience with your current therapist, or when getting to know a new potential therapist, in order to see if a more integrated approach is something they offer. We are thinking, feeling, communicative, sensing beings and, for so many of us, engaging these layers can be a vital part of an impactful therapy process.
