The Goals of Experiential Family Therapy Would Not Include:

SDI Productions / Getty Images

What Is Experiential Therapy?

When we call up of therapy, talk therapy mostly comes to mind. Experiential therapy on the other hand, like the name suggests, is a form of therapy that involves immersing yourself in a certain experience.

This form of therapy uses tools like role-playing, psychodrama, music, poetry, arts and crafts, props, animal interactions, and outdoor excursions.

"Experiential therapy is distinguished by its accent on action. Action is important because when a person is actual engaged, they have access to psychological elements they wouldn't have access to otherwise. Action can likewise be a precursor to change—by acting in a new style, a person tin think in new ways," says Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, a professor and clinical psychologist in New York City.

Types of Experiential Therapy

There are several types of experiential therapy. Romanoff outlines some of the types below:

• Drama therapy: As well known as psychodrama, drama therapy is the most mutual class of experiential therapy. It involves re-enacting or re-creating conflictual situations in a prophylactic setting, to help you lot release whatsoever negative or suppressed emotions associated with that state of affairs.
• Music therapy: Music therapy uses engagement with music to create positive changes in emotions, thoughts, and beliefs.
• Art therapy: Art therapy uses artistic artistic processes and tools to assist y'all work through conflicts and become more enlightened of yourself. Tools in art therapy include painting, sculpting, and cartoon.
• Play therapy: This class of therapy, which is usually used with children, capitalizes on therapeutic play to work through psychological difficulties that children may not be able to express through words.
• Outdoor therapy: Outdoor therapy includes wilderness therapy and risk therapy. It combines wilderness excursions, adventure activities, and therapy sessions.
• Animal-assisted therapy: Interacting with animals and caring for them can be therapeutic. Animal-assisted therapy sessions tin include animals like dogs or horses.

Techniques

The techniques used can vary depending on the blazon of experiential therapy.

"Psychodrama is perchance the arroyo that people near associate with experiential therapy. It involves re-creating crucial situations from past and present relationships with the goal of working on specified therapeutic outcomes in the form of a drama," says Romanoff. She describes an example of this therapy technique beneath.

Psychodrama

In psychodrama, the person develops a situation that occurred in their life into a play. The situation may be one that occurred many years ago. The psychodrama brings it into the here and now, where it can exist actively dealt with.

Psychodrama gives the person the opportunity to play a function and re-enact the state of affairs in a safe infinite. It creates a infinite between fantasy and reality, which allows the person to develop new means of responding to the situation. With each re-enactment, the person moves toward a more adaptive way of responding to the state of affairs.

This method likewise allows the person to pause in the middle of a situation, in order to process what just occurred. Participants are typically provided with clear boundaries between fantasy and reality. For instance, an area or a rug may be used to mark the "phase."

What Experiential Therapy Can Help With

These are some of the mental health conditions experiential therapy can assistance care for:

• Anger management
• Anxiety
• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
• Behavior disorders
• Compulsive behaviors
• Depression
• Eating disorders
• Grief
• Mood disorders
• Phobias
• Relationship and family unit conflicts
• Stress
• Substance abuse
• Trauma

Benefits of Experiential Therapy

These are some of the benefits of experiential therapy:

• Situational resolution: Experiential therapy tin can help you lot explore or re-create traumatic or conflictual situations from the by and sympathize your response to them. In add-on, information technology tin can help you release or process any negative emotions you were harboring and promote healing.
• Emotional processing: An intensity of emotion may emergee in this type of therapy that tin can be unique and allows for more in-depth emotional processing, says Romanoff.
• Reduced abstention: Y'all may tend to avoid thoughts, people, places, or conversations related to hard situations you've experienced. Confronting them can help you bargain with them and reduce avoidance.
• Altered perspectives: Psychodrama allows you to experience a situation from the point of view of others involved. It tin can help you meet their perspective and sympathise their motivations. Over time, it can pb to credence, forgiveness, and love.
• Creative expression: Artistic forms of experiential therapy, such as music therapy, art therapy, and drama therapy, tin help you lot express yourself creatively.

Effectiveness

Romanoff says that this form of therapy, while not for everyone, has been found to be effective in certain conditions.

Romanoff lists some factors that contribute to its effectiveness:

• The articulation of needs and negative perceptions as a pivotal step in change.
• The stages of advanced emotional processing people feel, which tin include assertive anger, self-soothing, hurt, and grief.
• The idea that "emotion changes emotion," where the emotion elicited in this type of therapy changes how one feels about an outcome or conflict in their life.

Things to Consider

This form of therapy may not be advisable for people who are cognitively dumb, physically unable to participate in the therapy, or experiencing symptoms of psychosis, says Romanoff.

Experiential therapy tin involve a great deal of intensity. Earlier yous undertake it, it is recommended that you watch videos of typical sessions so y'all tin form authentic expectations of what this therapy involves and make informed decisions nearly your participation, says Romanoff.

How to Become Started

If you have a preference for a sure type of experiential therapy, such every bit art therapy or creature-assisted therapy for instance, wait for a licensed therapist who has training and feel in that course of therapy.

Since experiential therapy can exist immersive and intense, it is important to piece of work with someone you can trust and develop a strong therapeutic rapport with. In addition to verifying the therapist's credentials, you should ensure that you lot feel safe and comfy working with them.

A Give-and-take From Verywell

Experiential therapy is an immersive, hands-on form of therapy that uses expressive tools and modalities. Information technology can help you explore hard situations, process your emotions, and encounter things from a unlike perspective. Information technology can also promote creative expression.

Thanks for your feedback!

Thanks, {{course.email}}, for signing up.

There was an mistake. Please try again.

Verywell Heed uses but loftier-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our manufactures. Read our editorial procedure to acquire more almost how we fact-check and keep our content authentic, reliable, and trustworthy.

1. Berdondini L, Elliott R, Shearer J. Collaboration in experiential therapy. J Clin Psychol. 2012;68(2):159-167. doi:ten.1002/jclp.21830

hillsaimanch.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.verywellmind.com/experiential-therapy-definition-techniques-and-efficacy-5198815

Share this post