My technique includes experiential therapy for stress and anxiety management, relationship issues, depression, and trauma resolution, to name a few issues I work with from my office in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, CA. Experiential therapy emerged from the Humanistic movement in psychology, and is focused on the “here-and-now”. Going beyond traditional talk-therapy, I practice a somatic, attachment-theory-based approach where greater awareness and change is facilitated through experiencing the mind-body connection and examining relationship patterns. While I support you to follow emotions through to their completion, a deep sense of what is real and true will direct the work further. This approach includes me being a warm, emotionally engaged therapist, not a “blank-face,” which offers you the chance to be seen, heard, and understood in a deeply transformative way.
I am trained in AEDP. Accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy was started by Diana Fosha, and helps you regulate your emotions through a somatic process of experiencing body sensations and being witnessed in a secure relationship with the therapist. This allows feelings that were unprocessed or invalidated to have a “voice” and be transformed into vital energy. I am a Level 1 AEDP therapist and have participated in over 50 consultation group sessions where AEDP is taught through close examination of videotaped sessions.
Experiential therapy brings resolution to trauma because the feelings and the inhibited adaptive response (such as fighting or fleeing) from the situation can be stored in the body and cause spacey, frozen, anxious, or alert feelings, or patterns of distrust in relationships. The stored emotions can seem like a wall, protective and isolating. Experiential therapy will allow the wall to soften.
Stress reduction is another benefit from experiential therapy because the stored emotions of developmental trauma and long term stress can build up and become depression or anxiety. By transforming the emotions, the cycle of depression or anxiety can finally end.
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Jacob Art, MFT459 Fulton St. #107 San Francisco, CA 94102 415-255-2558
