AEDP

The AEDP model puts the "therapy" back into the word "psychotherapy"; In the process, you will experience a relieving sense of being gotten and understood. Slowed down emotional work towards healing the havoc wreaked by developmental, complex attachment breaches in life— is one of the hallmarks of an AEDP session. The depth and dyadic contemplative nature of our sessions make AEDP a premier Mindfulness Psychotherapy.

AEDP Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) was developed about 25 years ago by Diana Fosha, PhD to heal the pain and injury of childhood or later trauma.  Here are answers to some question about how AEDP heals elusive emotional pain such as feelings of chronic shame or aloneness, gleaned from the seeds of your less than optimal childhood.

Explorations of other avenues of pure experience (memories, images, perhaps a dream, song or movie scene that pops to mind, sensations, etc.), in the here and now of the session will also guide us into shared healing spirals, deepening as we unfold these memories  and experiences together.

  • AEDP redirects mal-adaptive, hopeless, chronic trauma-induced self-loathing, shame or unbearable aloneness, into dyadic experiential healing trajectories. Judicious authenticity and explicitness on the AEDP therapist’s part in interactions allows the patient a strong experience of safety. Secure attachment develops, allowing patients to discern and shift moments that are not adaptive, in the resonance of our therapy dyad. This shift allows defenses to soften. The person’s ‘window of tolerance’ opens to be able to take in carefully cultivated and attuned AEDP interventions so long-held, deep trauma pain is released in a cathartic or adaptive way. Our step-by-step interventions enable the profound and transformative work AEDP is known for. 

  • At this point we have created an attuned dyadic safety-net, so clients and patients can dare to fully process traumatic filaments and memories. The AEDP clinician is then able to lead the patient into states of flourishing, internally, in relationships, in self-care and in self- respect. The clicks of recognition occur organically during sessions, and what begins to feel new and different internally and inter-relationally for the patient is celebrated within the therapeutic dyad. Now the changes can morph into adaptive actions and tendencies in the patients' outside life and relationships. 

  • We (patient and therapist dyad) share a new sense of internal calm and peace, which is palpable in each good AEDP session. This feels amazing to both of us! What previously felt “all wrong” in the person’s life— in the here and now of our attuned therapy dyad— begins to be experienced as “sublimely right”. When we put this changed experience into words, utterances of calm— with an unveiling sense of ‘the real me’— are typically exclaimed by the patient. This occurs as a matter of course towards the end of each session- to both of our amazement! Before our very eyes and in their outside lives, acual changes are taking place: inside the person, in their intimate relationships and in their self-care and self-respect. I leave every good AEDP session feeling energized; “burn-out” disappeared in my career once I learned to practice AEDP. And people get better—-much better— as demonstrated in the AEDP research study results.