Therapy Toronto Psychotherapy Definitions

Therapist Match:

Louise Hampson (the Annex)

Malcolm Welland (Yorkville and Guelph)

Experiential

An Experiential process can be applied to different therapies. One theorist writes: "Personal problems and difficulties in living are never just cognitive, never only a question of how something is interpreted or understood. There is always an affective, emotional, felt, concrete, experiential difficulty.

The individual's thoughts and interpretations flow from, and are largely influenced by [these] ways of living in situations." (Gendlin). Attention is brought to the individual's directly sensed bodily experience of their difficulty, coping or struggle. By experiencing what lies behind or beneath our whole experience of an issue we can gain a sense of direction and growth.

One way of working in this process is called "Focusing".

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