Using Affect and Emotion in Therapy
- Affect reconsolidation as a universal mechanism
- When to implement affect reconsolidation
- Creating the optimal conditions in therapy
- Risks and Limitations
Affective Neuroscience Principles
- Key brain regions for emotions
- Impact of specific emotions on brain cortex
- Emotion as a central problem in psychopathology
- Strategic use of emotion in therapy
The goals of emotion-based psychotherapy
- Building safety and trust with your patients
- Addressing internal and external relationships to emotion
- Achieving the optimal level of arousal
- Changing the relationship with memory and emotion
- Seeing emotions as a useful tool in therapy
Affective Neuroscience 4-Step Therapeutic Model
- Emotional Awareness/Mindfulness
- Validation of emotions
- Self-Compassion & Empathy
- Utilizing emotion
The Affect Reconsolidation Toolbox
- Mindfulness for recognizing emotions and where they come from
- Emotional validation techniques
- Techniques for optimal arousal of emotions
- Gestalt techniques for increasing emotion
- Somatic techniques for up and down regulation
- Cognitive based techniques to stop reinforcement of negative feelings
Therapeutic Goals When Targeting Specific Emotions
- Anger – boundaries and consequences, forgiveness
- Sadness – unresolved grief, primary/ secondary emotions
- Fear – managing fear responses, controlling behavior
- Desire – regulating reward systems, increasing self-control
- Disgust – self-acceptance
- Jealousy/Envy – comparisons to others, self-judgement
Affect Reconsolidation in the Treatment of Trauma
- Creating curiosity about our emotional responses
- Differentiating between past and present emotions
- Work with secondary emotions first
- Affect Reconsolidation for primary traumatic feelings