"When we get in touch with our original mind, our original heart, everything becomes clear"
SANDPLAY
Sandplay therapy is considered one of the most effective and probably safest therapeutic modalities. It is used by many counsellors and psychotherapists as a major extension or alternative to cognitive based therapies. It is the therapist and person's mutual trust in that individual's innate inner guidance that allows it to work. Method of helping express the "inexpressible". Sandplay allows a person to open up whatever issues or concerns are most urgent in the psyche, without planning or necessarily having cognitive clarity at the start.
SYMBOL WORK
More directed than sandplay. It allows the individual and counsellor to focus on specific areas of gathering information and dealing with one area of concern. It can easily be incorporated into traditional counselling and helps resolve personal problems, reclaim forgotten qualities and provide a framework for the individual to reconnect with positivity and direction within themselves.
BODY FOCUS
Method exploring psychosomatic signals from the body indicating unconscious feelings which may need attention. Through relaxation, inner focus and guiding questions individuals can connect with areas of the body that seem to hold old feelings or energies that are ready for expression. Metaphor and imagery are invited, along with the attention on body sensation as ways of allowing the unconscious to communicate and resolve issues.
EXPRESSIVE DRAWING & JOURNALLING
Used as a means of recording, expressing, reflecting, processing, releasing and integrating emotions.
EMOTIONAL RELEASE PROCESSING
A safe way of working with and releasing strong emotions that may be driving unhelpful behaviour & support a sense of balance and integration. Current feelings can be released through these processes as well as working back through old feelings and behaviour patterns that add fuel to acting-out & withdrawal. These imprints from the past contribute strongly to sabotage in daily life. After processing, our body/mind/feelings can return to a relaxed positive state. The integration processes focus on re-connection between left and right hemisphere modes and between mind and body, mind and heart, heart and body.
Our bodies carry the strain of the blocked emotional life. Repressed emotional pain is reflected as physical pain or tension. Unexpressed love and generous impulses that have not flowed out harden and begin to feel like their negative opposites. The body's part in repression is physical holding, muscular contraction. Under this armouring though is a healthy core so freeing the body is a vital aspect of personal growth.The Expressive Therapies Institute has developed playful variations on simple exercises based on the work of two psychiatrists in the 1960's, Alexander Lowen and John Pierrakos, that are suitable for children, adolescents and adults.
MEDITATION & RELAXATION TECHNIQUES
Visualisation being a form of meditation can support emotional healing, self-awareness and lead to enhanced self-esteem. Other simple forms of inner focus and meditation are frequently taught in Expressive Therapies as a self-help skill for anxious individuals. Within the counselling session brief meditations, 'earthing exercises' and visualisations are used to allow people to experience a different emotional state and as a way of integrating emotional release processes. Expressive Therapists have found that it is often most effective to present active tension-releasing exercises before quiet inner focus with people of all ages.
