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What are you cultivating in your niche?

This topic contains 5 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by  NPT 1 week, 3 days ago.

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  • #28383

    A warm hello to my fellow Neuropsychotherapists. As our community begins it’s growth towards a flourishing future, we would like to get a conversation started about what everyone is cultivating in their own niche around the world. It is fascinating what the collective unconscious can come up with when forging new paths. We here at The Neuropsychotherapist are very curious to hear about everyone’s current work and how you are doing things differently than what is traditional in your specialized field. We are certain that everyone else ears in the community will perk up too when they are given a glimpse into your world of Neuropsychotherapy. Please take a moment and share with us what you are doing to help pioneer this new field. As the comments come in, we will use the topics as inspiration for more Forum and Blog posts on our webpage.

    Eagerly awaiting,
    Michelle Shahbazyan, MS, MA
    The LA Life Coach

  • #28388

    NPT
    Keymaster

    Hi Michelle and thanks for kicking off this conversation. I know there are a lot of stories from clinicians out there who are doing great work from a brain-based perspective, seeing transformation, and growing in confidence as brain savvy mental health professionals. I too am eagerly awaiting to hear how people are transforming lives in their neck of the woods!

  • #28392

    Richard Hill
    Moderator

    Great topic. Like so many things of interest and exploration, I wander with some confusion as I explore the nature of the non-linear dynamics of complex systems, chaos and self-organization. How have we been encouraged and educated to think? This is the real question of this exploration. Inevitably, quantum field theory raises its presence, but the theoretical work on these concepts and principles is just the early part of the process that I feel will lead to, or help us understand, a shift in the way we mentally experience our experience. How do we function outside of a “information processing” mentality and toward a responsive engagement with what we become aware is emerging from a vast web of interactions in our connected environment? It is arguable that psychotherapy is a relational process where two people engage in an expanded dynamic system where the best therapeutic process emerges without specific directions or organizing by either person. Is therapy more about responding to what emerges towards an outcome of beneficial change, than applying interventions because they are expected to produce beneficial change? This seems to challenge a number of established approaches: evidence based research is based on finding something that has a degree of predictability across populations, whereas systems thinking implies that it is the process that is occurring with the specific individual at that time and in relation to the total environment. Every therapy is unique and sometimes, processes that work for one person, might not be effective for anyone else. The curiosity is, how do we integrate knowledge of “evidence based” processes into a non-linear system like therapy where rather than the therapist producing results, we are waiting for the system to naturally self-organize toward problem solving and mind-body healing? These are some musings for discussion and deliberately make no specific conclusions or directions. I am interested, at this time, to see what might emerge. I am quite happy to start with simple things and let build over time. Let’s see 🙂

    • This reply was modified 1 week, 3 days ago by  Richard Hill.
  • #28394

    NPT
    Keymaster

    What a challenge to my left prefrontal with it’s propensity for predictable linear processes to ‘fix’ something while nailing down every variable! I have many clients who too are looking for that linear formula with it’s fixability power, and I feel I’m becoming much more articulate when explaining the systems dynamic in the therapeutic dyad that is really facilitating transformation (for the most part I believe). Having said that I have seen many transformative changes in clients when following the memory reconsolidation process (Bruce Ecker - Coherence therapy). Certainly to do this sort of therapy well it’s a mix of non-linear relational interactions and more linear and clearly defined steps to achieve the desired outcome - transformation.

    I’m looking forward to getting my head around more of the quantum aspects involved in therapy - not the pseudo-science “let’s use quantum to explain everything because we don’t really know what it’s about” approach, but real solid science. So Richard I’ll be looking to you for your leading in all of that!

  • #28396

    Richard Hill
    Moderator

    I appreciate what you mean by the effectiveness of Memory Reconsolidation. I agree that this is an important mechanism, but how we trigger that mechanism can and probably will vary with each client (although the Coherence Therapy Method is a useful place to start). It is important when dealing with systems to also appreciate that there are lots of linear processes acting within the system. when I am driving my car, I am very comforted to know that applying the brakes will, assuming there is no fault, stop the car - predictably! But applying the “Newtonian” organized brakes is only a fraction of what goes on during the driving/braking experience. Equally, when we apply Coherence Therapy, it may be the specific therapeutic steps that enable the neurobiological change, it may be something entirely different, unexpected and even surprising that emerged from the client - who had been oriented toward the need for a reframe. Regardless, the therapist certainly has contributed and perhaps facilitated just what the client needed 🙂

  • #28398

    NPT
    Keymaster

    Very well put Richard. In fact it seems the unexpected and surprising that emerges from the client (and sometimes myself) is rather the norm! We have to maintain such an openness when dealing with such complex systems. I’d love to hear a more detailed “car braking” analogy - I’m afraid my understanding of physics is very Newtonian!

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