DR. JENNIFER BALLERINI MY APPROACH

My Approach to Therapy

My approach to working with clients is deeply informed by my training in therapy models such as AEDP, IFS, EFT, and KAP and by my interest in mindfulness practices. While the "alphabet soup" of all these different therapy models can be a bit confusing, they share many ideas in common — they're all focused on healthy connection, working effectively with emotion, and becoming more mindful and present.

I work hard to see and understand each of my clients as individuals and to draw from these different therapeutic models and to create a treatment plan customized to how you learn, what you need to heal, and your goals for growth. I believe that we all have the capacity to heal and reach our goals — and that the right support can make all the difference in getting there.

If you're interested in learning more, I've written a bit below about these different therapy models I draw from and how they can help you.

Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)

Kintsugi is the Japanese pottery technique of repairing broken pieces of pottery with gold seams. This ancient art form eloquently expresses the idea that not only can something that's broken be repaired, but that it can be more beautiful for the experience, and actually more resilient in the places where it's been damaged. Like the calcium cuff that the body grows over a broken bone, a kintsugi bowl is stronger because it was broken.

In Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), we recognize that all of us have been broken at some point. We all carry hurts from our past, but AEDP asserts that we also have an inborn capacity to heal and grow from those hurts — to become "stronger at the broken places" — when we do it in connection with a truly safe, caring, and responsive person. In AEDP, the therapist works to create a warm and secure environment where your innate desire to grow and heal — to "self-right" — can be activated. From that foundation of security and openness, we can explore places that were too difficult to traverse alone and move toward an energized, authentic, and peaceful experience that AEDP calls Self-at-Best.

AEDP is an emotion-focused, body-focused, experiential therapy. This means that, instead of doing cognitive, analytical work where we're challenging your false beliefs about yourself or the world around you, we focus on your emotional and physical experience in the here-and-now. Staying in the present and staying with emotional processes vs. intellectually analyzing your experiences not only allows for us to move quickly (hence the word "Accelerated" in AEDP), it creates the right conditions for your brain to rewire itself, a process scientists call neuroplasticity.

Many of us know why we are the way we are intellectually, but that knowing doesn't change our brains — or our habitual responses. For example, you might have grown up with an angry dad, and now every time your partner gets angry, a part of your brain continues to respond as if it's something dangerous. That wounded, survival-oriented part of you repeatedly shuts you down and moves you away from your partner, even though you know you shouldn't do that. This painful lesson was first laid down in your brain via an emotional experience (your dad yelled). To truly "undo" and overwrite that learning, you can't just talk about it, you need to have what psychologists call a "corrective emotional experience," where the old music cues up, but this time it's a new dance, with a safe partner. If you would like to learn more about AEDP, please read Living Like You Mean It by Dr. Ron Frederick.

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

I was most inspired by AEDP therapists who not only focused on creating a warm and safe environment for their clients, but who also focused on the clients' relationships with themselves. This Intrarelational AEDP (AEDP-IR) combines the interpersonal, attachment-oriented focus of AEDP with Dr. Richard Schwartz's fascinating Internal Family Systems (IFS) model.

In IFS, we recognize that all of us tend to exist in fragments — that we have "parts" of ourselves, little sub-selves with different motives and different strategies, who take over from time to time, often pulling us in different directions. (If you've seen the Pixar movie Inside Out you are familiar with this model!) One part might hold all the pain we experienced as a bullied kid, another part might push us to be perfect so we can never again be criticized, another part might try to numb us with alcohol or food. These parts are all trying to take care of us in their own way, but so often these protective strategies end up creating more problems and causing us more distress.

Just as AEDP posits that we have an inner self-righting drive that is bigger than our traumas, IFS asserts that each of us has a core Self, someone inside us who is centered, calm, clear, curious, confident, compassionate, courageous, connected, and creative. These "8 C's" are markers of what Dr. Schwartz calls "Self energy." IFS works to help you approach life more from that Self-at-Best vs. reacting from the fragmented "parts" that pull you into unhelpful patterns. If you would like to learn more about parts work and IFS, please check out Dr. Schwartz's book, No Bad Parts, and his excellent relationship-focused book, You Are the One You've Been Waiting For.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is an incredibly effective therapeutic approach for couples and families developed by relationship expert Dr. Sue Johnson. Studies show that an astounding 70% to 75% of couples who complete their EFT work effectively move from distress to recovery and that 90% of couples show significant improvement in their relationships.

EFT is a research-based, peer-reviewed model of therapy founded on attachment theory. Attachment theory explains that we are all wired for strong, loving bonds with our important others and that we have deep needs for acceptance, belonging, closeness, and safety. When we perceive these needs are threatened in some way, or we feel insecure in our relationship with our partner, we naturally go into distress. Unfortunately, most of us deal with that distress by protecting ourselves with critical, blaming approaches or by shutting down and shutting out our partners. These two strategies — criticism and withdrawal — often create a seemingly impenetrable loop of conflict. One partner feels alone and unimportant so he or she lashes out in protest, the other feels inadequate and ashamed and retreats behind a wall — which makes the first partner feel more alone, leading to more blaming and criticism, and more stoniness and withdrawal, and round and round we go.

As the name implies, EFT is powered by connecting with our vulnerable emotions, getting beneath the mask of defensive criticism or withdrawal. By exploring their emotions, perceptions of each other, and automatic responses to each other, partners can start to identify their roles in the dynamic, and the effect they have on the relationship. The more partners learn to catch their negative cycle and respond to each other from their vulnerable (vs. defensive) emotions, the more they create a safe and secure bond and get freedom from the chronic disconnection and conflict. That makes room for repairing old hurts, healing stories about ourselves from the past, and creating a lasting and loving connection.

If you'd like to learn more about EFT therapy or about working to become mindful of your negative cycle with your partner and how to communicate your feelings more effectively, I often recommend that clients read the following books: You Are the One You've Been Waiting For by Dr. Richard Schwartz, Dr. Ron Frederick's Loving Like You Mean It, and Dr. Sue Johnson's Hold Me Tight.