Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Guest Hosts: Dr. Graham Taylor and Dr. Lawrie Ignacio. Understanding Self-Meaning Based Therapy

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Guest Hosts: Dr. Graham Taylor and Dr. Lawrie Ignacio. Understanding Self-Meaning Based Therapy · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the special guest host series of The Trauma
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Therapist podcast, where I'm going to be handing over the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: mic to some incredible guest hosts. In each episode, you'll
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: hear fresh perspectives and unique insights to inform and inspire
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: you in all the while keeping the heart of this
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: podcast alive. So sit back and enjoy.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Project. I'm doctor Graham Taylor
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: and this is my colleague, doctor Lori Ignacio. We're both
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: licensed clinical psychologists and private practice for the past twenty
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: five plus years, specializing in individual and couple's work and
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: trauma therapy. Doctor Guy McPherson has kindly invited us to
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: guest host on his awesome and very well respected podcast platform.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Did you know that his podcast is listed as number
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: eight on the twenty seven Best Mental Health Podcasts. That's
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: pretty impressive and we are so grateful to him for
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: this opportunity, as well as the opportunity to have you
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: as a listening audience joining us today.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, you know.
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: Our focus for today's podcast is on a new integrative
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: psychotherapeutic approach for treating trauma that Graham and I have
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: created and.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: That we're so excited to share with you.
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, consider reflecting as reflecting on those you work with
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: in therapy. As you listen to how we came to
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: develop self meaning based therapy or SMBT for short.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, listen for areas of similar challenge in your practice
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: that we've experienced in ours. See if you too might
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: resonate and identify with some of them. Our hope as
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: you listen to us is that you'll appreciate that there's
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: a way of working with traumatized patients that allows for
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: permanent healing. Over the past five years, we've developed and implemented,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: as Laurie said, an approach to therapy that we call
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: self meaning based therapy. At the heart of SMBT is
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: the uncovering of one's core negative self meaning, which lies
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: deeply within our own conscious or. You and i've both
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: worked effectively with a similar psychodynamic model for years, but
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: we often each acknowledge to one another that inevitably there's
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: a ceiling that we hit with patients, regardless of the
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: therapy to improvements that they experience with us.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly right, Graham.
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: Primarily psychodynamic in our approach, right, we were really good at.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: How we practiced.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: We did good work with patients. We helped them change
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: various areas of their lives with success. As you also know,
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: in our work, like most therapists, we'd listen, clarify, reflect, educate, normalize,
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: and help our patients manage the internal conflicts that plague
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: them and their relationships. Given our primarily psychodynamic orientation to therapy,
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: we help patients develop insight into the unconscious patterns of
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: relating that were at the heart of their conflicts, and
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: to actualize and sustain corrective emotional experiences in their lives. Again, right,
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: We were successful in working with our patients, successful in
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: helping them identify areas of vulnerability to get their needs met,
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: helping them uncover relationship patterns in order to get these
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: needs met, helping them problem solve and change patterns that
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: kept them stuck, and we supported them and developing new
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: self directions and opportunities for change.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's just it. While we were successful in
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: our work, they're consistently remained for us within our patients
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: a core vulnerability which, while it could be recognized with
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: insight and named, it tended to remain unchanged regardless of
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: the significant healing and growth experienced in their lives from
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: their work, wouldn't therapy with us. One of the ways
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: that Lord you and I have described this core vulnerability
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: is through the metaphor of a whole in a well
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: worn sidewalk. This whole represents one's core vulnerability, their trauma,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: a core untouchable wound. We also noticed that this hole
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: tended to be affecting of every important relationship in our
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: patients' lives. In terms of working with this whole, their
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: core vulnerabilities around their trauma, which ultimately becomes a primary
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: management focus of therapy, doesn't at once recognized. We helped
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: our patients understand its origin. We help them identify, recognize,
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: and manage it when they would show up on their lives.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: We taught them some best practice strategies for when they'd
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: be triggered and their trauma got reactivated, and these strategies
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: helped them not go down as deep if they did
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: fall in even again and again. These strategies also helped
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: them to not stay down as long in their trauma
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: when they did get activated, and also gave us some
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: ways to get out of the trauma experience faster and faster.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Each time, and what we'd see with time and practice
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: was that our patients got better and better at being
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: able to recognize times when they'd be trauma triggered and activated,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: when they'd fall back into that area of vulnerability, but
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: they now be able to recognize it, and with the
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: new treatment strategies, they learned how to not go down
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: as deep when they did fall in. I wonder if
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: some of you listening today as you hear this treatment process,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: if it might sound similar to you in your work
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: with some of your patients. But what Laurie and I
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: knew is that as smart and as empathic as we
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: were as therapists, and regardless of how successfully our patients
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: became at developing new awarenesses, new best practice strategies, and
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: at creating multiple corrective emotional experiences in their lives, we
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: knew that at the completion of therapy, our patients would
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: still be left to live a life requiring some level
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: of vigilance of their whole that core trauma based vulnerability
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: that never fully went away. So while we developed an
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: understanding of its origin, ways it played out in their lives,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: and although they had developed effective strategies for managing it
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: when it arose, they were still left, to a greater
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: or lesser extent, vulnerable to being emotionally or cognitively hijacked,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: experientially activated and triggered and re traumatized when their core vulnerability,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: that core trauma wound got activated. We see this pattern
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: in folks experiencing a difficult time let's stay leaving an unhealthy,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: traumatizing relationship and a tendency maybe to take undue responsibility
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: and blame within a relationship of this nature. Or maybe
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: we had a patient that experienced, say a trauma of
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: crossed sexual or physical boundaries that left them to see
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: and to find themselves as damaged or broken or not
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: worthy of love. In fact, Lori, you've got an example
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: of a patient's core vulnerability that made it very difficult
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: to take action on her own behalf, even in a
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: various in a very different and dangerous situation that she
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: was sharing with you and your work together.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, exactly exactly. I work with a patient for
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: several years. As you know, she came from a first
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: family that involved physical violence against.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Both her and her mom at the hands of her father.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: For her dad, My patient found it extremely hard to
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: leave her own abusive relationship. She was a very successful
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: attorney who remained in a long standing, toxic, emotionally and
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: sometimes physically abusive relationship. In therapy, she consistently expressed her
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: awareness of how harmful the relationship was to her and
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: her well being. Should often say to me, I know
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: better than this, Laurie, I am.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Better than this. I watched my father do this to
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: my mother, and he also did it to me.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: There were many times during the course of our therapy,
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: together with that her partner's aggression would escalate to the
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: point of physical dangerousness, and every time she would garner
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: the strength to carry out the plan we developed to
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: safely leave him, until she got close to actually leaving.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: At that point, she became overwhelmed, hijacked and anxious, dread ridden,
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: and she would say, basically, how can I leave this guy?
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: No one else is going to want to love me
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: if I leave him. Deep down, I.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: Don't feel worthy, I'm not worthy of real love.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: I know this doesn't make sense, she'd say, and in
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: my head I don't believe it, but deep down it
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: feels so true every time this happens, So she'd end
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: up staying in the relationship again, in spite of this knowing,
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: in spite of insight, in spite of my attempts to
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: help her change her beliefs about herself or the relationship,
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: in spite of engaging her in deep emotional processing about herself,
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: her history, her first family relationships, and her current situation.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: Even invoking higher order problem solving strategies didn't work. Perhaps
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: those listening can relate to this her self experience. I'm
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: not worthy of real love was simply impenetrable in our
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: work with our patients in cases like this and others,
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: You and I, Graham, found ourselves getting a therapeutic ceiling.
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: In fact, some of our CBT, psychodynamic, humanistic, and even
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: EMDR colleagues which share with us similar frustrations about the
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: limits of their respective therapy frames in fostering real and
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: permanent change.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then one day a patient I was seeing
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: changed everything for you and me, Lauria, didn't it. I
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: was working with a forty seven year old male. My
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: patient's father had committed suicide when my patient was six
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: years old, and one of our sessions, while processing this loss,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: my patient paused and he said, Graham, what type of
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: sun must I have been? If my father chose to
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: take his life instead of staying around and raising me.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: He paused further and he said, you know what, I
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: must not have been a good enough son. He paused
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: again and said, I'm connecting all the times right now
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: in my life that I've done things to try and
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: overcome this sense that I'm not good enough, But I've
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: never realized this self meaning was what was driving me.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: This guy's background is he was a multi millionaire multiple businesses,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: and he went out of his way to get others
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: to like and to respect and to appreciate him. Now
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: here's the interesting note. We knew his father's childhood history
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: to include his father having multiple abandonment abandonments in his
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: life and attachment ruptures in his early years, and just
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: prior to the suicide, my patient's mom had informed his
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: father that she was going to leave him and that
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: she was going to be taken and their son with her. So,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: not being able to bear another abandonment and attachment rupture,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: the father preemptively took his life and this was confirmed
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: in a suicide note basically explaining the anticipated pain of
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: this upcoming loss and separation. So therapeutically think about it.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: I had a very fortunate opportunity, didn't I. I had
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: both insight into the father's developmental history and his relational psychology,
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: and a suicide note confirming the true meaning behind the
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: father's decision. So this allowed me to therapeutically teach my
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: patient how he'd unconsciously assigned the self meaning I am
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: not good enough to explain to himself the cause for
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: his father taking his life. With this information, I can
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: now teach him how to shift his thinking to a
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: more truth based reframe of the realities behind his father's
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: suicide and begin what I thought of as a healthy
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: process to start mourning and grieving this loss in his life.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: But here's the thing. When I held these truths up
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: to him, along with how others in his life now
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: love and care for him, he responded with, you know what,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: I realize this Graham now. But despite this insight and
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: these truths, I still hear that still small voice saying, yeah,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: but if you were really good enough, your father would
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: have stayed around and raised you. And it was this
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: self meaning I am not good enough that he has
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: signed about himself to make sense and cope with his
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: father's suicide that actually birthed the beginnings of our SMBT.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: So we started to shift our therapeutic focus.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, and so again it's the meaning one holds
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: about one's very self that remains unamenable to change, as
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: in the case of your patient. So this got us
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: to revisit the research on the role of meaning making
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: in our lives. We were reminded in so doing of
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: the fact that we are all inherently relational meaning making beings,
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: and that it is within our early family encounters that
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: we learn.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: About the world and ourselves in it.
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: Most developmental theories, as we all know, share this basic
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: assumption that the self develops early in interactions with others,
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: and that self construction is a meaning making process. How
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: children come to literally know and understand themselves is a complex,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: dynamic process, and the role of parents and caregivers, as
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: well as larger family systems, are integral context in which
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: self concept is formed. We also know that flawless parenting
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: and perfect contextual influences in which to grow up do
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: not exist.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Each of us has.
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: Experience, to a or minor extent, non ideal circumstances from
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: which to make sense of ourselves, others, and ourselves in
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: relation to others and the world. Certainly, in many cases,
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: these situations can be so detrimental that even existence itself
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: becomes debilitating. The point here is that imperfect to harmful
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: interactions in childhood leave us to make sense of why
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: by way of meaning making processes based on normal magical thinking,
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: an adaptive ego centrism characteristic of early childhood. Young children
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: necessarily assume personal responsibility for this. Why it must be
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: because of who I am captures the essence of the
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: intuitive reasoning invoked, and it's very characteristic of the early
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: primitive omnipotence all young children share.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Your patient Graham came to the unders very young age that.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: His father killed himself because I'm not a good enough son,
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: Essentially because I'm not good enough. This self meaning was
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: what held your patient's deepest suffering, and it organized his
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: entire life in spite of objective evidence to the contrary.
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: One's negative self meaning is the hole in one sidewalk.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: This is the core of vulnerability that's impenetrable to most
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: modes of therapy.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's refer back to the hole in the sidewalk.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: That hole, like you're saying or is our self meaning
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: that's been self created unknowingly and never gets fully removed.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: And it holds, as you're saying again, our deepest suffering.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: And here's the key that became very clear to us.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Although we can name oneself meaning develop insight around it,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: one self meaning is stored in the conscious That's why
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: it remains inaccessible through and unamenable to traditional talk therapy approaches,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: which operate primarily at a conscious, day to day level
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: of awareness. Think of Freud's topographical model for a moment
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: outlining the levels of consciousness. Is the model of the iceberg,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: isn't it? With the conscious mind being above the waterline
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: and on the surface, and our unconscious being at the
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: very bottom tip of the iceberg. Remember what vander Kolch says,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: consistent with empirical research on trauma and the mind, difficult
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: to traumatic experiences tend to remain locked in nonverbal, non rational,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: non declarative areas of our brain which contain core programming
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: about the self. So what happens with our experiences and
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: the core negative self meaning we unconsciously develop around them, Well,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: that self meaning gets unconsciously stored in our neural networks
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: with its experiential aspects. And although we might be able
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: to identify it, develop insight around it, and name our
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: self meaning at a conscious level, we're not able to
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: access it and transform it there because it resides where
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: in our unconscious.
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: Yes, exactly so, this is why my patient knew she
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: couldn't and wouldn't and didn't want to stay in an
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: abusive relationship. Yeah, but she stayed anyway because she felt
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: unworthy of love.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: I am unworthy of love.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: And this is why a suicide note and the knowledge
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: that his father had severe attachment injuries couldn't shake your
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: patient self meaning that I'm not good enough to keep
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: my father alive. We suggest that trauma is held in
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: the form of self meanings.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: It's also important to emphasize that oneself meaning is not
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: rationally based. It's not reducible to a thought, a self attribution,
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: or even a corese schema. As we've worked with our
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: patients' self meanings, we find that a self meaning is
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: best understood as an unconsciously held, unintegrated phenomenological experience, one
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: that can even defy verbal and rational description, let alone reasoning,
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: in so far as it tends to be lived even at.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: A place beforewards.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: Our self meaning, as we've stated, has the power to
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: shape our day to day interactions, our very lives because
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: it functions unconsciously, so it impacts us even without us
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: knowing it and it and it's it became, and that
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: this is why it basically remains virtually untouchable. It's reach
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: therefore remains timelessly pervasive. Our self meaning powerfully influences our lives,
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: particularly when it's emotionally, cognitively, experientially activated. So again, because
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: it lives often in the place, even beforewards, it remains
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: unconsciously inaccessible yet powerfully impactful, all the while remaining unamenable
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: to healing via traditional talk therapy approaches.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, what you and I realized, Laurie, is that
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: we needed a new approach to work successfully with trauma.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: And as we were talking and putting this together, we
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: realized we needed an approach that could resolve the negative
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: self meaning based lie that we all carry, like I'm
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: not good enough or I'm unlovable, i don't matter, I'm worthless.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: And you and I both recognize as well that we
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: needed an approach that would allow for the resetting of
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: who we are based in truth. This new approach, we
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: also recognized would also need to be really a different
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: method that would allow direct access to the unconscious, allowing
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: us to transform the negative self meaning where it resides.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: But we knew that to access the unconscious, this new
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: approach would need to circumvent our defense mechanisms that are
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: designed in the best possible way to keep our painful
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: negative self meaning out of awareness, as well as to
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: help us tolerate intense, effective, and somatic experiences that come
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: with the activation of our core negative self meaning. And lastly,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: it was important to us as well that this new
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: approach seamlessly and easily blended with the natural therapeutic process
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: and complement ideally any theoretical model a practitioner utilizes in
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: conducting their therapy.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: That's exactly right, So we created self meaning based Therapy.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: Our SMBT approach is based in a nuance, believe, and
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: comprehensive treatment model from which to ground all psychotherapeutic work.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: It's also an integrated model grounded in analytic, humanistic and
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: family systems theory, and it strategically incorporates the effectiveness of
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: bilateral stimulation to elicit profound and lasting change. In a word,
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: it is the experience of one's core negative self meaning,
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: the experience of it that becomes the distinct focus of SMBT.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we continue to witness over and over that
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: self meaning based therapy is able to dismantle and reset
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: a patient's cornerstone negative self meaning, thereby allowing them, among
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: other things, to naturally adopt adaptive styles of life, access
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: their inherent creativity, and positively actualize their fullest potential.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Yes, exactly so.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: Rather than simply teaching patients how to manage the unconscious
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: negative effects of their core self meaning using best practice approaches,
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: SMBT enables therapists to help patients permanently dismantle their self meaning,
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: an early adaptive lie born during childhood that was unknowingly
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: never true from its inception and which is no longer functional.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: In essence, self meaning based therapy enables therapists and patient
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: to embark on an emancipatory project in which patients are
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: able to harness a newly realized psychological freedom that allows
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: them to reconnect with their intended design. It ultimately enables
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: us to reconnect with our true self. Remember the metaphor
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: we use previously of the whole in one sidewalk, SMBT
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: renders the hole simply gone.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: There's no more hole in.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: The sidewalk, no need to even take another street. It's
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: been such an incredible journey to incorporate SMBT into our
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: work and train our colleagues in our approach. We're grateful
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: today for the opportunity to share SMBT with you.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I so agree. It's been great to share this
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: SMBT approach with you in this podcast, and we'd love
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: the opportunity to further share our SMBT model with you.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: If you'd like to know more about self Meaning based
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Therapy as well as the upcoming CE trainings we have
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: for this year, you can check out our website at
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Self Meaning Based Therapy dot com Self Meaning Based Therapy
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: All one word dot com and there you'll find videos
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and additional content explaining our model, along with the schedule
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: of this year's trainings. Hey, thanks so much for being
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: with us today, and Guy, thank you again for this opportunity.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: Thank you, dom Bed to come s