Lecture 8 of 10 on Complex trauma. Focus is on person centred / emotion processing models

1. Lecture 8: Accelerated
experiential dynamic
psychotherapy (AEDP)
Complex Casework
Kevin Standish
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2. Learning Outcomes
This lecture is based on:
Fosha, D.; Paivio, S.; Gleiser, K.; & Ford, J. (2009) Experiential and
Emotion Focused Therapy found in Courtis, C. & Ford, J. Treating
Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders . London. Guildford Press.
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3. Learning Outcomes
1. Rationale for experiential approach to the treatment of
complex trauma
2. Accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (ADEP)
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4. Rationale for experiential approach to the
treatment of complex trauma
1. Living a life of vitality, resilience and
human connectedness in the face of
adversity requires ready access to
emotional experience.
2. access to basic emotions is
necessary to be able to harness
adaptive responses, as well as
relying on others to help bolster
these coping resources
3. experiential psychotherapies are
designed to systematically assist
people in enhancing the ability to
access emotions and the
psychosocial resources linked to
emotions
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5. Rationale for experiential approach to the
treatment of complex trauma
1. Trauma fundamentally is a threat to self integrity
2. Coping following trauma is characterised by a
preoccupation with avoiding danger at all costs
and is dedicated to avoiding trauma cues
3. This is achieved through the avoidance of people,
places activities as well as thoughts and emotions
4. Also through isolation from others and detachment
from emotions
5. When this traumatically based shift in responses
and emotional engagement occurs repeatedly
during key periods of development, survivors
suffer from recurrent fear and lasting emotional
disconnection from self and others
6. Therapy for complex trauma involves assisting
clients to recover the core capacities for
experiencing emotions and relatedness
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6. Rationale for experiential approach to the
treatment of complex trauma
1. Although other therapies have recognised the need for
emotional processing through understanding what happened
eg:CBT
2. or the resolution of emotional conflicts underlying the trauma,
e.g. psychodynamic therapy
3. Accelerated experiential – dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP) and
emotion focused therapy for trauma (EFTT) offer a template for
understanding and achieving renewed emotional experience in
the wake of psychological trauma.
4. Both approaches conceptualise emotion and somatically felt
subjective experience as a primary path to both
biopsychosocial development and healing from psychological
trauma
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7. Rationale for experiential approach to the
treatment of complex trauma
1. Drawing on client centred, existential and Gestalt traditions, as
well as CBT, short-term psychodynamic and relational analytic
traditions, these approaches enhance the client’s abilities to
access and explore emotional experience within an affirming,
empathy based therapeutic relationship.
2. Adaptive processing of intense emotions in the context of a
safe relationship is a foundation for enlarging the trauma
survivors perspective from the preoccupation with danger and
avoidance of feeling to a fuller experiencing of oneself as alive
and relationships that have fundamental worth and meaning
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8. Accelerated experiential dynamic
psychotherapy (AEDP)
1. AEDP assumes that trauma survivors of possess core
bioaffective resources they can be activated therapeutically
right from the start of treatment
2. They view psychological healing not only as the eventual
outcome of an effective therapy but also the potential that
therapist seek to activate from the beginning of therapy
3. It is based on a metatherapeuticparadigm that includes
relational, experiential and integrative techniques within a
framework informed by the following:
attachment research,
emotion theory
affective neuroscience
transformational studies
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9. Accelerated experiential dynamic
psychotherapy (AEDP)
It directly addresses emotional dysregulation and social isolation
the two cardinal features of complex trauma by
1. The dyadic affect regulation of intense emotions in the context
of an attachment based therapeutic relationship as the
cornerstone of its experiential work
2. Its primary aim is having the client not to be alone with the
intense emotional experience when it is relived
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10. Accelerated experiential dynamic
psychotherapy (AEDP)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HasX4sW3mRw
23 minutes

11. AEDP Core Model
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12. Relational interventions in AEDP
1. The aim of the therapeutic
relationship is to be a
secure base from which to
undertake experiential
explorations of the deep
painful emotional
experiences
2. The secure base is built
through Rogerian
principles as well as the
moment – to – moment
tracking of the client’s
receptive affective
experiences
3. The therapist remains
attuned to and respectful
of the client’s need for
protection
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13. Relational interventions in AEDP
1. The therapist manages the clients fears about
intimacy, while holding the believe that they can
achieve a level of connection it feels good to the client
as well as being healing
2. Inevitable raptures in the working alliance promptly
acknowledged and repaired with the goal of
strengthening faith in the resilience of the imperfect
but real and honest relationship
3. The following of the key hallmark of the relational
stance:
1. Affective engagement: explicit empathy and
affirmation
2. Emotional transparency: willingness to see and to
be deeply seen
3. An explicit willingness to help: active engagement
by the therapist in supporting the client in a
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14. Experiential Emotion Processing
1. Only once the bedrock of relational connection and validation
of the clients resources and resilience are established (phase
1) can be painful experiential processing of the trauma related
emotions and memories be dealt with
2. The aim is to co-create a new positively experienced
relationship in the here and now of therapy as a foundation for
forming new attachment and emotional templates in the
client’s life outside of therapy
3. Experiential processing of emotions is important, particularly
the trauma related fracture, through experiential interventions
geared toward dyadically down regulating overwhelming
negative affects while focusing and deepening adaptive core
emotional experiences are in the new positive experiences
such as fear, grief and joy
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15. Experiential Emotion Processing
1. The dyadic regulation of affect occurs via a moment to moment
effective communication involving gaze, tone of voice, rhythm,
touch and other non-verbal processes that promote attuned
and coordinated states in the client and therapist: deep
relational connection similar to parent and child.
2. The therapist track emotional experiences via moment to
moment and dynamic assessment carefully differentiating
between:
1. Secondary, defensive or pathogenic affects which require
regulation and transformation
2. Distinguishing from adaptive emotions and core affective
experiences which hold healing and transformation when
regulated to completion
Emotion processing interventions invite clients into the realm of
effective experiencing through somatic focusing, explicit
relational joining, effective mirroring and deepening portrayals15

16. AEDP metatherapeutic processing
1. AEDP offers a useful model of emotional transformation that
identifies the stages of processing emotional experiences to
completion. This is the first state of transformation.
2. The second state transformation is effected through
metatherapeutic processing which involves focusing on and
exploring the transformation itself
3. The process involves helping the client to alternate
experiential work, in which emotions are experienced, with
reflective observation and meaning making about the
experience of emotional processing itself. (phase 2 trauma
processing)
4. This metatherapeutic processing allows for a cascade of
transformation and breakthroughs particularly in relation to
affect
5. The transformational affects the hallmarks of second state
transformation and markers of the entry into the final stage of
therapeutic processing: core step and the capacity to develop
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17. AEDP Institute
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http://www.aedpinstitute.org/about-aedp/

18. Healing Power of Emotion: Affective Neuroscience, Development
and Clinical Practice
Editor : Diana Fosha, Editor : Marion F. Solomon, Editor : Daniel J.
Siegel (2009) at Karnac books £26.00
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20. Chap 2: Experiential Therapy with Trauma
Survivors
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Available on Ebsco

21. Chapter 7
Experiential dynamic psychotherapies in the treatment
of psycho-physical trauma
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22. Core readings
1. Courtois & Ford (2009) chapter 14. Experiential and Emotion-
Focused Therapy, Diana Fosha, Sandra Paivio, Kari Gleiser,
and Julian D. Ford
2. The Activation of Affective Change Processes in Accelerated
Experiential-Dynamic Psychotherapy by Diana Fosha on NL
3. Fosha (2004) Nothing that feels bad is ever the last step:’ The
Role of Positive Emotions in Experiential Work with Difficult
Emotional experiences
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