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Self-Connection

Self-Connection Psychotherapy

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Online Therapy offers Unique Benefits

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— In video therapy, each participant can their own reactions as well as the other’s.

Obviously online therapy (teletherapy) is of great help when we need to avoid physical closeness to protect patients and providers during the current pandemic illness. The state of emergency increases people’s anxiety but visits to any healthcare provider increases our risk. Online therapy can be one solution to that problem. 

Online therapy offers benefits unique to the online video setting. When the patient/client and the therapist can see each others’ faces, it is more than a stopgap. Both therapist and patient/client can get a great deal of information about themselves by seeing themselves on the screen. 

Michael Alpert, MD on Zoom
Michael Alpert, MD

Emotions are readily available on a shared screen. Both the therapist and the patient can clearly see what their face and voice are conveying. Because of this, online therapy can shorten the time of treatment. We become aware of feelings from our faces and voices sooner.

To learn more about the security and mechanics of teletherapy, you may want to visit Person Centered Tech (PCT) Roy Huggins is a Licensed Professional Counselor known for his HIPAA compliance expertise.

There are free resources related to online therapy in the Self-Connection Academy. Here is an example video.

— How one overwhelmed patient benefited by viewing her session recordings.

Notes from Boston — EDT Interviews

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Kristin Osborn and I held an all-day pre-Conference workshop where we presented live EDT Interviews to give participants a chance to experience and participate in two powerful EDTs, Self-Connection Psychotherapy (SCP) and Affect Phobia Therapy (AFT).

Those attending these events were able to watch the live, unedited therapeutic process unfold. Attendees volunteered to participate in a clinical interview.

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The Mirror Technique

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The mirror technique is designed to increase self awareness. It is repeatedly employed during Self-Connection sessions.

To employ this technique, ask your patients or clients to carefully observe their face in a mirror or on a video screen. Your patient is both the Observing Self, and the Observed Self. The Observing Self (A) and the Observed Self (B) are two of the corners (vertices) of the Triangle of Self-Connection. The Observed Self is the image of the patient on the mirror or screen. The Observing Self is watching the Observed Self.

Connecting to Yourself
What is the reaction of the Observing Self as they watch the Observed’s face
and learn about their feelings?
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Origins of Self-Connection Psychotherapy

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Part I

This post was created from notes and slides from a presentation about “Self-Connection Psychotherapy” at the 2016 IEDTA Conference.

During the past 40 years I’ve practiced psychotherapy and tried to develop ways of making it both briefer and more effective. Much of that time I focused on dynamic, empathic and sensory techniques.

I use video a great deal in my office. In the office the patient sits across from me. To the patient’s right there’s a large monitor that’s a split screen. Half of the screen shows the patient and half of it shows me. The images are large, magnified pictures of our faces on live feed from cameras that face each of us. To my right, there’s a similar screen that the patient can see. I spend a lot of time asking patients to pay attention to their facial expression.

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Watching Yourself to Become a Better Therapist

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Self-Connection Psychotherapy provides a wealth of information to therapists and to patients. It provides this information by having patients focus on their own expression and having therapists frequently check their own expression. I think you will quickly discover the benefits of Self-Connection Psychotherapy if you watch your own expression.

Watching yourself to become a better therapist. A photo of a female therapist in a blue dress sitting in a brown club chair and listening to an adult male patient, seen from the rear.
What is your face saying to your patient?

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