Acceptance Commitment Therapy - ACT

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing - EMDR
(Desensitization and Reprocessing through Eye Movements)

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing - EMDR
(Desensibilizzazione e Rielaborazione attraverso i Movimenti Oculari)

EMDR is a therapeutic approach used to treat trauma and stress-related problems, especially traumatic stress.

EMDR focuses on the memory of the traumatic experience and is a complete methodology that uses eye movements or other forms of alternating right/left stimulation to treat disorders directly linked to traumatic or particularly emotionally stressful experiences.

After one or more EMDR sessions, the disturbing memories linked to the traumatic event are desensitized and lose their negative emotional charge. Change is very rapid, regardless of the years that have passed since the event. The image changes in content and in the way it is presented, intrusive thoughts generally muffle or disappear, becoming more adaptive from a therapeutic point of view and emotions and physical sensations reduce in intensity. The processing of the traumatic experience that occurs with EMDR allows the patient, through the desensitization and cognitive restructuring that occurs, to change perspective, changing cognitive evaluations of himself, incorporating emotions appropriate to the situation as well as eliminating physical reactions . This ultimately allows us to adopt more adaptive behaviors. From a clinical and diagnostic point of view, after treatment with EMDR the patient no longer presents the typical symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, therefore the intrusive aspects of thoughts and memories, avoidance behaviors and autonomic hyperarousal towards stimuli related to the event, perceived as danger. Another significant change is given by the fact that the patient better discriminates real dangers from imaginary ones conditioned by anxiety.

After EMDR the patient remembers the event but the content is totally integrated into a more adaptive perspective. The experience is used constructively by the individual and is integrated into a positive cognitive and emotional pattern. That is, the patient makes the appropriate association connections, what is useful is learned and stored with the corresponding emotion and is available for future use.

WHAT ARE THE BASICS OF EMDR?

The EMDR approach, adopted by an ever-increasing number of psychotherapists around the world, is based on the adaptive information processing (AIP) model. According to the AIP, the traumatic event experienced by the subject is stored in memory together with the disturbing emotions, perceptions, cognitions and physical sensations that characterized that moment. All this dysfunctionally stored information remains "frozen" within neural networks and unable to connect with other networks with useful information. The "frozen" information enclosed in neural networks, unable to be processed, continues to cause discomfort in the subject, leading to the onset of pathologies such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other psychological disorders. The scars in fact, the most painful events do not easily disappear from the brain: many people continue after decades to suffer from symptoms that affect their well-being and prevent them from starting a new life.
The objective of EMDR is to restore the natural process of processing the information present in memory to reach an adaptive resolution through the creation of new, more functional connections. Once this has occurred, the patient can see the disturbing event and himself from a new perspective. EMDR considers all aspects of a stressful or traumatic experience, both the cognitive and emotional ones and the behavioral and neurophysiological ones. Using a structured protocol the therapist guides the patient in describing the traumatic event, helping him to choose the important disturbing elements. At the end of the EMDR session, when the reworking process has reached adaptive resolution, the experience is used constructively by the person and is integrated into a positive cognitive and emotional scheme.

Given the worldwide recognition of the effectiveness of this therapeutic method for treating trauma, today more than 120,000 clinicians worldwide use this therapy. Millions of people have been successfully treated in recent years.

Compassion Focused Therapy - CFT
(Compassion Focused Therapy)

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) isborn from the observation of patients with strong components of shame and self-criticism, a devaluing and aggressive internal dialogue, linked to excessive emotions of guilt and shame. It is currently used in various clinical settings to help patients develop feelings of closeness to themselves and a more accepting, validating and compassionate internal dialogue.

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) offers an explanation of psychopathology and its maintenance based on the functioning of some motivational and affective systems connected to attachment (including compassion).

The activation of this motivational system would guarantee a change in the patient which is often not possible only through a direct intervention on his so-called "dysfunctional" beliefs. In line with the most recent studies on the effectiveness of psychotherapies that also involve "the body", CFT proposes a set of cognitive, meditative and bodily practices that facilitate the improvement of physiological indices (HRV: inter-beat variability) connected to the ability to effectively regulate emotions and experience empathy and compassion towards oneself.

Interpersonal Metacognitive Therapy (TMI)

Interpersonal Metacognitive Therapy belongs to the latest generation of cognitive psychotherapies developed in the last twenty years. It was born and developed in the mid-90s to adapt cognitive therapy models to the treatment of patients with personality disorders, who they responded less to the psychotherapeutic treatments existing at the time. These patients presented a series of problems that needed to be addressed carefully to facilitate treatment.

THE GOALS OF INTERPERSONAL METACOGNITIVE THERAPY

Interpersonal Metacognitive Therapy aims to:

Improving metacognition, that is
- the ability to understand thoughts, emotions, the psychological causes of one's dysfunctional behaviors;
- promote and refine the ability to understand what others think, feel and what moves them to act;
- use knowledge about one's own internal world and the psychological world of others to alleviate suffering and promote ways of relating to others that allow one to live a more fulfilled, meaningful and active social life.
Understanding the interpersonal patterns that guide actions which in turn lead to suffering and blocking of sentimental, emotional and relationship life in general.
Understand what strategies the person adopts to calm negative emotions or overcome moments of passivity, closure and depression.
Once the ability to understand mental states, i.e. metacognition, has increased and once problematic interpersonal patterns and dysfunctional strategies for regulating negative emotions have been understood, the patient and therapist undertake a series of actions aimed at promoting change.