Since the advent of modern psychotherapies, the consensus has been that psychological trauma underlies much of the problems people present to counseling for. Psychotherapies of all kinds have relied upon this and related understandings of what goes wrong in hopes that this can tell us how to make things right again by the therapist fostering insight, correcting distorted cognitions, or developing more adaptive behavioral responses. This is where Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), a healing oriented body/mind approach to psychotherapy, differs. AEDP practitioners understand that flourishing is our foundation and our right when provided the right conditions, and the body and mind are supported to do the healing it knows how to do. In the words of the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, “We are organized to be better than fine.”

AEDP was developed by the Clinical Psychologist Diana Fosha in the 1990s to offer therapists a map on how to consistently and predictably co-create the conditions for psychotherapy patients to heal from traumatic experiences, catalyze post traumatic growth potentials, and flourish. As Fosha wrote, in AEDP, “it is a foundational principle that healing is an innate, wired in, biological process, ever present in all of us… We are not just bundles of pathology doomed to repeat the past in endless, repetition compulsion.” Healing is available from the get-go, and AEDP Practitioners know how to harness these forces.

AEDP Practitioners focus on:

• where healing and change-for-the-better is evident

• relationally undoing unwilled and unwanted aloneness

• co-regulating anxiety and overwhelming emotional experience

• facilitating corrective relational and emotional experiences

• following markers of transformation, health and affirmative truth

  Additionally, AEDP is now a research supported psychotherapy shown to be effective in reducing problems with anxiety, depression, mood dysregulation, and symptoms of PTSD and associated problems. AEDP Practitioners are offered ongoing training, expert consultation, and options for postgraduate certification.

  Whether you are considering therapy for the first time or are wanting to try a different approach to psychotherapy, our AEDP practitioners are ready to engage you in a process to unlock your healing and growth potential. Listen below to hear AEDP Institute Senior Faculty Diana Fosha and Jerry Lamanga give brief summaries on how AEDP is different and what this training and practice uniquely offers to therapists and their clients.