Facilitating Trauma Healing Through AEDP Therapy and The Change Triangle: Vignettes by a Trauma Therapist in Denver, CO.
As I’m sure you know by now, embarking on a journey of emotional healing and self-discovery can be both empowering and daunting. As hard and scary as it might be sometimes, connecting with our emotions and feeling through them so they can release from our nervous system is a key step towards healing.
One framework that our Denver trauma therapists use to navigate this process with clients is Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) and its associated Change Triangle. In this blog, we will explore some examples of what it’s like to be a client in AEDP trauma therapy using components of the Change Triangle.
Understanding the AEDP Change Triangle: Breakdown by a Trauma Therapist in Denver, CO
The Change Triangle is a model that illustrates the interplay between three key states that we typically exist within (and bounce between): protection/defense, inhibitory emotions, and core emotions. By recognizing where we’re at on the Change Triangle at any given point and using that awareness to move towards the bottom of the triangle, we’re able to heal through trauma and connect with our core, authentic selves.
Let’s break down each side of the triangle further and explore what the work in trauma therapy might look like along the way.
1. Protections/Defenses:
Protective mechanisms are psychological strategies we unconsciously employ to protect ourselves from emotional pain or discomfort. These protections serve as temporary and highly adaptive solutions, but they can also serve as barriers to growth and connection, especially if they stick around past the time that they are needed. Recognizing and understanding our protective mechanisms, how they’ve kept us safe, and how they may continue to keep us away from what’s at the bottom of the triangle (the core emotions, often linked to trauma, that have been too heavy to feel) is the first step in this process.
Example: Sherry often responds to constructive feedback from their partner with defensiveness. Through therapy, they begin to recognize that their defensive responses (top left of the triangle) acts as a shield to protect their more vulnerable experiences of shame and deep insecurity (top right of the triangle). Sherry’s life long narrative about themself is that they are not enough and will never be enough. However, people in Sherry’s life would likely be surprised to hear this, as their defensiveness keeps this reality behind closed doors in order to protect them from further relational wounding.
2. Inhibitory Emotions - Anxiety, Shame, and Guilt
Our inhibitory emotions – anxiety, shame, and guilt – are emotions that we can more readily experience and that often become a common experience throughout our daily lives. They also tend to cloud our connection with the core emotions – or those at the bottom of the triangle – due to their frequency and a certain comfortability that comes along with them that core emotions don't often have. Exploring inhibitory emotions in trauma therapy serves as the gateway to core emotions, which once processed, serve as the gateway to our core, authentic selves.
Example: Sarah, a therapy client, experiences anxiety before social gatherings. She often avoids attending events due to a fear of judgment and rejection – her protection (top left of the triangle). By acknowledging her anxiety and exploring its underlying roots, she realizes that anxiety and shame (two inhibitory emotions at the top right of the triangle) are actually working hand in hand, ultimately stemming from feelings of unworthiness and a deep-seated fear of abandonment. This realization enables Sarah to delve deeper, accessing the core emotion of fear that we identified above.
3. Core Emotions - Fear, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, Joy, Excitement, Sexual Excitement
Core emotions are the feelings that lie beneath the protections and inhibitory emotions. They are the raw and genuine emotions that we experience that, for many reasons, can be hard to access and fully feel through in the moment. Core emotions include fear, anger, sadness, disgust, joy, excitement, and sexual excitement. Once we’re able to move past our protections and inhibitory emotions, we can then access our core emotional experience, process those emotions and their associated traumas fully, which ultimately allows us to access our authentic selves, needs, and desires.
Example: Sarah, the client from the above vignette, has been in AEDP trauma therapy for a few months now. With the support of her therapist, she has harnessed much more compassion and understanding for her anxiety, protections, and how they show up in social settings. She is now ready to feel through her fear of abandonment (core emotion at the bottom of the triangle). This process includes somatic processing of the emotion – ie connecting with the sensations of fear in the body and supporting the nervous system to release them – and trauma processing of childhood experiences that told her she is unworthy of love. This process takes place slowly, entirely on Sarah’s timeline, and with lots of attunement and care from her trauma therapist. At the end of this process together, Sarah’s younger self is released from the feelings of unworthiness, and Sarah is able to move through social situations with more ease, fun, and a stronger sense of connection with herself and others.
Working the Change Triangle Outside of Trauma Therapy
Now that we have explored some ways AEDP trauma therapy can look, let’s explore some avenues clients can explore outside of the office.
1. Cultivate mindfulness
Pay attention to your emotions and bodily sensations. Notice any patterns or triggers that lead to inhibitory emotions (anxiety, shame, and/or guilt) or protective responses.
2. Practice self-compassion
Be gentle with yourself as you explore your emotions and protections. Affirm for yourself that they are valid and have played a crucial role in getting to the place you’re at in life today.
3. Journaling
Maintain a journal where you can note and reflect on your internal experience. This can help you identify patterns, areas of unmet needs, and track transformance over time.
4. Seek support
We’re not meant to go through any of this alone, and working the Change Triangle actually requires another person and their nervous system to co-regulate with in order for healing to take place. Ideally, co-regulation would take place with multiple supports, including a therapist and friends/family.
Trauma Therapy in Denver, CO - Work With an AEDP Trauma Therapist
If this blog resonates with you, consider exploring trauma therapy in Denver, CO at CZ Therapy Group, where you can begin to work your Change Triangle through AEDP therapy with one of our trauma therapists. Follow these three simple steps to get started:
Reach out to schedule a free 20-minute consult call to see if trauma therapy is right for you
Connect with the CZTG trauma therapist of your choice via a phone consult.
Begin your AEDP healing journey through Denver trauma therapy!