Coherence Therapy – you probably haven’t heard of it.  And you might wonder, “what does that mean?”

Usually people come to therapy because they want an unpleasant symptom to go away.  Sound familiar?  And most therapies focus on doing just that.  Whether through relaxation techniques, visualizations, cognitive reframing, behavioral changes, and many other methods, the primary purpose is to make the symptom disappear.  And there certainly isn’t anything wrong with wanting a symptom to go away.  Obviously it’s uncomfortable and causing havoc in your life!

So how is Coherence Therapy different?  It starts by finding the coherence of the symptom.  It helps you discover how the unwanted symptom makes emotional sense to you.  As much as you hate the symptom, it actually makes sense in some way.  There is an emotional truth to the symptom that until now you’ve been unaware of.  And until you become aware of what that is, the symptom will persist no matter how many techniques you use to try to get rid of it.

Here is an example:

Say you feel really anxious and can’t understand why.  You’ve been trying deep breathing and positive statements to keep it at bay, but it’s not working.  Through the discovery work of a Coherence Therapy session, you experience that if you weren’t anxious, you’d be more assertive, even sometimes angry.  And that is TOTALLY unacceptable!  As bad as the anxiety feels, it’s BETTER than being angry, and facing the consequences of that.  So you put a cap on the anger, and are anxious instead.

This realization is the first important step in Coherence Therapy.  Sometimes this is the only step needed to dispel the symptom.  There may be a part of you that realizes the anxiety is not worth the cost.  Or you might decide that it is.  That is completely up to you.

To read more about Coherence Therapy, click here to view my website.