Experiential therapy is a technique that utilizes expressive activities such as role playing and acting for the therapeutic process. The activities re-enact emotional situation from past and recent relationships. The clients focus on the activities and through the experience; they identify emotions associated with success, disappointment, responsibility and self-esteem. With the therapist’s guidance, the client explores feelings of shame, hurt or anger and how they are associated with experiences that might have been blocked. The practice is mostly used in anger management therapy, loss recovery, trauma treatment, substance abuse, compulsive behaviors, behavior disorders, and eating disorders (Krycka & Ikemi 2016). Experiential therapy is mostly utilized by therapists in medical, individual, and clinical settings in recovery treatments and rehabilitation programs in collaboration with the conventional talk therapy.
I interviewed the practitioner at a local organization that catered for the needs of troubled youths. The practitioner utilizes Whitaker’s experiential therapy to address the diverse needs of the youths at the center. The experiential therapy process mostly relies on perceptions’ however, problem perception and recognition differs among races. For instance, African Americans and Hispanics have different perceptions of problems, costs of treatment and efficiency of treatment. For instance, an African-American or Hispanic client might perceive a substance abuse as not a severe problem and he/she can handle the problem on his or her own (Elliott & Greenberg 2016 p. 106). When considering immigrant clients the counselor should be careful not to presume that clients will readily share their experiences with them since some might be too painful to share. Experiential therapy has the strength to empower immigrants who in their cultures might not have been exposed to helping services. The practitioner explains that there are language barriers when dealing with immigrant workers but they have utilized the services of interpreters. Additionally the concept of therapy is foreign for most of these immigrant clients therefore they need more time to adjust to the concept.
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Experiential therapy has been useful in addressing the needs of the homeless youth at the facility. However, the therapist must first consider attending to their basic needs such as shelter, health and safety. Additionally the facility connects the clients to agencies that fund treatment and other needs such as shelter. Following the initial process, the therapist can now settle on assessing the issues that caused homelessness such as substance use and strained relationships with family (Krycka & Ikemi 2016). Experiential therapy suggests that the therapist creatively improvises the sessions according to the need of the client. The therapists at the facility mostly assure the clients that it is a safe place for individuals of all sexual orientations. The proprietor at the facility explains that they have had success using experiential therapy for individuals of all genders. The facility treats youths and especially adolescents still in the development stages. The main issue faced by many youths at the facility is substance use; although the issue sometimes presents as experimental, it might be an indicator of serious issues.
Most veterans struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder therefore they mostly present with substance use problems and anger managements. Sessions with veterans might be horrifying, graphic and intense therefore the creativity proposed by Whitaker’s practice might be beneficial (Whitaker, 2014 p. 31). Expressing the anger and stress in activities included in experiential therapy has been found to be beneficial for veterans. Experiential therapy is the treatment of choice for trauma; it provides an outlet for clients to express painful emotions and release them in movement. The therapeutic process also allows trauma survivors to access their emotions, integrate the mind, body, spirit and reconnect with their authentic selves. Experiential therapy is efficient in addressing individual and physical needs since it encourages overall growth of an individual in all aspects. Experiential therapy addresses the needs of the youth despite of their race, immigration status, level of poverty, gender and sexual orientation. The practitioner admits that experiential therapy has been successful in addressing the needs of youth at the facility. However, I would like to conduct more research no effectiveness of experiential therapy on lesbians, gays and immigrants.
References
Krycka, K. C., & Ikemi, A. (2016). Focusing-oriented–experiential psychotherapy: From research to practice.
Elliott, R., & Greenberg, L. S. (2016). Humanistic-Experiential Psychotherapy in practice: Emotion-Focused Therapy. Comprehensive textbook of Psychotherapy: Theory and practice , 106.
Whitaker, C. A. (2014, May). Symbolic experiential family therapy: Model and methodology. In The evolution of psychotherapy: The second conference (pp. 31-41). Routledge.
