Experiential therapy is a technique that utilizes expressive activities such as role-playing, animal care, acting, and guided imagery and re-enactment of emotional experiences from past and recent relationships. With the guidance of a trained therapist, the client can explore feelings and how the relate to experiences that might have been blocked. Experiential therapy is often used to treat eating disorders, trauma, behavior disorders, loss recovery, eating disorders, substance abuse and compulsive behaviors. The form of therapy is offered in individual, clinical and medical settings in several rehabilitation, recovery and treatment programs in collaboration with conventional methods such as talk therapy (Krycka & Ikemi, 2016). According to experiential therapists, the form of therapy depends on the interactive process of intellectual understanding, metaphoric language and personal interaction. The therapy technique main proponent is Carl Whitaker; he suggests that individuals only learn through experiences. As a therapist, Carl Whitaker carried out spontaneous processes in which he included his personality. Experiential therapy has been found especially useful in allowing the therapists to observe patients in settings that mimic the real world (Elliott & Greenberg 2016 p. 106).
Experiential therapy is more effective with particular groups or populations than others are. The groups that will be addressed in this essay include age and race. Age is an important factor in determining the effectiveness of a therapeutic process. The personality of the therapist is important to children; additionally, children require forms of therapy that fit in their style of communication such as activities and play. Experiential therapists such as Carl Whitaker incorporated their personality in their therapy sessions with clients (Whitaker 2014 p. 31). Experiential therapy involves experiences such as role playing and acting which might entice children; therefore, the technique is effective with children. The flexibility of experiential therapy ensures that therapy can be moved from a clinical setting to a place where the client feels comfortable. Experiential therapy helps youth clients to make the right choices and promote them to find alternatives to undesirable behavior. The flexibility of the therapy technique ensures that the processes can be adjusted to fit client needs. Experiential therapy has been found useful in treating elderly patients. However the therapist needs to consider that the client might not be too open to engaging in activities due to pre-existing medical conditions, lack of awareness and time constraints. It is also essential for the therapist to understand the older patient’s perception of problems. Experiential therapy has been found more useful for white clients as compared to African- Americans and Hispanic clients. African-Americans and Hispanics tend to have different perceptions of problems, cost of treatment, and doubts on the efficacy of the treatment process. The two racial groups often view seeking therapy as a sign of weakness and loss of dignity. Hispanics and African-American clients are often sensitive to if the therapist is treating them with respect, the therapist should therefore desist from assuming an alienating attitude towards the clients.
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I interviewed the proprietor of a facility helping troubled youths on the effectiveness of experiential therapy; he admits that it has been successful in addressing the needs of the youths at the facility. Success stories include a young African immigrant who spoke up about the stereotypes in his culture, a young gay client who finally gathered the courage to come out to his parents after exploring the feelings of anger and shame he felt towards his parents. Additionally, a young Mexican client has been successful in restricting negative thoughts to positive ones by writing them down in a journal and a client who has been able to accept the diagnoses of a chronic illness and is working towards living to his full potential for the remaining days. During my research I noticed that the effectiveness of experiential research on groups such as veterans, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, Tran’s genders and adolescents was not enough. More research needs to be conducted on those areas especially since statistics show that they are among individuals mostly affected by issues such as substance abuse. If more research is conducted on these groups then maybe experiential therapy would be more effective for them.
References
Elliott, R., & Greenberg, L. S. (2016). Humanistic-Experiential Psychotherapy in practice: Emotion-Focused Therapy. Comprehensive textbook of Psychotherapy: Theory and practice , 106.
Krycka, K. C., & Ikemi, A. (2016). Focusing-oriented–experiential psychotherapy: From research to practice.
Whitaker, C. A. (2014, May). Symbolic experiential family therapy: Model and methodology. In The evolution of psychotherapy: The second conference (pp. 31-41). Routledge.
