Interview with Allison Forget, MA RCC

What does it mean to “embrace transformation”?

As a psychotherapist, I help clients identify how they are affected by experiences in their life. These may be current interactions with others or past relationships of family dynamics, workplace communications or intimate partnerships. Together, we track feeling states and associated physical sensations which drive our judgments and behaviours. I assist clients to move through these states, opening to newly discovered feelings and meaning-making that more truly align with their true wants and needs.

What is self-discovery like?

Within this self-discovery process, individuals often find themselves shifting from a state that might have felt small, tight, fearful and lonely to an expanding awareness of the subtle ways we are affected by our interactions with others. With the practice of self-nurture of the painful aspects, in a safe, therapeutic process, newly emergent feelings and physical sensations become apparent and feel good when openly expressed. Individuals often find themselves engaging with life from a place of newly felt energy that feels like their true nature.

What is AEDP?

Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) was developed by Diana Fosha as a relational approach to trauma therapy. The therapeutic healing of the work is the present active engagement happening between client and therapist. The emotionally safe relationship between client and therapist allows the client to identify, sometimes painful core affective states resultant of adverse experiences. The relationship invites ongoing self-nurture of aspects of client’s feelings and identity allowing more positive feeling states to emerge. Within this dynamic interaction between client and therapist, there becomes a newly discovered way of knowing one’s true self. The work is transformative in nature, “the experience of vital affects in the context of an attached relationship is the primary agent of emotional transformation…” (Fosha, 2000).

What I find most compelling about AEDP is the powerful capacity for people to know and embrace themselves when processing their life experiences within an actively supportive relationship with another. I have spent many years as a clinical counsellor working with clients who have experienced interpersonal trauma. Throughout these years I have found myself aligned with experiential therapy with a focus on the inter-relational process between client and therapist. I have felt honoured to be a part of the validation of individual’s experiences and help them become empowered.

When I found Diana Fosha’s AEDP, it felt like coming home. It is not an application or technique, it is the actioning and active repair of the natural attachment formations of relationship. In my ongoing training in this therapeutic orientation, I am encouraged to bring as much of my core self, from my heart, into sharing and being with another’s experience. It is this connection that flourishes transformation. There is no room for pretensions.

It is such a joy to practice as a therapist with such a synergistic orientation. I cannot help but experience my own transformation and personal growth, which leaves me with a sense of awe. It is a delightful opportunity to practice AEDP as a therapist as I am a part of, and witness to another’s own journey of discovering true self.

How does this apply to Trauma Therapy?

The core work of trauma therapy is to create safety. The nature of having a traumatic experience is that it has overwhelmed the individual. The experience has compromised what someone knew to be true about themselves and their relationship with the world. Traumatic experiences can happen in a multitude of ways. People can experience impersonal trauma, such as a car accident or act of nature. They can experience interpersonal trauma, such as abuse or violence in relationship, workplace crisis front line response, ongoing harassment and bullying, cultural oppression or vicarious exposure to overwhelming events.

As it is evident that there are many ways that people have been affected traumatically, a relational approach to working together offers a repair of the overwhelming responses to traumatic experiencing. In engagement with trauma therapy, you can expect a three part process of affect (emotion) regulation, processing of the traumatic experience with a focus on meaning-making and reengagement with the world in a way that feels grounded in safety and a sense of empowerment within the person.