Blog

When does stuckness give way to change in therapy? How does a resisting client become a working partner? The key, of course, lies not in exerting pressure but rather in exploring the cost of old patterns and empowering a sense of choice. Susan Warren Warshow, psychotherapist, author and founder of Dynamic Emotion Focused Therapy, reflects on the painful intrapersonal and interpersonal consequences of repressing feelings – and how identifying these with compassion can help our clients leverage their healthy internal force.

Shame is an exceedingly vulnerable state that calls for great tenderness and delicacy on the part of the therapist – as Susan Warren Warshow learned through trial and error. Here, the author of The Therapist’s Handbook to Dissolve Shame and Defense and her upcoming The Practice of DEFT: A Shame Sensitive Workbook reflects on the process of developing her shame sensitivity – including requesting feedback, reframing interventions and communicating compassion for internal conflict.

When a client feels stuck, bringing attention to their movements can help to mobilise imagination. Inspired by a recent walk with her nephews, embodied movement psychotherapist sissy lykou considers the role of movement in communicating patterns, expanding process and allowing the unconscious to lead the way – and shares how two clients reached breakthroughs by developing their movement awareness.

How can we help clients to access and attend to intense and difficult feelings that may be deeply buried? Susan Warren Warshow, author of The Therapist’s Handbook to Dissolve Shame and Defense and its forthcoming sequel, shares 10 ways in which we can support our clients to turn towards their unconscious affect, from clarifying the nature of feelings to expressing care for these ‘children at the door’.