Grief is a normal response to loss, but it can be overwhelming and difficult to cope with. Fortunately, the tools of ISTDP can help you work through your grief in a healthy and meaningful way.
ISTDP is a type of psychotherapy that focuses on identifying and working through the underlying emotional issues that can contribute to many things, such as chronic depression, anxiety, as well as unresolved grief. By applying the techniques of ISTDP, you can understand and process your grief in order to overcome it. In this article, I'll discuss how ISTDP can help you work through your grief.
What is grief?
Firstly it's important to acknowledge that grieving is a natural process that one goes through after experiencing a significant loss.
When we grieve what we are essentially doing is restructuring in our minds the relationship we have with the person we have lost.
In order to do this we must process the emotions we have around losing an individual so that we are able to accept losing the person and ultimately to move forwards in our lives.
If at any point this restructuring doesn't fully happen then we can find ourselves stuck in unresolved grief, normally involving a series of defences that keep us stuck.
ISTDP works by helping clients identify and understand their underlying emotions and the defence mechanisms they are currently using to stop themselves from fully expressing them. This approach acknowledges that emotions are not just something that one can think through, but they are something that needs to be processed and released and felt physically within the body.
Additionally, ISTDP techniques can help clients overcome the defensive mechanisms they may have developed as a way of coping with the loss, such defences may include repression, denial, or avoidance.
By addressing these defences, ISTDP allows clients to process their emotions more effectively and healthily.
One common technique is called "affect modulation," which involves helping the person regulate their emotions in a way that allows them to feel and express their grief in a more healthy and productive way, without suppression, or becoming overwhelmed by the experience of the feeling.
In a way the therapist the client identify the difference between their feelings, defences and anxiety, by doing this then can learn to fully feel the suppressed feelings and move through the grief.
Another technique is called "experiential focus," which involves guiding the person to focus on their current emotional experience rather than getting caught up in thoughts or stories about the past, which are unconscious defences to move a person away from the feelings and onto something more cognitive instead.
Ultimately, the specific techniques used in ISTDP therapy will depend on the individual's needs and experiences. The way this is done is through an accurate and precise observation of the person's emotions, the conscious and unconscious mechanisms they currently use to manage them and the way that they relate to the therapist.
By mapping this out within the therapy, the therapist is able to work with the individual to optimally help them work through their grief.
If you want to see how ISTDP can help you with your grief then get in touch and see how I can help you.