Contributed by Bruce Ecker
11 Results
A Brain Science Strategy for Overwriting Traumatic Memories
Creating Juxtaposition Experiences to Relieve Trauma Symptoms
What we clinicians have learned in recent years about the intricacies of the brain's implicit memory systems has certainly helped us better recognize the linkage between distressing or traumatic experiences and many of the previously puzzling symptoms clients bring to our offices. But now brain science is beginning ... Read More
VIDEO: In Search of the Therapeutic Breakthrough
Bruce Ecker on Finding the Underlying Reasons for Detrimental Behaviors
How a Traumatic Memory Can Feed Anxiety
When Treating Some Forms of Anxiety, Reenacting a Traumatic Memory May Be the Key
Depth-Oriented Brief Therapy and Panic Attack Treatment
One of the Guiding Principles of Depth-Oriented Brief Therapy Illustrated in a Client’s Panic Attack Treatment.
“Symptom coherence” is how we refer to the view that there always exists a well-defined, cogent set of personal themes and purposes that necessitate a symptom. The moment there no longer exists any purpose requiring a symptom, the person stops producing it. This view informed the development of a clinical methodology called Depth-Oriented Brief Therapy. Read More
The Brain's Rules for Change
Translating cutting-edge neuroscience into practice
The Hidden Logic of Anxiety
Look for the Emotional Truth behind the Symptom
To focus on the unconscious psychological roots of an individual's anxiety has become an anachronism. But how many of us, with a toolbox full of today's methods, reliably bring about a decisive cessation of our clients' intense anxiety and panic? In the first few years of my clinical career, I found that with standard methods I could often help clients mildly relieve their anxieties, but that I rarely achieved a radical reduction of symptoms. Yet there were occasional sessions in which I abandoned conventional clinical wisdom and tapped into a deep layer of personal meaning in the symptoms. When I did that, clients' symptoms often ceased from one session to the next, and never recurred. For several years, I systematically examined what was different about those sporadic sessions that yielded such profound change. What I found was a surprise. Read More
Bruce Ecker
Bruce Ecker, MA, LMFT, is codirector of the Coherence Psychology Institute, co-originator of Coherence Therapy, and coauthor of Unlocking Emotional Brain and Depth Oriented Brief Therapy.