Why Expansive Therapies Work

Expansive therapies encompass a variety of therapeutic approaches that aim to address mental health concerns through innovative and often holistic methods. If you or a loved one haven’t experienced expansive therapies before, it’s natural to wonder how and why they work. Art therapy, somatic therapy, and ketamine assisted psychotherapy can and have changed the lives of patients all over the world. So how do you know if they’re  right for you? 

How Does Art Therapy Work? 

Art therapy is a therapeutic discipline that uses artistic expression to learn about our interior lives, intense feelings, and subconscious beliefs. By engaging your creative mind, art therapy can help you unlock doors that have been long closed, and get you in touch with your deepest truest feelings. But how specifically can art therapy help you? 

• Gratitude Through Art Therapy. Art therapy can help you disentangle the connection between your difficult emotions and the events in your past. Putting those feelings into art can help you see them for what they are in a way that simple self-analysis cannot.  
• Art Therapy For Life Transitions. When we’re undergoing a difficult life transition, like moving to a new place, losing an important relationship, or getting a new job, art can help you bridge the gap between comfort and novelty. Whatever you’re feeling can be processed and better understood through the lens of art. 
• Using Art Therapy To Fight Your Inner Critic. The inner critic can be vicious when left unchecked. Art therapy can help you see things from a new perspective and talk back to your inner critic when its voice grows too loud and too cruel. 

How Does Somatic Therapy Work? 

Somatic therapy is a therapeutic discipline that emphasizes the connection and integration of mind and body. By integrating the unavoidable (but often unconscious) connection between your mind and body into your conscious line of thinking, you can face and disentangle issues that might otherwise elude you. 

• Body Awareness. Our body is talking to us, whether we listen or not. Through the body awareness that somatic therapies can provide, you can finally hear the messages your body is trying to send to you. By listening to your body, you can address the problems your body remembered while your mind wished to forget. 
• Self-Love And Self-Acceptance. When we don’t practice self-love, ignoring the messages of our body becomes a matter of principle. By going against our learned instinct to ignore the vital impulses of our bodies, we are also denying ourselves the love and acceptance we deserve to give to ourselves and our bodies. By integrating your mind and body together in somatic therapy, you can more easily access your abilities of self-love and self-acceptance.
• Using Your Body To Work Through Tough Emotions. If you’re a deep intellectual thinker, body awareness likely does not come naturally to you. In ancient times, it could take a wise person a lifetime of philosophy, yoga, martial arts, or all of the above to get fully in touch with their bodies. By getting in touch with your body, you can get back in touch with the primal wisdom that your intellectual mind hasn’t yet processed. 

How Does Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy Work?

 

Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (or KAP) is a relatively new type of expansive therapy that uses medically administered ketamine in combination with traditional psychotherapy to treat a wide range of psychological symptoms. The “zooming out” effect of ketamine has been shown to help many patients with their issues of anxiety, depression, and treatment resistance. 

• Ketamine Therapy Can Help Anxiety. Ketamine is more than just a party drug. Patients who struggle with anxiety have experienced significant and surprising gains when treated with ketamine in a clinical setting. By administering controlled doses of ketamine under medical supervision, this therapy induces a transient altered state of consciousness that can disrupt ingrained patterns of anxious thinking and promote emotional processing. 
• How Ketamine Assisted Therapy Helps Depression. By providing rapid relief from depressive symptoms and promoting neuroplasticity, ketamine therapy offers a novel approach to depression treatment that holds promise for individuals who have not responded well to conventional antidepressants. Additionally, ketamine’s ability to induce a transient altered state of consciousness may disrupt maladaptive thought patterns and facilitate deep emotional processing during therapy sessions. 
• The Multiplicative Effects Of Psychotherapy And Ketamine Treatment. Studies have shown that when traditional therapy and KAP are used in conjunction, it improves the effects of both. Ketamine is not a wonder drug that instantly improves one’s function, and neither is talk therapy, but with their benefits combined, they have proved to be helpful for patients who have resisted other forms of therapeutic treatment. 

In summary, expansive therapies like art therapy, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, and somatic therapy offer innovative and integrative approaches to mental health treatment, addressing psychological concerns through creative expression, altered states of consciousness, and embodied healing modalities. These therapies recognize the unique needs and strengths of each individual and empower clients to explore and transform their inner worlds in profound and transformative ways.

The therapists at Integrative Counsel offer expansive therapy.  If you feel stuck on your healing journey, working with one of our practitioners can help. Schedule a consultation, and based on your presenting concern, our intake specialist will help you get matched up with a right-fit therapist. Click here to schedule a consultation.

Sunny Ebsary is an educator, multi-modal artist, and writer specializing in the intersection of myth and mental health. Sunny’s writing walks the line between poetic and logical, giving readers a chance to interface with the mind and imagination. Sunny’s been putting pen to paper since he was a child, writing everything from albums, novels, and plays, to essays, interactive games, and of course, many articles! While studying both psychology and writing, he realized his real passion in life was helping others unlock their creative spark. Whether he’s leading a D&D game, directing a production, or diving deep into the brain, you can be sure Sunny will be ushering you toward finding meaning in your life.