AEDP

Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) is rooted in a psychodynamic understanding of psychopathology as shaped by chronic reliance on defenses.

When certain emotions become too painful or dangerous to experience, we learn to defend against them. AEDP helps us move through these defenses toward the core emotional experience underneath.

For AEDP, transformation happens through directly experiencing deep affect.

Grief. Anger. Sadness. Fear. Joy. We stay with the emotion, experience it in the body, and allow it to unfold.

The Triangle of Conflict maps what can get in the way:

Emotion → Anxiety → Defense

A feeling arises. It evokes anxiety, shame, or guilt. A defense appears to keep the feeling out of awareness.

We intellectualize instead of grieving. Detach instead of longing. Become angry instead of feeling sadness.

The Triangle of Relationship shows where these patterns came from and where they continue to live. Ways of relating formed in early relationships repeat themselves in present relationships and eventually emerge, in vivo, with the therapist.

And this is why the therapeutic relationship is central to AEDP.

Fosha describes chronic aloneness in the face of emotional pain as a major source of psychological suffering. If difficult feelings once had to be faced alone, defenses were necessary. AEDP seeks to undo that aloneness by offering a different experience: feeling what was once unbearable in the presence of an attuned, emotionally engaged other.

What once had to be defended against and borne alone can now be experienced in relationship.