Overview

Courtney Armstrong's The Therapeutic ""Aha!"" explores the thrilling and rare moment when a client reaches an elusive realization, allowing them to make meaningful change. In 10 straightforward strategies, this practical book demonstrates how to shake things up in therapy when a client is stuck or stalled to jumpstart progress. Readers will learn how to spark the ""emotional brain""-the part of the brain that houses automatic, unconscious patterns-and create new neural pathways that engage and advance the healing process. Divided into three parts-(1) Awakening a Session, (2) Healing Emotional Wounds, and (3) Activating Experiential Change-the book walks readers through specific techniques for harnessing the emotional brain and re-patterning its routine. Elegant therapeutic insights and coping strategies only go so far; until we intervene with something our emotional brain can understand-a compelling felt experience-old, established neural patterns will persist. The brain-based strategies Armstrong presents include how to enliven the therapeutic alliance; elicit exciting goals; identify the root of an emotional conflict; reverse trauma with memory reconsolidation; invoke inspirational imagery; and use stories, humor, music, poetry, and even mindfulness to induce change. Concise, reader-friendly, and filled with helpful case stories and client–therapist dialogue, this wonderfully accessible book puts a new spin on neuroscience knowledge, showing clinicians exactly how it can be used to make those once-elusive therapeutic breakthroughs more frequent, leading to greater healing for your patients.

Full Product Details

9780393708400

Table of Contents

Reviews

This highly readable and engaging book is filled with creative, experiential strategies for dissolving resistance and eliciting clients' own internal motivations for change. Your clients will appreciate the clear, practical approaches for navigating their standstills. I recommend this book to all therapists. -- Clifton Mitchell, PhD, author of Effectiv Written in a warm, friendly tone, Armstrong provides clinicians with fresh strategies for respectfully resolving resistance, engaging clients more fully in the change process, and inspiring hope and possibility in even their most challenging clients. -- Bill O'Hanlon, author of Do One Thing People learn and change through compelling emotional experiences much more than through logical discussion. The Therapeutic Aha! is a hands-on guide to creating and using emotional experiences to mismatch beliefs and create alternate futures. Building on her work in hypnosis and induction for trauma, Courtney Armstrong guides readers through a variety of methods to elicit healing through memory reconsolidation. It is practical and accessible, informed by current neuroscience research, and clearly demonstrates her structured RECON approach. An excellent how-to! -- Simon D'Orsogna, Therapist & Associate Ins

Author Information

Courtney Armstrong, MEd, a licensed professional counselor, lives in Hixson, Tennessee. She gives national trainings and workshops on a variety of topics for mental health professionals. She also contributes to Psychotherapy Networker and other books and journals and has made several radio and TV appearances for her expertise in grief and trauma.

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