What is a Therapeutic Approach Anyway? Understanding Experiential Therapy.

Welcome back! This week we will be discussing experiential therapy. This will be the last post of the series for now, but please leave a comment if there is another approach you would like to learn more about in the future!

When you hear the word “experiential” what comes to mind? If your first thought was “it kind of sounds like the word experience” then good job, because that is what this style is all about- experiences.

In broad terms, experiential therapy is about being engaged in the present moment through some sort of activity. There are many different types of experiential therapy. For example, art therapy, music therapy, or play therapy.

Therapy can also consist of meeting people in an environment comfortable for the client. This can look like a visit to a park, a trail, in a garden, etc.

So, what does engaging in an activity actually do for someone in therapy? To explain this, let’s do a quick recap of the approaches we’ve talked about in the previous weeks. What do CBT, DBT, and ACT all have in common? Besides having three letter acronyms, they are all about how to change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This requires clients to verbally describe and logically think about their problems. This is fine, but sometimes it is easier to perceive an experience rather than describe it in words.

Experiential therapy believes that meanings are acquired through experiences, which are more powerful than conceptualizing thoughts. Essentially, this style of therapy will help someone change how they relate to, or experience, the world rather than how they can intellectualize it.

For example, someone may have a hard time describing their romantic relationship in words, but they can feel that it is “wrong” or “something isn’t right.” In this case, maybe art therapy could be beneficial for this client. Using colors to describe feelings rather than words could tell both the client and therapist so many things. After all, a picture of worth a thousand words.