Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)

Question 1

What are the roots of AEDP therepy?

Answer 1

The stance of AEDP therapists is affirming, empathic and emotionally engaged.

The neuroscience ofattachment, caregiver–infant interaction research,
positive psychology,
emotion research,
psychotherapy research findings on therapist qualities associated with positive therapy outcomes, and phenomenology of the psychological experience of sudden change.[8]

Question 2

Who are the key people?

Answer 2

Diana Fosha

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Fosha

Question 3

What is the core premise of AEDP?

Answer 3

Thetransformance drive - The desire to heal and grow is a wired-in capacity.

Meta-therapeutic processing - Emotional healing and brain re-wiring occur as the patient forms a new experience of a secure attachment relationship to the therapist.

Accelerated Experiential-Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) integrates experiential and relational work
within a psychodynamic framework, and is rooted in a developmentally-based affective model of change
(Fosha, 2000; Fosha & Slowiaczek, 1997).

Question 4

What is meta-therapeutic processing?

Answer 4

Emotional healing and brain re-wiring occur as the patient forms a new experience of a secure attachment relationship to the therapist, and the therapist helps the patient to experience emotions that, in the past, have been too overwhelming.

Healing is accelerated through a tracking of emerging affect, so the patient can have a complete emotional experience, and then reflect upon the experience of healing change itself, with the help of the therapist.

This repeated and prolonged amplification of the experience of change has been called one of AEDP’s “unique” contributions to the psychotherapy literature.

Accelerated Experiential-Dynamic Psychotherapy integrates experiential, relational and psychodynamic elements. Deep authentic affective experience and its regulation through coordinated emotional interchanges between patient and therapist are viewed as key transformational agents. When maintaining attachment with caregivers necessitates excluding particular affects, patients’ capacity to regulate emotion becomes compromised. Being in an emotionally alive therapeutic relationship enables patients to better tolerate and communicate affective states; doing so, in turn, fosters security, openness, and intimacy in their other relationships.

Question 5

What is Thetransformance drive?

Answer 5

The desire to heal and grow is a wired-in capacity, which Fosha calls thetransformance drive, and that healing change must derive from this innate resilience.

Question 6

What are Fosha’s main therapeutic influences

Answer 6

Fosha developed a theory and technique of psychotherapy, AEDP, based upon several conceptual premises as points of departure from the prevailing psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Her theory of how healing occurs in psychotherapy derives from her interpretation of research findings in several areas:
the neuroscience ofattachment, caregiver–infant interaction research,
positive psychology, emotion research,
psychotherapy research findings on therapist qualities associated with positive therapy outcomes, and
phenomenology of the psychological experience of sudden change.

Question 7

What is meant by the key word - core affect?

Answer 7

Accelerated Experiential-Dynamic Psychotherapy integrates experiential, relational and psychodynamic
elements. Deep authentic affective experience and its regulation through coordinated emotional
interchanges between patient and therapist are viewed as key transformational agents. When
maintaining attachment with caregivers necessitates excluding particular affects, patients’ capacity to
regulate emotion becomes compromised. Being in an emotionally alive therapeutic relationship enables
patients to better tolerate and communicate affective states; doing so, in turn, fosters security,
openness, and intimacy in their other relationships.