Therapy with Stephanie Bain

Theory of Change, AKA How Therapy Works

10/12/2022

Clients are often curious about what therapy may do for them. It's more than fair to want to know what you are investing your time and money in!

I work with an existential-humanistic, psychodynamic, attachment-based, social justice-informed, trauma-informed lens and integrate modalities like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and Parts Work. Read below for a brief description of how those theories of psychotherapy may create change in your life.

"What will psychotherapy do for me?"

"What are we doing here?"

"Why does it matter how my parents treated me?"

"Why should I share my embarrassing thoughts and feelings?"

Psychodynamic Therapy - Psychodynamic theory explores events in our past that influence our present and shape our personality. Certain experiences have unconscious impacts. Change occurs through insight and understanding of early, unresolved issues.

Object Relations Psychodynamic / Attachment-Based Therapy -
Early relationships are foundational to who we are. Change occurs through exploration of past and current relational attachments and trauma as well as through reparative experiences with the therapist and transformation of current relationship dynamics.

Client-Centered Humanistic Therapy -
Humanistic therapy centers around the idea that all humans have an internal drive toward wholeness. Change occurs by providing clients space to better understand and trust themselves and grow through the therapeutic relationship with the presence of three essential components: genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and empathy,

Existential Therapy - Existential psychotherapy focuses on the human condition--free will, self-determination, and the search for meaning. Change occurs through finding meaning in the face of anxiety, acting authentically, and taking responsibly. The core question addressed in existential therapy is "How do I exist?" in the face of uncertainty, conflict, or death.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) - DBT focuses on skill building to work with intense emotions and interpersonal conflicts that may be a result of attachment trauma. Change occurs through mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and improving interpersonal problem solving skills.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) - CBT leads with considering how thoughts impact our feelings and behaviors. Change occurs by noticing and changing unhelpful thought patterns and thereby being better able to cope with stressors in a more positive manner.

Parts Work Therapy - Parts work is a kind of therapy that addresses
differences and conflicts in “agendas” between parts that may be responsible for blocking emotional healing. Change occurs through accepting all parts of yourself, inviting compassion, befriending your parts, and resolving tensions.

To learn more about how it all comes together, read more about how I work and what happens in therapy here.

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Tools for Sleep

10/11/2022

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Sleep Tips:

Consistency. Make sleep a practice. Make relaxation a ritual. Try the resources below on a regular basis. Commit to a regular sleep ritual and stick to it for a month.
Make your bedroom a relaxing, nurturing, dark environment.
Avoid large meals shortly before sleep.
Monitor caffeine use.
Limit screen time before bed. Especially limit things like Twitter and TikTok that are fast moving, informational, and intentionally stimulating.
If you're having a hard time "turning off your brain," journal or make lists.
Drop into your body with gentle movement or meditation before sleep.
Don't freak out. The worse thing you can do is judge yourself or spiral about your night affecting the next day. In fact, consider how can you lean into your current experience.

Resources:
Gentle Movement
30-Minute Qigong for Sleep
30-Minute Yin Yoga
25-Minute Restorative Yoga

Yoga Nidra
30-Minute Yoga Nidra
90-Minute Yoga Nidra

Body Scan Meditation
30-Minute Body Scan

Sleep Stories
The Calm App's Sleep Stories

Not Resisting Our Experience
Saying Yes To Reality Meditation
Meditation For Relaxing Into Sleep

Supplements*
*Check in with your MD before introducing supplements
Magnesium
Melatonin
CBD
Ashwagandha

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Psychoeducational Instagram Accounts

9/13/2022

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If you're scrolling through social media, you may as well learn something! The accounts below include contain helpful resources and validation. Though Instagram is no replacement for therapy or a deeper dive via a book or class, getting these little reminders can still comfort.

P.S. still use that screen time limit tool!

Gender Sauce
The Love Therapist
Decolonizing Therapy
The Empowered Therapist
Psychotherapy Central
The Depression Project
The Holistic Psychologist
Silvy Khoucasian
Somewhere Under the Rainbow
Real Talk Therapist
Softcare Trauma
Kai Cheng Thom
Your.being
Therapy Jeff
Liz Listens
Healing_notes_
Queer Sex Therapy
Kati Morton

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10 Books I'd Recommend to Almost Anyone

9/9/2022

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We could all use a little psychoeducation -- aka information on our thoughts, feelings, unconscious, and relationships. Below are 10 great reads for better understanding attachment, trauma, community, conflict, and ourselves.

Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy by Jessica Fern

Even if you never plan on exploring polyamorous relationships! Fern provides a concise and easy to understand summary of attachment theory that will be helpful to anyone in any kind of human relationship.

I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World Show Details By Kai Cheng Thom

I'm obsessed with Thom's writing and thinking. This short book is an intimate collection of poetry and essays exploring harm, violence, and marginalization in community from a non-punitive lens, holding the nuance of the human condition.

My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

Menakem's work not only explores racism in America but explored racialized trauma from a body-centered perspective providing useful exercises for everyone with trauma.

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman and Nan Silver

Not just for marriages, this book is a compact breakdown of how to build strong, secure relationships based on decades of research.

Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom by Rick Hanson

Neuroscience can be quite a complex topic, but this book breaks gives you the basics of what you need to know to better understand your internal processing and how to work with your brain.

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff

Neff and her team applied clinical research to basic exercises to improve your relationship with yourself. Neff's concept is simple but the results are profound.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma Bessel Van der Kolk

This book uses scientific research to demonstrate how trauma restructures the mind and body. Experiencers of trauma find the book validating and helpful in their owb healing.

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach

Coming from a Buddhist perspective, Brach demonstrates how self-judgement/criticism/hatred keep us unfulfilled, limited, and in distress. Brach also provides exercises in unlearning these unhelpful thought patterns.

No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model By Richard Schwartz

Schwartz approaches all parts of ourselves as good intentioned, wanting the best for us, even when causing harm and disruption in our lives. Approaching our difficult parts from this perspective creates huge shifts.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb

It's common for people to be curious about what happens in therapy, how therapy works, and what the heck therapists are thinking. In this funny, warm memoir Gottlieb reveals just that.

“In search of relationship safety, our attachment system is primed to seek the answers to certain questions regarding our partners . . . If I turn towards you, will you be there for me? Will you receive and accept me instead of attack, criticize, dismiss or judge me?. . . Can we lean into and rely on each other?” —from Polysecure

“Models of justice that centre punishment do not prevent abuse but only react to it, and they don't offer a pathway toward healing for either perpetrators or survivors. Nor do they acknowledge the dual reality that a great many perpetrators are themselves survivors.” —from I Hope We Choose Love

“Trauma is also a wordless story our body tells itself about what is safe and what is a threat.” —from My Grandmother's Hands

“Every time you take in the good, you build a little bit of neural structure. Doing this a few times a day—for months and even years—will gradually change your brain, and how you feel and act, in far-reaching ways.” —from Buddha's Brain

"Beginning to understand how our lives have become ensnared in this trance of unworthiness is our first step toward reconnecting with who we really are and what it means to live fully." —from Radical Acceptance