Why am I not a fan of talk therapy? – Part 1

I spent the first 10 years of my career doing talk therapy.  My training focused on the idea that if people understood what they were doing that was not working for them then they could make new choices.  And, if they had memories associated that by talking about the memories it would release the emotions and free them up from the emotions, physical reactions and beliefs that were causing them to suffer.

What I observed over and over was that rarely did anything change.  At least not in a spontaneous organic way. 

What I observed is that my clients would have the insight about why they did things and know how they wanted to feel and react differently.  But they found themselves either forcing themselves to act differently, they would feel awful, and feel like a fraud.  Or no matter how hard they tried, they would just end up reacting in a way they did not like, causing them to feel awful.

I started to study alternative ways to help people create actual change.  Body-centered psychotherap…