Struggling with our current national and world situation and not sure how to deal with it? Had a fight with your relationship partner and don’t know how to cope with the pain of feeling wounded and misunderstood? If you’ve ever been tempted to self-medicate with substances or compulsive behaviors, you can try a new form of emotion-focused coping instead. Read on…
What a Lack of Emotion-Focused Coping Causes
With all the technological advancements in our day and age, one of the things that seems to be lagging behind all our tremendous technology is a knowledge of how to cope with our feelings and emotions. We have largely become masters of our own universe in the realm of computer technology, but we still have a long way to go in the area of technology that helps us cope with our feelings and emotions. Much of these lie in our subconscious, but when we notice something upsetting in our day to day lives, tremendous suffering can ensue. We try to medicate these feelings with a hoard of things, drugs, sex, alcohol, shopping, gambling, etc. The toll it takes on us is staggering. The cost of addictions alone has been estimated at $740 billion in terms of lost workplace productivity, healthcare expenses, and crime-related costs, according to American Addiction Centers.
What Image Transformation Therapy (ImTT) Offers for Emotion-Focused Coping
We need to be able to process our emotions in a more direct way than popping a pill, or taking a drink, or snorting a line, or looking at porn until the wee hours of the morning. Some folks were raised to figure out for themselves how to cope with feelings, especially if their parents used substances or other addictions towards this end. One of the recent developments in the field of psychotherapy has been that of Image Transformation Therapy (ImTT), which is a breathing and visualization technique I use with my clients in the office to help them deal with feelings related to trauma and other unpleasant experiences. It can be used by individuals on their own with some familiarity with the steps of the process and how to identify underlying feelings of fear and emotional pain which are often at the core of these.
How You Can Be an Ace at Emotion-Focused Coping
You first have to identify what you’re feeling. The basic 4 emotions are mad, sad, glad, and fear. You don’t need help with feeling glad (or maybe you do if you can’t cope with it), but depending on whether you're feeling mad, sad, or afraid, you may need to be able to do some more detective work on your end. Feeling mad is usually based on fear or emotional pain, so you need to figure out whether it hurts more or feels fearful in the situation you're upset about. As far as feeling sad, that most often boils down to feeling emotional pain or hurt. Fear is the only one of these that doesn’t derive from something else. There are also other feelings that just are, like feeling shattered or feeling devastated. Any feeling lends itself to emotion-focused coping, and this is where ImTT comes in. You need to be shown how to do ImTT in session, and it can take as little as a couple of months to get the hang of it. Depending on how complicated your situation is, you could conceivably do some on your own and be able to cope mostly independently from then on. People with trauma and personality disorders can take longer to get traction with ImTT, but it is something most people can benefit from.
My Role in Helping You Learn Emotion-Focused Coping
I’ve been using ImTT with my clients for years now and was one of the first to be trained in this cutting-edge technique. I can attest to many clients that I’ve helped over the years with ImTT, and those who I use this with for an extended period of time can become proficient using it on their own. In these difficult time, emotion-focused coping can be an essential survival tool to get through, and if you can possibly benefit from ImTT you deserve to learn more about it. It helps people with all kinds of emotional problems, not just those suffering from trauma. It is an excellent form of therapy to do in virtual online sessions as well! I would be happy to talk to you more about how I could help you with emotion-focused coping, and offer free 15-minute phone consults to give you a better idea. You can reach me at 512-648-3053, or fill out the form below and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If you would like I can also send you an audiofile of a meditation that was a precursor to ImTT. Do something good for yourself and those you love with something so practical and beneficial as ImTT!
About the author: Scott Kampschaefer, LCSW is a private practice therapist in Frederick, Maryland. He has an extensive background in working with depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder at a clinic for older adults with these disorders in Austin, Texas. He now works with adults and adolescents 14 and up in private practice. His new e-book is entitled Life’s Lessons from the Young and the Old and is available for purchase on Amazon.
Visit our page on trauma therapy to learn more about how Scott can help you with trauma.