What Helps People Change?
As a curious person and a therapist who loves her work, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what helps people change and what actually works in therapy.
Over the years I’ve developed an approach that incorporates all the therapeutic modalities and theories I’ve studied and gravitated towards. The style of therapy I practice today can be described as eclectic, research informed, compassionate and outcome oriented.
There are approximately 400-500 styles of therapy named and I’m sure there are new ones being named every year. The good news is that the best style of therapy is the style that best resonates with you and the relationship you build with your therapist is the most significant predictor of good outcomes in therapy.
In my experience the most helpful style of therapy should focus on the 3 factors that support real and lasting change.
The Three Factors That Support Real Change
Lasting emotional change tends to require more than insight alone. In my work, change rests on three interconnected elements: 1. Understanding 2. Corrective Experiences 3. Integration
1. UnderstandIng
Insight matters.
Understanding your patterns, your history, and the protective strategies you developed helps reduce shame and confusion. It brings clarity to why you react the way you do.
But understanding is the starting point, not the endpoint.
Many people understand their anxiety or trauma responses very well. The nervous system can still react automatically. So we build insight as a foundation, while recognising that change requires more than explanation.
2. Corrective Experiences
For the brain to update an old emotional pattern, it has to have a new experience while the old pattern is active.
This means gently accessing the emotional memory or trigger, without overwhelm, and allowing your system to experience something different. Safety instead of danger. Presence instead of abandonment. Regulation instead of chaos.
It is not about reliving the past. It is about activating the pattern in a contained way so your nervous system can register that the feared outcome does not occur.
Experience is where emotional learning begins to shift.
(This is where techniques and modalities that access emotions and the subconscious play a key role. I am trained in various different modalities (Hypnotherapy, IFS, OEI, Bilateral Stimulation, Somatic Experiencing, EFT, EMDR) because different styles and approaches resonate better for different people.)
3. Integration
Change consolidates when the experience is completed and your system has time to settle.
This is where we place an emphasis on pacing and intentional endings and making sense of experiences. The nervous system, the psyche needs to register that the experience as finished and in the past, out body and mind can take time to register that the past is not happening in the present and to allow for a feeling of safety. Completion and integration allows the brain to store the new learning and to feel differently about past experiences. We don’t erase the past, but we can change the intensity of the emotions attached to the past.
Integration is what turns a meaningful session into lasting change.
Understanding brings clarity.
Experience allows updating.
Integration makes it stick.
Different modalities support these three elements in different ways. Some clients connect more with conversational insight. Others benefit from experiential or hypnotherapeutic work. The pathway can vary, but the underlying structure of change remains consistent.
The goal is not just coping better.
It is helping your nervous system learn something new.
Some Therapy Helps You Cope
Some Therapy Helps You Actually Change
Many people come to therapy for anxiety, depression, trauma, or patterns that just will not shift.
You may understand your story.
You may have talked about it more than once.
You might even know exactly where it started.
And yet your body still reacts with fear, freeze or tension.
And you can see your reaction to the same triggers.
And it can feel like an emotional loops repeating.
There is reasons for that repetition.
Over the past two decades, neuroscience has helped us understand something important about emotional memory. Research from scientists such as Karim Nader and Joseph LeDoux shows that emotional memories do not change simply because we talk about them. Insight alone does not update the nervous system. This is good news for therapist and something that is important to consider in our work as therapists.
For the brain to change how it stores an emotional experience, certain conditions need to be in place.
An old emotional pattern needs to be activated.
The feared outcome needs to not occur.
And the experience needs to come to a clear close.
In simple terms, your nervous system has to register:
I went back there.
Nothing bad happened.
And now it is finished.
When that sequence completes, the brain can update the old learning rather than just manage it.
That is the difference between coping and change.
What Makes the Aim approach Different
I am Keely aware to ensure clients understand their past, their story and I’m also careful to not allow them to remain in analysis. Our work together will look at the past but it will not be centred on rehashing the past or endless analysis. In fact there is research to show that rehashing the past can reenforce some unhelpful patterns.
Our work will be about creating the right conditions for your brain to revise how it holds the past.
We gently activate the emotional pattern. (either through conversation or using modalities that access the subconscious)
We work at a pace that keeps your nervous system regulated.
We do not push into overwhelm, we want to remain challenged but not overwhelmed.
And we close sessions clearly and deliberately.
I encourage you to kale extra time after sessions to quietly reflect, journal or go for a walk to better integrate your experiences.
We want to encourage your nervous system to integrate what you experiences and to feel safe and empowered in the process.
Over time, this is how anxiety can soften, trauma triggers lose intensity, and long-standing relational patterns can begin to shift.
Different Modalities, One Outcome
People connect with therapy in different ways. Some feel more comfortable in conversation. Others respond to guided imagery or deeper internal work. Some prefer structured techniques. Others need space and reflection.
I integrate several evidence-informed approaches because different styles resonate with different people. The goal is the same in each case: helping your nervous system update old emotional learning.
Hypnotherapy
Hypnotherapy allows us to access the emotional roots of anxiety, depression, trauma, and stuck patterns in a focused and contained way.
You will not be unconscious, this is as safe and gentle approach to trance work.
You will not be out of control, you allow yourself to go into the level of trance that feels most supportive for you on any given day.
You will be in a state of concentrated awareness where emotional material can be accessed without flooding your system with emotional intensity.
When new safety and new perspective are introduced while an old memory is active, the brain has the opportunity to store that experience differently.
Internal Family Systems
With Internal Family Systems, we work with the different parts of you that carry fear, shame, anger, or protective behaviours.
When a part that expects criticism, rejection, or overwhelm instead experiences steady presence and regulation, something shifts internally.
This idea is not new. Psychoanalyst Franz Alexander described what he called a corrective emotional experience many years ago. What neuroscience has clarified is when that experience leads to lasting change. It happens when the emotional pattern is activated and safely completed.
OEI and Dual Awareness
Observed and Experiential Integration supports you in staying connected to a difficult emotional experience while also remaining anchored in a regulated observing state.
You will not be submerged in the feeling.
You will not be detached from it either.
That balance allows integration rather than retraumatization.
Bilateral Stimulation
Gentle bilateral stimulation, similar EMDR ( Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), helps the brain process emotional material across networks. It supports the nervous system in metabolising experience instead of holding it in a frozen state.
Each of these modalities offers a slightly different pathway. Some clients feel more aligned with one than another. What they share is a focus on creating the neurological conditions required for change.
What This Approach Can Help With
Anxiety that keeps returning
Depression that feels cyclical
Trauma triggers
Relationship reactivity
People pleasing and self abandonment
Chronic stress responses
Feeling emotionally stuck
The aim igoes deeper than simply understanding. Understanding is just the first step.
The aim is helping your nervous system react differently and to help you feel more at ease and empowered in your emotional expression.
A Note on Research
This framework is grounded in research on memory reconsolidation and emotional learning, including work by Karim Nader, Joseph LeDoux, and clinicians such as Bruce Ecker who have applied reconsolidation principles in therapeutic settings.
These findings help explain why structured emotional work, when done carefully and safely, can lead to meaningful and lasting change.
Therapy does not have to be about managing symptoms forever.
With the right structure, the right pacing, and the right fit between you and the method, your nervous system can learn something new.
And when it does, change feels less like effort
and more like relief.