Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)

Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) is an integrative, experiential, emotion-based psychotherapy model developed by Diana Fosha, Ph.D. AEDP has roots in and resonances with many disciplines including short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy, interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, emotion theory and affective neuroscience, somatic therapies, and mindfulness. 

The AEDP therapist works to create a safe and secure relationship with the patient, and the therapist is authentic, actively engaged, emotionally attuned, empathic and affirming. AEDP focuses on helping people to feel and to have the experience of feeling once feared, unbearable, and/or overwhelming emotions, as well as the transformative, joyful feelings, so that these emotions can be processed experientially and deeply, and brought into the self. AEDP helps patients to notice the ways in which they protect themselves, below awareness, from experiencing some feelings. The AEDP therapist guides individuals to soften these protective layers, and allow themselves to experience feelings they once avoided. This leads to relief, increased clarity, and a capacity to initiate corrective behavior in their lives. The AEDP therapist advocates for and encourages the development of the patient’s corrective impulses. This may be achieved through the use of imagery around how to apply a new behavior in a person’s life, or in revisiting past situations where the individual felt alone, deprived or experienced overt trauma.

We all have strivings toward connection, understanding, growth and transformation. The more these yearnings are impeded by deprivation, misattunement, trauma or loss, the more profound and painful the longings and needs can become. AEDP privileges the power of new experiences of being seen, understood, and undoing aloneness, in the face of overwhelming emotions, in order to heal the deepest injuries and create space for exploration, discovering and harnessing untapped resources, and increased psychological well-being. AEDP also involves metaprocessing, which teaches people that there is value in talking about experience, that everything can be spoken about, and that talking cements experience.

To learn more about AEDP, please visit their website at https://www.aedpinstitute.org.