From the Center Out
Top down, bottom up, center out – towards an integrative approach to therapy.
Goal – to bring everything into alignment – thoughts, beliefs, emotions, ease of body.
We’ve all learned the top-down, cognitive approach to therapy. Many of us have also learned the bottom-up somatic approach to therapy. Both of these approaches have taught us a lot and have been very helpful.
Something is missing.
The center.
The center is located around the heart. Coming from the center, both the top and the bottom are accessible, and neither dominate. It’s as if the center is there to take in both and response in a way that is grounded, honest, and warm.
This is common knowledge that is left out of professional dialogue. It’s not easy to research. It’s complicated by all kinds of things from the top down, and from the bottom up.
Meanwhile, people have learned over time to trust their hearts, and to trust that overall intuitive sense that seems to pull from both what is known and what is sensed but not fully conscious.
Like our inability to fully understand the universe, we are also not able to fully understand ourselves. We look at pieces – the brain, the body, the DNA, epigenetics, etc., and fail to take in the whole person, including that intangible thing that happens when the heart speaks. It’s intuition, a gut-response, a sense of something that’s important – heart-felt.
Our hearts pump blood – that’s easy to understand. The heart is also the center of the body and far more complex than just a pump. We feel that. We seldom study it seriously.
In therapy, we learn how important it is to listen to what the mind says and become able to evaluate those messages, taking the ones that are helpful and diffusing those that aren’t. We also learn that the body has its own wisdom and speaks in non-verbal ways that are powerful..
Who speaks for the wisdom that comes from the heart? Can people be taught to listen to what the heart does when top-down and bottom-up information is fed to the center of the person listening? I think they can. Many excellent therapists do this automatically, their knowledge coming through the compassion and connection felt in their own hearts. We sometimes see this as working with the counter-transference. That sounds professional, and very important. It’s also something that many therapists struggle to understand. When that dynamic is translated into ‘hear what’s being said, notice how you feel, body and mind, and let your heart speak the truth that emerges from that’, it becomes organic, and much simpler to understand and use constructively with clients.
Our hearts connect with each other. The mind and body help the heart remain grounded and centered, freeing it to share in powerful ways beyond just top down or bottom up only approaches.
Lynette S Danylchuk, PhD
May, 2018
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