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102 techniques · 25 approaches
AEDP
Metatherapeutic Processing
Metatherapeutic Processing
Work in the 4th state: the client reflects on the therapeutic experience itself — what it meant to live through this together, how the relat…
AEDP
Portrayals / Experiential Processing
Portrayals / Experiential Processing
Inviting the client to imagine a significant other (a parent, a partner) and address them directly, expressing blocked feelings — in the pre…
AEDP
Soft Bypass of Defenses
Soft Bypass of Defenses
Instead of confronting defenses (as in ISTDP) — creating such safety and contact that defenses become unnecessary and dissolve on their own.
AEDP
Therapist Self-Disclosure
Therapist Self-Disclosure
The therapist's open expression of their feelings and reactions in response to the client: "When you say this, I feel…" — as an instrument f…
AEDP
Undoing Aloneness
Undoing Aloneness
Creating emotional safety through the therapist's open presence: "You are not alone with this." The therapist explicitly expresses care, att…
Bioenergetics
Character Structure Analysis
Character Structure Analysis
A joint exploration of the client's character structure: how the body is organized in response to early experience, which defenses have beco…
Bioenergetics
Reaching Out
Reaching Out
Extending the arms with the expression of the need for contact. "Mom!", "Give!", "I want!". Work with the oral segment and the suppressed ne…
Bruges
Relationship Questions / Perspective-Taking Questions
Relationship Questions / Perspective-Taking Questions
The therapist invites the client to look at the situation through the eyes of a significant other — partner, child, friend. This strengthens…
CBASP
Behavioral Rehearsal
Behavioral Rehearsal
Practicing new behavior in session before applying it in life. After the remediation phase of SA — "let's try out how this would look".
CBASP
Causal Theory Closure Revision
Causal Theory Closure Revision
Helping the client revise the deep conclusions about self and world based on past experience. Not "replacing negative thoughts" but updating…
CBASP
Disciplined Personal Involvement
Disciplined Personal Involvement
The therapist disciplinedly uses their authentic reactions as an instrument: showing the client how their behavior affects another person.
CBASP
Hotspot Identification
Hotspot Identification
Identifying the situations in which the stamps activate most strongly — the "hotspots". Knowing them, the client can prepare in advance.
CBASP
Impact Message
Impact Message
The therapist describes to the client the concrete effect their behavior has on the therapist. The goal is to help the client see: "My actio…
CBASP
Interpersonal Discrimination Exercise
Interpersonal Discrimination Exercise
Helping the client discriminate the therapist (and other people in the present) from significant others of the past. "I am not your mother. …
CBASP
Significant Other History
Significant Other History
A structured elicitation of the people who most influenced the client, and of the "stamps" (causal conclusions) formed in those relationship…
CBASP
Situational Analysis: Elicitation Phase
Situational Analysis: Elicitation Phase
The first part of Situational Analysis — a structured gathering of information about a concrete situation: what happened, what was thought, …
CBASP
Successful Situation Analysis
Successful Situation Analysis
A Situational Analysis of a situation where AO = DO. Helping the client see: when they acted differently — the outcome was different. "My ac…
CBASP
Transference Hypothesis Formulation
Transference Hypothesis Formulation
Based on the stamps from the significant-other list — a prediction of what the client will expect from the therapist. The hypothesis guides …
CBT
Assertiveness Training (DEAR MAN)
Assertiveness Training (DEAR MAN)
Training in healthy communication: expressing needs, saying no and protecting boundaries without aggression or passivity. DEAR MAN includes …
CBT
Intermediate Beliefs
Intermediate Beliefs
Work with rules, assumptions and attitudes that sit between automatic thoughts and core beliefs. They often sound like "If I do not perform …
CBT
Reattribution
Reattribution
A technique for reducing personalization and excessive guilt. The client explores all factors that contributed to an event instead of assign…
CBT
Responsibility Pie
Responsibility Pie
A visual method for distributing responsibility across all contributing factors. The client first estimates their own responsibility, then l…
CBT
Role Play
Role Play
A rehearsal technique for interpersonal situations. Therapist and client enact a difficult conversation, pause, adjust wording and try again…
CPT
Intimacy Issues Module
Intimacy Issues Module
Intimacy Issues Module is a CPT intervention for identifying, testing, and revising trauma-related stuck points. It helps the client move fr…
CPT
Trust Issues Module
Trust Issues Module
Trust Issues Module is a CPT intervention for identifying, testing, and revising trauma-related stuck points. It helps the client move from …
CoLeC
Relational Expertise
Relational Expertise
In collaborative therapy the notion of "expertise" is redefined. The therapist is not an expert on the client's life, on diagnostics, or on …
Coherence
Experiential Disconfirmation
Experiential Disconfirmation
Finding and creating real life experience that fundamentally diverges from the activated emotional knowledge — in order to launch reconsolid…
Coherence
Juxtaposition Experience
Juxtaposition Experience
The central reconsolidation technique: the simultaneous holding of activated emotional knowledge and a live contradictory experience in orde…
Coherence
Overt Statement by Therapist
Overt Statement by Therapist
The therapist voices the presumed emotional knowledge of the client in the first person — the client checks whether it resonates and correct…
Coherence
Radical Inquiry into Symptom
Radical Inquiry into Symptom
A deep inquiry into the symptom from the stance of respect: not "why is this broken?" but "what is this made for? what problem does it solve…
DBT
GIVE (Gentle, Interested, Validate, Easy manner)
GIVE (Gentle, Interested, Validate, Easy manner)
A four-step skill for keeping and strengthening the relationship. The focus is on connection: when the relationship matters more than the co…
DBT
Problem-Solving
Problem-Solving
When Check the Facts has shown that the emotion fits a real problem, that problem must be solved, rather than using emotion-regulation techn…
Deurzen
Relational World Exploration (Mitwelt Work)
Relational World Exploration (Mitwelt Work)
The social dimension (Mitwelt — "being-with-others") holds a special place for van Deurzen. She inquires how the client builds and experienc…
E-I Therapy
Existential Challenge
Existential Challenge
A structured Existential-Integrative Therapy technique focused on existential challenge. It gives the therapist a concrete way to translate …
E-I Therapy
Therapeutic Presence
Therapeutic Presence
A structured Existential-Integrative Therapy technique focused on therapeutic presence. It gives the therapist a concrete way to translate t…
EFT for Couples
A.R.E. Check-In
A.R.E. Check-In
A regular check of the three attachment questions: accessibility, responsiveness, engagement. Helps the couple monitor the state of the emot…
EFT for Couples
Attachment Injury Resolution
Attachment Injury Resolution
A structured working-through of a specific episode when one partner was not there at a critical moment. "When I was at my worst — you were n…
EFT for Couples
Attachment Reframing
Attachment Reframing
Redefining the conflict as an attachment question: "You are not fighting about the dishes — you are both asking: are you there? Do I matter …
EFT for Couples
Blamer Softening
Blamer Softening
The culmination of EFT: helping the pursuing partner move from demands and criticism to a request for closeness from a position of vulnerabi…
EFT for Couples
Choreographing Engaged Contact
Choreographing Engaged Contact
The therapist guides the creation of a new experience of interaction in real time: helps one to express a need, the other to respond, both —…
EFT for Couples
Creating a New Relationship Narrative
Creating a New Relationship Narrative
Helping the couple tell the story of their relationship anew — including the crisis and the way through it. The new narrative integrates dif…
EFT for Couples
De-escalation Signal
De-escalation Signal
The couple builds a shared signal (a word, a gesture) that means: "Our cycle has launched. Let us stop". Helps to interrupt the negative dan…
EFT for Couples
Emotion Validation
Emotion Validation
Teaching partners the skill of validation: acknowledging the other's feelings as understandable and well-grounded, even if you do not agree …
EFT for Couples
Enactment
Enactment
The therapist asks one partner to turn to the other and say something directly — from the primary emotion, not through the therapist. Create…
EFT for Couples
Hold Me Tight Conversation
Hold Me Tight Conversation
A structured dialogue in which each partner expresses their deep attachment needs and asks for what they need. Based on Sue Johnson's book.
EFT for Couples
Live Cycle Tracking
Live Cycle Tracking
When the negative cycle appears in session, the therapist stops the process and names it: "Here it is, your dance. Let us slow down and look…
EFT for Couples
Negative Cycle Identification
Negative Cycle Identification
Identifying and naming the couple's repeating pattern of interaction: who pursues, who withdraws, how each reinforces the other's reaction. …
EFT for Couples
Progress Review and Relapse Prevention
Progress Review and Relapse Prevention
A structured session of summing up: what has changed, what new dance has been learned, what to do when the old cycle returns.
EFT for Couples
Withdrawer Re-engagement
Withdrawer Re-engagement
Helping the withdrawing partner voice their attachment needs and the fears that hide behind silence and withdrawal.
Gottman
5:1 Ratio Building
5:1 Ratio Building
A deliberate increase in positive interactions within the couple to reach a steady ratio of five positives to one negative.
Gottman
Accepting Influence
Accepting Influence
Training in the skill of accepting the partner's viewpoint and influence instead of resistance and control — a key predictor of stability.
Gottman
Aftermath of a Fight Processing
Aftermath of a Fight Processing
A structured discussion of the conflict after both partners have calmed down, to understand triggers and extract lessons.
Gottman
Couples Homework Assignments
Couples Homework Assignments
Selecting and assigning concrete paired exercises between sessions: rituals, love map, gratitude, tracking bids.
Gottman
Creating Shared Meaning
Creating Shared Meaning
Exploring and strengthening the top floor of the House of Relationship: shared rituals, values, roles, and goals of the couple.
Gottman
Dreams Within Conflict
Dreams Within Conflict
Exploring the unspoken dreams and values that stand behind each partner's position in a gridlocked conflict.
Gottman
Emotional Bids Work
Emotional Bids Work
Training in recognizing small requests for emotional connection and in the skill of "turning toward the partner" instead of "turning away" o…
Gottman
Fondness and Admiration System
Fondness and Admiration System
Restoring and strengthening the culture of respect, gratitude, and admiration in the couple — the second floor of the Sound Relationship Hou…
Gottman
Four Horsemen Assessment
Four Horsemen Assessment
Identifying the four destructive patterns of communication (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling) and training the couple to rec…
Gottman
Love Map Exercise
Love Map Exercise
A structured inquiry into the partner's inner world through questions about dreams, fears, stressors, and preferences. The first floor of th…
Gottman
Oral History Interview
Oral History Interview
A structured interview about the history of the relationship that allows the couple's foundation to be assessed by HOW they tell their story…
Gottman
Perpetual Problem Dialogue
Perpetual Problem Dialogue
A structured conversation about a chronic couple problem with the aim not of solving it but of maintaining an open dialogue with humor and a…
Gottman
Positive Sentiment Override
Positive Sentiment Override
Work on having neutral and ambiguous actions of the partner interpreted positively rather than negatively.
Gottman
Repair Attempts
Repair Attempts
Teaching the skill of stopping conflict escalation through repair actions, and the skill of accepting repair attempts from the partner.
Gottman
Rituals of Connection
Rituals of Connection
Creating and sustaining everyday rituals that strengthen the emotional connection: greeting, farewell, meals, weekends.
Gottman
Softened Startup
Softened Startup
Teaching the formula for starting a difficult conversation without criticism: "I feel… when… and I need…" instead of "You always / never…".
Gottman
Stress-Reducing Conversation
Stress-Reducing Conversation
A daily 20-minute conversation between partners about external stress (not about the relationship) — for maintaining the emotional connectio…
Gottman
Three-Session Assessment
Three-Session Assessment
Structured diagnostics of the couple: joint interview → individual sessions → feedback with treatment plan.
Gottman
Trust Revival Method
Trust Revival Method
A structured process of restoring trust after a betrayal (affair, deception) through three phases: atonement, attunement, attachment.
Hakomi
Character Strategy Exploration
Character Strategy Exploration
A joint exploration of the habitual way of organizing experience: how the client automatically structures their world, what they notice, wha…
Hakomi
Contact Statements
Contact Statements
Verbal mirroring of the client's current experience. Not interpretation, but acknowledgment of what is there. Creates the sense of "I am see…
Hakomi
Nourishment
Nourishment
Providing the "missing experience" — what was absent at the moment the core belief was formed. Through words, gestures, touch, in a state of…
Hakomi
Taking Over
Taking Over
The therapist physically takes on an action the client is performing unconsciously (supporting the shoulders, pressing) so the client can re…
IBCT
Acceptance Letter
Acceptance Letter
Each partner writes a letter describing what they accept in the other — including what they used to want to change. The letters are read in …
IBCT
Behavior Exchange
Behavior Exchange
Each partner builds a list of concrete acts of care that the other could do. The acts are chosen voluntarily, without coercion or "trade of …
IBCT
Closeness-Distance Scaling
Closeness-Distance Scaling
A weekly rating of the sense of closeness on a 1–10 scale by each partner. Tracking the dynamics, discussing differences in perception.
IBCT
Emotional Vulnerability Sharing
Emotional Vulnerability Sharing
A structured exercise in which each partner shares their deep vulnerability — what they most fear in the relationship. The second one listen…
IBCT
Empathic Joining
Empathic Joining
Helping the partners move from hard emotions (anger, criticism) to soft ones (pain, fear, loneliness). When one expresses vulnerability and …
IBCT
IBCT Case Formulation
IBCT Case Formulation
A structured description of the couple's problem through three elements: theme (the difference), trap (polarization), and mutual trap. The f…
IBCT
IBCT Incident Analysis
IBCT Incident Analysis
A structured analysis of a concrete conflict through the lens of the case formulation: how the theme, the trap, and the mutual trap showed u…
IBCT
Pattern Naming
Pattern Naming
The couple, together with the therapist, gives a name to their conflict pattern. The name turns the abstract conflict into a concrete "third…
IBCT
Positive Aspects of Negative Behavior
Positive Aspects of Negative Behavior
Helping the couple see that the partner's "problematic" trait also has a positive side. His silence is not indifference, but caution. Her in…
IBCT
Problem-Solving Training
Problem-Solving Training
A step-by-step protocol for joint solving of concrete problems: from defining the problem through generating solutions to the agreement and …
IBCT
Relapse Prevention Plan
Relapse Prevention Plan
Building a joint plan for the return of the pattern: warning signs, agreements, plan of action. Normalization: the pattern will return — and…
IBCT
Speaker-Listener Communication Training
Speaker-Listener Communication Training
Structured practice of communication with clear roles: the speaker expresses feelings from "I", the listener paraphrases and validates. Buil…
IBCT
Theme Exploration
Theme Exploration
A deep inquiry into the fundamental difference (the theme) between the partners: where it comes from, how it was formed, why it matters to e…
IBCT
Unified Detachment
Unified Detachment
Helping the couple look at their conflict from the outside — as observers. The pattern gets a name and is discussed as a "third", not as the…
IPT
Interpersonal Inventory
Interpersonal Inventory
Interpersonal Inventory is an IPT intervention used to connect depressive symptoms with current interpersonal events and to turn that connec…
Jung
Anima/Animus Work
Anima/Animus Work
Anima is the archetype of the unconscious feminine in the male psyche; Animus is the archetype of the unconscious masculine in the female ps…
MBSR
Mindful Communication / Interpersonal Mindfulness
Mindful Communication / Interpersonal Mindfulness
A week-6 MBSR block devoted to presence in conversation. Kabat-Zinn saw communication as a field of practice: most people "listen" while thi…
MMT
BASIC ID Assessment
BASIC ID Assessment
A structured Multimodal Therapy technique focused on basic id assessment. It gives the therapist a concrete way to translate the approach's …
MMT
Interpersonal Skills Training
Interpersonal Skills Training
A structured Multimodal Therapy technique focused on interpersonal skills training. It gives the therapist a concrete way to translate the a…
Morita
Constructive Living
Constructive Living
Integration of Morita principles into everyday life: focus on actions, acceptance of feelings, gratitude toward the world. Adaptation by Dav…
Reality
Basic Needs Assessment
Basic Needs Assessment
A structured Reality Therapy technique focused on basic needs assessment. It gives the therapist a concrete way to translate the approach's …
Reality
Caring Habits Practice
Caring Habits Practice
A structured Reality Therapy technique focused on caring habits practice. It gives the therapist a concrete way to translate the approach's …
SFBT
Relationship Questions
Relationship Questions
A question that shifts attention from the client's own perception to the perception of another person. "How do you see yourself now?" turns …
Sandplay
Witnessing Presence
Witnessing Presence
A particular form of therapeutic presence: being nearby, observing with attention and respect, but not intervening. The very presence of the…
WBT
Autonomy Building
Autonomy Building
Strengthening the autonomy dimension: moving from dependence on others' opinions toward an internal locus of control through the practice of…
WBT
Positive Relations Enhancement
Positive Relations Enhancement
Work on the positive-relations dimension: deepening connections, building intimacy skills, and developing the capacity to receive and offer …
WBT
Ryff Six Dimensions Assessment
Ryff Six Dimensions Assessment
Systematic assessment of the six dimensions of psychological well-being (self-acceptance, positive relations, autonomy, environmental master…
Yalom
Existential Isolation
Existential Isolation
Distinguishing existential isolation (I am fundamentally alone — no one will live my death for me, no one will be inside me) from interperso…
Yalom
Here-and-Now Focus
Here-and-Now Focus
Speak not about something but about what is happening right now between therapist and client in the space of the relationship. The client's …
Yalom
Life Theme Analysis (Yalom)
Life Theme Analysis (Yalom)
Identifying recurring patterns in the client's life as reflections of their fundamental existential choices. Yalom shows that when a client …
Materials are informational and educational and summarize publicly available scientific sources. They are not medical or psychological advice, are not intended for self-diagnosis or self-treatment, and do not replace consultation with a qualified professional.