CAP and Marital Conflict

Aaron came to me because his marriage was in a rut. Aaron's wife would get upset at him, Aaron got defensive and everything fell apart from there.

Cold Assisted Psychotherapy (CAP) changed the dynamic in just one session. How? Defensiveness is a response to a perceived attack on your character or worth. Sometimes, there is an actual attack. More frequently, its the 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 of an attack thats the problem.

 The perception of an attack when there isn't one, is rooted in a disconnection from one's own self worth. After all, either you did something wrong, in that case, apologize and move on. Or you didn't do something wrong, in that case there's no reason to get defensive; you didn't do anything wrong. Defensiveness is when your self worth becomes defined by 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 perception of your worth instead of your own.

Other methods of therapy resolve defensiveness but they take time. Here's an example of one approach: First, you need to identify exactly what is happening in the marital dynamic. Next, you need to work with the defensiveness to uncover the hurt that fuels it.Then the healing of the wounded sense of self. This works but it takes time and patience.

How did CAP resolve this in one session?

CAP's superpower is the (cold induced) state of Peak Experience. A hallmark of Peak Experience is that all psychological defenses are temporarily dissolved, giving way to a completely new experience of oneself. That gave instant, unfettered access to Aaron's core hurt. And beneath that, it revealed in full glory the whole, pure, worthy, lovable, sense of self that Aaron didn't know he had.

The revelation of oneself that one experiences in a CAP session is not an intellectual concept, but a full being experience of wholeness. The psychotherapy part of CAP guided Aaron to experience that wholeness and brought it to the wound. Wholeness instantly heals wounds. Forever. 

At the end of the session, Aaron left with something he didn't come in with. Himself. I followed up with Aaron 6 weeks later. Aaron still had himself, and his wife couldn't be happier!