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​In the Psychotherapy world there are many different treatment styles and modalities and they are divided into two types of approaches; Bottom-up and Top-down. Both approaches have vast amounts of benefits but work with the brain and body in different ways. ​​​​

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A bottom-up modality focuses on the body's physiological and emotional states, such as reflexes, memories, and survival responses. Bottom-up approaches tends to go deeper into the areas of the brain that store trauma, emotions, and memories to address the root of the symptoms by connecting the explicit or conscious memories to implicit or unconscious memories that are stored in the body-mind system. 

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Top-down therapies focus on cognitive processes, such as thinking, speaking, and emotional awareness. These modalities often involve talk-based interventions, like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), to help people change their thought patterns and learn coping strategies through a cognitive logical approach when they feel a particular way. 

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Both types of therapies are important and a combination of both Top-down and Bottom-up is believed to be a more holistic approach to healing. Here at Encompass Life Therapy, we choose to offer both, and the main Bottom-up therapeutic modality that we use is Lifespan Integration. 

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Lifespan Integration (LI) is a gentle psychotherapeutic modality that focuses on healing both traumatic experiences in an individual’s life and attachment deficits that are impacting a client's nervous system, beliefs and behaviors. Lifespan Integration was created in the early 2000's and is a newer modality still gaining attention and research. 

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LI is used to treat various types of traumas across a person’s lifespan that interfere with their ability to live a full and meaningful life.

Lifespan Integration predominantly engages the right-brain (emotional brain) and focuses on regulating a client’s nervous system, keeping them in their “Window of Tolerance”, while using memories of their life in a chronological order to foster neural integration and memory reconsolidation.​

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Along with trauma resolution, Lifespan Integration aids in the repair of attachment strategies learned from early childhood.

 

So much of what we struggle with on a daily basis can be a result of attachment ruptures and the various strategies and adaptations put in place to compensate.

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These attachment adaptations/strategies show up in our:

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Behaviors (anxious, avoidant, disorganized etc.)

Self-esteem 

Perspectives

Emotions

Autonomic Nervous System patterns

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