For Psychologists
Clinical perspectives on how each value presents in therapeutic settings.
Filter by value
Courage
Psychodynamic Therapy
The long-term relational frame requires the courage of showing up consistently rather than episodically. Exploring the developmental roots of their counter-phobic stance can reveal the fear underneath the bravery.
Courage
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Distress tolerance skills are particularly relevant for clients who act to escape distress. The dialectical framework validates their capacity for bold action while building the complementary skill of toleration.
Growth
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
The parts framework offers a way to work with the inner critic that drives compulsive growth and the exile that carries the belief in inherent defectiveness. It also validates multiplicity while working toward integration, matching these clients' developmental orientation.
Growth
Gestalt Therapy
The emphasis on present-moment awareness and direct experience counters the tendency toward intellectual processing. Experiments and embodied exercises bypass the client's well-developed narrative defenses and create contact with immediate experience.
Growth
Relational Psychoanalysis
The extended relational frame provides an opportunity for these clients to be known over time, including their imperfections and stagnation, without the relationship being contingent on continued growth. The therapist's acceptance becomes the therapeutic agent.
Meaning
Existential Therapy
Provides a framework that honors the client's concerns as legitimate philosophical and psychological territory. Working within the four givens of existence (death, freedom, isolation, meaninglessness) offers structure for the client's existential exploration without reducing it.
Meaning
Logotherapy
Frankl's approach directly addresses the will to meaning and provides practical frameworks for finding purpose through creative, experiential, and attitudinal values. It meets the client where they are while offering direction.
Meaning
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
The values clarification component helps ground abstract meaning-seeking in concrete behavioral commitment. Cognitive defusion techniques address the client's fusion with existential thoughts that have become paralyzing.
Trust
Schema Therapy
Directly addresses the mistrust/abuse and emotional deprivation schemas that often underlie trust-dominant values. The limited reparenting component provides a corrective emotional experience of reliable care over time.
Trust
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
For clients in relationship distress, EFT's focus on attachment needs and cycles helps the client articulate the fear underneath the scorekeeping and creates space for the partner to understand what trust represents in the client's emotional system.
Trust
EMDR
When trust issues are rooted in specific betrayal experiences, EMDR can process the traumatic charge of these events and reduce the hypervigilance they generate. This is particularly effective for clients whose current trust difficulties clearly trace to identifiable early experiences.
Identity
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
The parts framework provides a way to explore the different aspects of the client's identity without requiring them to abandon any of them. The concept of a Self that is distinct from parts allows the client to discover a core identity that does not depend on any particular presentation.
Identity
Psychodynamic Therapy
The exploration of the developmental origins of the identity construction provides context and compassion for a process that was originally adaptive. The long-term relational frame allows the therapist to see beyond the persona over time and to reflect back what they observe.
Identity
Narrative Therapy
The reauthoring process aligns with the client's strength in self-narration while creating space for alternative stories that include the parts of themselves they have excluded. Externalizing problems separates the client from the identity and creates room for flexibility.
Devotion
Schema Therapy
Directly addresses the self-sacrifice, emotional deprivation, and subjugation schemas that drive compulsive caregiving. The limited reparenting component provides the experience of being cared for, which is the corrective experience these clients most need.
Devotion
Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT)
Builds the self-compassion system that has been systematically neglected. The focus on extending to themselves the care they easily give others directly addresses the central imbalance.