I am honoured to bring a deeply meaningful approach to our work together—a method I learned directly from my own psychologist and mentor, the late Melissa Harte. Melissa was not only an expert in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) but also developed what she called the “Expanded Focusing Task,” a technique that profoundly impacts those living with the consequences of trauma. Melissa’s influence on my life, first as her client, then as a young psychologist under her supervision, was extraordinary. Her guidance helped me understand how we can work with emotions to foster healing and resilience, and I carry her wisdom forward in my work with you.
Foundations of safety in healing trauma
Trauma leaves deep imprints, sometimes creating overwhelming emotions that feel too intense to approach or express. These emotions can lead to painful experiences like dissociation or disconnect in therapy. Melissa, a child sexual abuse survivor herself, understood that healing requires a strong foundation of safety. The Expanded Focusing Task helps create this safety by gently guiding you to tune into physical sensations and responses as emotions arise.
In this way, the body itself becomes a powerful guide, helping you feel led by your emotions instead of overwhelmed by them. Working with Melissa’s Expanded Focusing Task, we can explore even those emotions that have felt unapproachable. Over time, this approach can transform your relationship with emotions and open up a new sense of confidence and self-understanding.
EFT helps you get past your conscious mind to what’s really going on underneath. It’s experiential, in that it facilitates clients to experience emotions in session, rather than just talk about them. EFT holds, that it’s the experiencing of emotion, in session, that opens the gateway to healing.
Why is it important to experience emotions rather than just talk about them?
In therapy, truly experiencing emotions—rather than just discussing them—is a powerful tool for healing. This approach, especially in methods like the Expanded Focusing Task, can make an enormous difference in processing trauma. When we remember a past upsetting event and re-experience the emotions tied to it, we actually activate the same neural pathways that were active at the time of the original event. In fact, if we took a brain scan during the initial experience of an upsetting event and then another scan while you were remembering that event in therapy, the emotional patterns of neural firing would look the same.
Why activate the same emotional patterns in the brain?
Re-activating these same emotional patterns makes the emotional part of the memory more “malleable.” In other words, it opens up an opportunity for change. This doesn’t mean altering the facts of the memory but rather easing the emotional intensity connected to it. In this process, emotions like fear, anger, loneliness, or self-loathing can be softened and replaced with more adaptive emotions that better meet our needs—such as safety, connection, and self-acceptance. The Expanded Focusing Task allows us to work with these emotions at their source, making the impact less overwhelming and more manageable.
I’ve experienced these emotions before – Why would I want to feel them again?
It’s natural to worry about re-experiencing painful emotions, especially when you’ve spent so long trying to avoid or suppress them. But the difference between the original experience and processing it safely in therapy is significant. In a therapeutic setting, emotional safety is paramount. I monitor your responses closely, keeping your arousal levels—those telltale signs of fear and anxiety, like a racing heart, rapid breathing, or feeling overwhelmed—very low and manageable. If these sensations start to rise, we address them immediately, bringing you back to a place of comfort.
Many clients come away from sessions surprised by how manageable the experience actually was. Often, they comment on how safe they felt, how empowering the experience was, or how much they’ve let go of something they’ve carried for a long time.
In my practice, I blend this approach with insights from my own experience and training under Melissa Harte. Her Expanded Focusing Task doesn’t change the facts of the past, but it transforms how the past feels in the present. Over time, this approach can help you reconnect with your emotions as sources of strength rather than overwhelm.
If this approach resonates with you, I invite you to reach out. It’s a privilege to carry on this work and create a space where emotions become allies in your healing journey.