How to Take a Minimalist Approach to Therapy

Amid therapeutic modalities and diagnostic criteria, the human element of therapy can get lost. Taking a minimalist approach to therapy is the act of focusing on the lived experiences of your clients first—seeking access to their stories to dictate the course of therapy. 

Through this client-centered approach, you can bring the blurry aspects of their experiences into focus and help clients find direction in overwhelming moments. 

If you have participated in your own therapy, recall your experience.

Do you remember how quickly you found emotional clutter while weaving through your stories? Do you remember the physical anxiety that swelled while you shared?

Bring to mind what it was like to share parts of yourself. 

Recall that therapy can be intimidating and overwhelming.

Sometimes, therapy needs to be pared down to be accessed. 

A minimalist approach to therapy can increase accessibility using visuals and pacing. Therapists use visuals to increase entry to feelings and emotions, and provide pacing for physical connection and stability.

Bringing visuals and pacing to the clinical environment helps clients find digestible components of their story. 

Use visuals to provide anchors in emotional clutter

Clients can feel inundated with unhelpful thoughts and difficult feelings, yet unable to pull the curtain back and make contact with their actual experience. 

Visuals—such as pictures, mental images, or even symbols on a whiteboard—can help clients access their experiences.

Pairing visuals with client content can provide them with necessary breathing room and observational distance. 

For example, say your client is having difficulty identifying their triggers for overwhelm throughout their day. You might draw a corresponding cycle of words and symbols on a whiteboard alongside their processing. A client’s ability to step back and see visuals outside of themselves can help them unhook from the clutter and find a digestible part.

Some clients have difficulty identifying and naming their emotions. These clients may need an access point, like a visual, to express their inner-world of emotions. Even while in session, you can invite a client to search their phone or computer for a visual that represents their experience. 

Then, work with them to identify what the visual represents to them. You may ask: “How does this visual connect with your experience?”

Use visuals to gain safe access to something painful

Clients who struggle to process deep pain and trauma may benefit from the anchors that visuals provide.

A client may process a traumatic story using level 9 on a 1 to 10 scale, but still struggle to identify the feelings associated with such an incident. 

For example, they may casually mention: “Yeah, sometimes my mom used our food stamps to buy drugs, but I survived,” then begin to pivot into a different story.

Unquestionably, this content has surfaced in your office on purpose. Perhaps their disclosure and pivot is signaling that they do not quite know how to talk about their experience, and that they need support accessing a digestible part. 

Ask if your client would be up to processing the disclosure with visuals. 

For example, ask: “Are you comfortable exploring a bit more of what you just shared? Do any specific scenes or visuals come to mind when you share that story?”

Use visuals for empathy

You already maintain the skills to synthesize information and reflect what you receive from a client. Use visuals to provide empathy that engages a clients’ senses. 

Say that a client describes a week of feeling hopeless and emotional. You might reflect a mental visual that comes to your mind, such as, “As you share, I am experiencing this visual of isolation, like down a long hallway, in the corner of a dark room, with a sense of feeling powerless.”

You may preface your contributions by saying, “These are visuals that come up for me while you process. I wonder what sort of visuals come up for you?”

Visuals invite clients to be seen, viscerally.

Use pacing to wade through mental clutter

Running coaches keep trainees on pace and attuned to their bodies. They also discourage their trainees from starting a race out too fast—such as running at a 100-meter dash pace when there is an entire marathon to last through. 

Runners, like our clients, can become so enveloped in their experience that they can have trouble gauging what sort of pace would be helpful and therapeutic. Similar to the way a running coach guides an athlete, you’ll want to collaboratively seek a therapeutic cadence in service of your client’s comfort and capacity.

By setting a pace in therapy, you’re investing in your client by being present and attuned to their therapeutic timing and process. While clients combat emotional noise and clutter, you can make observations to encourage healthy regulation. You can support their access and return to the stability of their body—noting changes in their tone and body language to increase their emotional awareness.

For example, “I noticed when you mentioned your mother, your tone changed. Are you up for sharing what happened for you just then?” 

Pace by helping clients gain a sense of awareness for when they are feeling overwhelmed and dysregulated. You can draw attention to these physical markers of discomfort For example, you might point out, “I get the sense your physical body has tensed up in the last few minutes. Can you tell me what’s happening physically for you?” or ask: “Could you share any fluctuations in your stress levels right now?”

Use pacing to connect with the body

Pacing could be an especially important component of therapy for clients who have difficulty with body awareness. It can help clients shift out of autopilot and reconnect with their physical signals. Pacing is also a useful skill-set that they can use both in-session and outside of the therapeutic context. 

Model pacing with your word choice and cadence of your speech by  slowly saying, for example: “I am not in a hurry to get through your story. We can take our time here if you would like.” 

Model pacing by sharing your experience in therapy with a client. Verbally—and appropriately—talk through your own body awareness. “I felt heaviness in my body as you shared that last part. What was it like for you?”

Pacing validates the gravity of your client’s experience. They feel seen. They feel the weight of your listening.

Hopefully this article has given you latitude to re-sensitize yourself to the overwhelm clients can feel in your office. Perhaps it reminded you of what it is like to make contact with your own stories and remain physically engaged.

Consider integrating a minimalist approach to therapy in your practice to increase accessibility for your clients. Incorporate pacing and visuals in your work. Pare down content into digestible parts. Seek visuals that give clients anchors to catch tread in their emotions and feelings. Use pacing to help clients stay connected to their body, guiding them through overwhelming moments.

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