Though most counselors do not use these early Freudian psychoanalytic theories in their practice, they still use much of the same structure for helping people to heal. Conversations are limited to specific periods of time, are usually done in an office setting and generally focus on examining personal experience and looking towards restructuring thoughts and beliefs and making personal changes to improve life. Though counseling in this way can often be deeply helpful, I think we have become excessively focused on the cognitive approach to healing people in emotional distress. Instead of a cognitive based approach, I think we should place much more focus on somatic “body-based” counseling. Often times I hear people complain that people would rather go to a doctor for psychiatric medication than go to a therapist. Part of this has to do with the idea that it is easier to simply take a medication than engage in therapy, but part of the reason is because medication actually causes immediate physiological changes and affects how one feels and thinks by affecting the nervous system. People who are in distress are often looking for a way to alleviate that distress and talking about it does not generally produce that alleviation they are looking for. … [click on title for the rest of the post]