Working with Blocks

Much of therapy is looking for blocks to healthy functioning. We work to shift these blocks from maladaptive to responsive. In essence, blocks don't keep you from the work of therapy. They are a significant part of the work. What prevents connection? What limits emotional engagement? When distress arises, what interrupts or prevents more adaptive responses?

Blocks function to protect. They attempt to keep the Self safe from further injury and provide it means for continued survival. Resistance can generally be felt, where avoidance may be harder to clients to feel somatically. Behind every block is a need or longing. The block exists because what was needed or longed for was not just unavailable, it received something quite the opposite. Facilitating healing requires us to connect and bond with blocks in order to understand both their function and origination.

Attune to the Block. We tend to wish that simply providing what is needed or longed for would simply melt the block and it would go away. This is rarely the case. Instead, we lean into blocks and attune to them. By embodying the felt experience of the block, we can access both the feeling and the underlying fear they hold. We are then best positioned to help the block perceive why it is not needed now and increase the strength of the Self to attend to the distress of the block.

Work from the Inside Out. By attuning to the block, we provide empathetic contradictions to everything the block expects to experience. Challenging blocks should happen within an attuned response. Rather than dismantling blocks, we seek to adapt it to a different protective posture, one that allows more flexibility and adaptability to the evolving conditions around it. The more the feeling of the block trusts you, the more likely it is to grant you access to the deeper vulnerability it protects.

Blocks don't prevent healing; they protect vulnerabilities. Working with blocks is essential in the restoration and redemption process.