Atlas›Domains›Domain VI
Domain VI of XVI

Brief, integrative, trauma, hypnosis & coaching

144guides
3,207weighted interventions
1992median founding year
255421mean Agape · Logos · Mythos

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Domain synthesis

What "healing" means here

This domain holds brief, integrative, trauma, hypnotic, imagery and helping-skills modalities, and its conceptions of change are correspondingly varied. One large family treats healing as re-description and solution-building: change comes not from solving problems but from co-constructing a preferred future and amplifying what already works VI-001, from separating problem from identity and thickening a neglected storyline VI-002, or from utilising whatever the client brings as the vehicle for change VI-003. A strategic subset reframes healing as interrupting a self-maintaining loop of attempted solutions VI-006, since many brief models hold that small change leads to larger change and that the client's resources are already present VI-001 VI-003. A second family, rooted in Jerome Frank's work, sees healing as the restoration of morale through features shared by all bona fide therapies VI-026, a view echoed by common-factors frameworks that locate outcome in the alliance, early change and responsiveness rather than in technique brand VI-013 VI-027 VI-017. A third, dominant family treats healing as processing or transforming a traumatic memory so that it is stored as ordinary past event stripped of its emotional charge VI-030 VI-048 VI-049 VI-051; here a key tension runs between models that claim change through extinction and prolonged exposure and those that claim change by altering emotional meaning without extinction VI-043 VI-028 VI-047. A fourth family, the coaching models, reframes "healing" as development and goal attainment for well-functioning people, explicitly bounded off from treating disorder VI-135 VI-145 VI-151. Notable tensions therefore include symptom relief versus insight (SFBT and strategic work decline to search for causes VI-001 VI-006, while hypnoanalytic and psychodynamic-integrative models seek disavowed meaning VI-084 VI-020), and treatment versus justice, since Just Therapy holds that therapy should address injustice rather than adjust people to it VI-010.

What "the self" or "the person" is here

The images of the person range widely. Narrative and social-justice models see a storied, multi-storied, culturally situated self whose identity is shaped by discourse and made real through witnessing VI-002 VI-010. Several frameworks posit a plural or parts-based self: ego states as networks to be integrated VI-095 VI-054, maladaptive introjects wearing a caregiver's "mask" VI-053, an "inner team" of members led by a head VI-153, and NLP/Erickson-derived "parts" views VI-111. Trauma models assume a body-mind whose lower, earlier brain systems are shaped use-dependently by adversity VI-074 and whose nervous system reads survival states somatically VI-070 VI-068. Needs-based models picture the person as carrying innate needs and resources VI-029 or unmet developmental needs stuck in childhood VI-053 VI-021. Relational and integrative traditions see a relationship-seeking self constituted through contact and reciprocal roles internalised from early relationships VI-021 VI-015 VI-020. Coaching models assume the person is "naturally creative, resourceful, and whole" and the owner of their own agenda VI-142 VI-135, or a developing adult who can move a "big assumption" from subject to object VI-150. Hypnotic traditions treat the self as having an absorbed, suggestible capacity and an "observing self" VI-085 VI-081 VI-049.

Mechanisms of change the domain names

The guides name a dense cluster of mechanisms, grouped here. Memory reconsolidation is the most frequently invoked: Coherence Therapy's Therapeutic Reconsolidation Process is offered as a theory-independent template VI-028, and reconsolidation is claimed or proposed for RTM, the rewind and flash techniques, EMDR and imagery rescripting VI-048 VI-049 VI-050 VI-030 VI-043. Extinction and exposure learning is named for NET, written exposure, massed/intensive formats and counting methods VI-032 VI-033 VI-055 VI-051, often explicitly contrasted with changing emotional meaning without extinction VI-043 VI-046 VI-047. Corrective relational experience and alliance repair appear in relational-integrative, CAT and rupture-resolution work VI-021 VI-015 VI-027. Arousal reduction / affect regulation is central to Human Givens VI-029, TARGET and the resiliency models VI-068 VI-070, and to hypnotic ego-strengthening VI-094. Ideo-dynamic suggestion and absorption drive the hypnotic family VI-081 VI-082 VI-085. Grace, morale and expectancy are Frank's and the contextual model's pathways VI-026. Stage-matched process is the transtheoretical mechanism VI-016, and fit between patient and strategy is STS's VI-017. Coaching names raised awareness and responsibility VI-138, psychological flexibility VI-145, and strengths-building that widens thinking VI-154. A recurring somatic mechanism is completing thwarted survival responses VI-070.

Shared techniques

Almost every recurring technique family appears. Imagery is pervasive — rescripting a hotspot VI-043 VI-046, rehearsing a changed dream VI-044 VI-045, guided and interactive imagery and inner-advisor dialogue VI-105 VI-106, affect-laden daydreams from a motif VI-108 VI-109, and image-replacement in ART VI-047. Attention and breath anchor the hypnotic and relaxation methods — eye fixation VI-081, focused absorption VI-085, autogenic formulas VI-104, and sophrology's breath and body awareness VI-103. Story and word dominate the brief and narrative models: externalising conversations VI-002, metaphor landscapes and client-generated metaphors VI-011 VI-012, micro-narratives VI-130 VI-147. Ritual closes several trauma therapies with a farewell VI-038 and structures group and historical practice VI-071. Relationship and feedback are formalised as routine outcome/alliance measurement VI-013 VI-027. Touch is used in Havening's applied stroking VI-056 and historically in Nancy-school induction VI-082. Movement, voice and eye position carry brainspotting, EMDR bilateral stimulation and OEI VI-031 VI-030 VI-058. Practice and exposure structure skills-first programmes VI-067 VI-075 VI-066. Group and community delivery defines TREM, Seeking Safety, CBITS and the Sanctuary Model VI-069 VI-066 VI-036 VI-071. Questioning sequences (miracle, scaling, exception) migrate from SFBT into coaching's OSKAR, GROW and SF-CB models VI-001 VI-141 VI-138 VI-144.

Developmental or stage models

Phase and stage models are abundant. Phase-oriented trauma treatment (safety/stabilisation → memory processing → reconnection) is traced to Janet's three phases and Herman's three stages, with Courtois & Ford's sequenced model VI-064, and underlies STAIR, group stabilising treatment and stepped preventive care VI-067 VI-062 VI-063. The transtheoretical stages of change (precontemplation to maintenance) are attributed to Prochaska and DiClemente VI-016. Session-phase protocols structure Cummings's focused episode VI-007, EMDR's eight phases VI-030 and Coherence Therapy's discovery–integration–transformation VI-028. Developmental metatheories include Ivey's four cognitive-emotional orientations drawn from Piaget VI-024, Perry's neurosequential ordering of brain systems VI-074, Erskine's developmental needs VI-021, and Kegan's adult-development stages behind Immunity to Change VI-150. Coaching contributes staged conversation cycles: GROW's four stages VI-138, PRACTICE's seven steps VI-139, Co-Active and appreciative inquiry's Discovery–Dream–Design–Destiny VI-142 VI-149, and Drake's Situate–Search–Shift–Sustain VI-147.

Distinctive contribution

What this domain offers that others in the atlas mostly lack is an explicit machinery for fitting method to person — technically eclectic and integrative frameworks that choose intensity, directiveness and timing from any school according to readiness, reactance or stage, rather than applying one branded treatment VI-016 VI-017 VI-027 VI-025. It also supplies the atlas's densest workshop of brief, memory-focused change procedures and their competing mechanistic accounts (reconsolidation versus extinction versus meaning change) VI-028 VI-043 VI-048. Finally, it uniquely carries the coaching and helping-skills continuum for non-disordered development, with careful contracting at the therapy boundary VI-135 VI-145 VI-150.

All 144 guides in this domain

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