Coherence Therapy was developed by Bruce Ecker and Laurel Hulley. It describes an approach to the therapeutic process rather than a prescribed set of techniques. The way that symptoms are viewed in Coherence Therapy is very counter to how people normally think of their problems.

Many times when we have a problem, like crushing anxiety or depression, we think, “There is something wrong with me.” This tends to lead us to approach the issue from the perspective that there is something “broken” about us that needs to be “fixed.” We can spend a lot of time thinking we are bad, broken, wrong, inept, dysfunctional, and that the solution is to find the right antidote to make the problem “go away.”

The problem with this approach is that it pathologizes us; it makes us the problem. It turns us against ourselves, almost like we are approaching an enemy to be defeated. And I don’t know about you, but approaching myself this way generally does not lead to feeling good or facilitate change.

The main concept of Coherence Therapy is that symptoms are caused by unconscious knowings and beliefs that require it. This means that our symptoms or problems have an inherent wisdom to them, they make sense. The issue is that most of the story creating the coherent narrative is functioning subconsciously, so our job is to bring that material to the surface.

Let me give an example:

Say you have a fear of calling people on the phone. You might normally try relaxation techniques or tools to counteract the way you are feeling, almost like jumping on the opposite side of a see-saw. This might have a successful impact in some cases, but most times you will find that the anxiety or fear can grow ever stronger when we try to push against it.

In Coherence Therapy, what we would want to identify is how this “issue” is actually a solution to some other problem. We assume that the symptom makes sense in a coherent way, and that it’s our job to make conscious the storyline supporting it. Once the material is conscious, we are able to adjust it, work with it, question it, update it, etc. But when the material is functioning below our conscious awareness, it’s like we are being driven in a car and have no means to grab the steering wheel.

In this example, through exploration, we might discover that the absence of positive facial cues during phone calls is what starts to fuel a sense of anxiety or uneasiness about how the other person is feeling about us. Maybe we can trace this back to interactions with our father as a child, where we heavily relied upon his facial cues to determine if he was in a good mood (and thus kind to us) or in a bad mood (and potentially a source of danger). Anxiety about making phone calls is a reflection of our fear of what might happen if we don’t have the cues (facial expression) we have historically relied upon to determine we are safe or in danger.

Once we are aware of this, and it comes into conscious light (what is called the “emotional truth of the symptom”), we have more options about how to actually deal with it. It’s no longer driving us from an unknown place, and we can work with it differently once we are aware of it’s true roots.

• Approaching the symptom from a new perspective. Changing our relationship to it from a “problem we need to get rid of,” to a highly sensible response to an issue that once was in our life.
• Writing down phrases that reflect the parts of us holding this storyline or view. Sometimes using this technique brings more of our unconscious beliefs “online” and makes it easier for us to work with them.
• Developing compassion for the parts of us that had to develop such “symptoms” to navigate and survive in the world they were living in at the time.

I am Coherence Therapy Intermediate Trained.