Self-Meaning Based Therapy: An Integrative Model of Psychotherapy

Abstract

The heart of Self-Meaning Based therapy (SMBT) is the uncovering of one’s core negative Self-Meaning (SM), which lies within the unconscious. SMBT is an approach to psychotherapy based firmly on the understanding that we are inherently meaning-making beings, and that difficult to traumatic events experienced early in life shape our lived experiences of connection. Such experiences leave us with the need to make sense of why. This why takes primary form in a negative, core Self-Meaning, or SM. While primitively functional, it becomes an internalized experiential identity and subsequent relational theme that can impact one’s life across time. The subjective phenomenology of one’s SM tends to remain out of day-to-day awareness, sometimes wholly, until activated. While we may be able to consciously name our SM, we are typically unable to heal it consciously. Thus, conventional methods of talk therapy are often insufficient toward this end. Our SMBT method is designed to allow direct access to the lived experience of our SM where it can be reworked and transformed. This article introduces SMBT, its model and method, as well as its capacity to emancipate those we work with in therapy toward a newly realized psychological freedom.