When Megan Treby, 41, an art teacher who lives near Washington, D.C., first started seeing her therapist, Jen Udler of Positive Strides Therapy for her anxiety, Udler suggested that the two of them might conduct their sessions while taking walks to help release excess energy. Udler specializes in a type of therapy called “movement therapy” (in other words, walking while talking) that she thought might be helpful for Treby. The pair began meeting for sessions on a walking trail in Fallsgrove Park in Rockville, Maryland. During their sessions, Udler didn’t take notes. It wasn’t even completely private—they were in a public space, after all. But the benefits of walking side-by-side instead of sitting face-to-face are pretty profound: it really seems to make talking about difficult issues easier for people.

There’s actually research to back this type of therapy up—one study found that people with anxious tendencies felt more pleasantly about another person they were interacting with if they weren’t making eye contact. Treby noticed this effect, and also that moving through her surroundings on her walks with Udler gave them fodder for their sessions. The two walked on a path with dashed white lines, which Udler used as a metaphor for breaking up tasks little by little on the road to transformation. Over time, Treby started to her Udler’s voice in her head. Megan: think of something else. Megan: identify what you’re afraid of. Megan: is that reality or is that the anxiety talking?

Physical movement has traditionally been seen as something done outside of and in addition to talk therapy. But combining them is proving to work way better for some people. “When I have clients that prefer to sit in an office, they take a longer time to make progress,” says Clay Cockrell, a movement therapy practitioner and founder of Walk and Talk Therapy in New York City. Progress, according to Cockrell, means developing problem-solving tools and learning to make different choices outside the patterns that a patient is trying to break. “[With therapy,] there’s this very stereotypical image of Freud and a couch in people’s minds, which many find intimidating and not at all appealing,” says Amanda Stemen, a clinical social worker based in Los Angeles. “We need to broaden the understanding of what therapy actually is and all the methods in which healing and growth can occur.”

Angela*, 55, used the walk-and-talk method to get through her sadness and feelings of depression after her sons left for college. Her walking sessions were often four miles long. “It’s good to not lock in because you’re missing someone,” she says.

The addition of movement also allows therapists to observe breath, pace, gait, and posture and incorporate that information as part of their therapeutic process. For example, Stemen might notice a client walking heavily and ask them about it. “There’s usually a parallel between what they’re doing physically between how they operate their emotional life,” says Stemen.

It’s not that walking alone has some magic power to evaporate anxiety or remove sadness. Walking and talking with a counselor is just a new way of approaching mental health goals, and it can be especially for people who have had trouble finding therapy styles that work for them in the past. Through movement therapy, “I was able to see that my thoughts were just automatic negative thoughts and a product of my anxiety —not truths,” says Treby. “The simple act of walking forward literally made my mind move forward.”

*name has been changed

Source link