Experiential Therapy: Definition, Examples, and What to Expect

When you think about getting therapy, you likely have a very clear picture of what that looks like. You may picture yourself sitting on a sofa in front of someone else who’s holding a notebook and asking you questions about your feelings. This is traditional talk therapy, and it’s highly useful — but it’s not the only option.

Experiential therapy is a treatment choice that more therapists and clinics are offering because of how it can help patients immerse themselves in important experiences. This level of immersion provides you with the chance to fully engage with traumatic moments in your life so that you can more easily break away from the harm that they have caused.

Here’s what you need to know about what experiential therapy is, who it can help, and what the experience may look like.

Defining Experiential Therapy: Emphasizing Action

Experiential therapy refers to a category of therapeutic techniques that relies on hands-on activities and tools to help patients re-enact and re-live situations from their past. The goal of experiential therapy is to focus specifically on the activities and not just to talk about the experiences.

Through these actions, the genuine attitudes, feelings, and beliefs that rest in your subconscious mind can appear. This allows you to gain a better understanding of who you are and what you can do to improve your mental health. You can also get a sense of what your feelings of success, self-esteem, and responsibility are tied to.

Types of Experiential Therapy

Experiential therapy can include a variety of options, depending on what’s more appropriate for each individual.

Music Therapy

Music therapy uses music’s natural mood-lifting properties to help you address mental health concerns like depression and anxiety. Writing music, analyzing music, dancing, or singing can all help you instill positive behavioral changes.

Nature Therapy

Nature therapy, also called adventure therapy, encourages you to experience nature and embrace the benefits it offers. Often, it involves wilderness guides, outdoor games, “forest bathing,” and recreational activities done in groups. Nature therapy is helpful for people of all ages, but it can be particularly useful for teenagers and young adults.

Animal Therapy

Interacting and caring for animals can have significant mental health benefits. You can make a connection with these nonjudgemental creatures that often reflect your own emotions. Equine therapy, in particular, can be very helpful in teaching you how to regulate your feelings while also involving physical activities outdoors.

Art Therapy

Being able to express yourself by drawing, coloring, or crafting can bring freedom in how you see and share your feelings. Because art is subjective, there’s no right or wrong way to express yourself. Art therapy can reduce shame and stress while also empowering you.

Psychodrama Therapy

This is the most common form of experiential therapy. Psychodrama therapy encourages you to recreate stressful and emotionally charged situations in a safe setting, allowing you to work through the negative emotions the experience creates.

In this way, you can step into another person’s shoes and see things from their perspective, helping you improve your communication skills and gain a better understanding of why the situation was so upsetting for you.

Body-Centered Therapy

Body-centered therapy refers to any therapeutic options that involve expressing yourself with your whole body, such as yoga, dancing, and breathwork. Moving your body can allow you to better process emotions, especially trauma.

Play Therapy

Play therapy is commonly used with children and involves therapeutic play to help address emotional and psychological issues that may be too difficult for them to put into words. It can be especially helpful in children who have suffered abuse or lived through other traumatic experiences.

When Is Experiential Therapy Helpful?

Experiential therapy can aid in the treatment of a variety of mental health challenges. These challenges can include:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Trauma
• Anger management
• Grief
• Eating disorders
• ADHD
• Compulsive behaviors
• Stress
• Mood disorders
• Phobias

It’s also commonly used during the treatment of substance use disorders and can be helpful even for people who don’t have a diagnosable condition but have difficulties with past experiences. Additionally, patients who are looking to change relationship dynamics can benefit from experiential therapy.

Experiential therapy often works best when combined with traditional talk therapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy. It can also be beneficial in both individual and group settings. The majority of experiential therapy options are appropriate for all age groups, while some, like play therapy, can be better suited to children.

Benefits of Experiential Therapy

Experiential therapy offers benefits that, when combined with talk therapy, allow you to gain a clearer understanding of your behaviors and emotions. With this knowledge, you can then make the changes you need to start feeling your best again.

Improving Emotional Processing

Even if you know you’re angry or sad, these emotions can have layers. To be able to address everything you’re feeling, you need to separate these layers, and that’s not always easy to do with talk therapy. Experiential therapy allows you to explore all the feelings you have around a particular situation and overcome them directly.

This emotional processing makes it easier to feel a less powerful emotional response over time as you address all of the emotions that a particular event or situation brings up. It’s a bit like exposure therapy.

Achieving Situational Resolution

With experiential therapy, you can recreate traumatic situations and examine not only what your response at the time was but also the emotions it caused. You can release any negative feelings you have about the situation as well, which opens the door to healing.

Building Empathy

By allowing you to see an event or situation from different perspectives, experiential therapy options like psychodrama can help you build empathy about what others around you are feeling. Once you’re able to understand why someone reacted the way they did, you can be better poised to accept and forgive, which is vital for your own mental health.

Reducing Avoidance

Traumatic events can leave you avoiding thoughts, memories, and even people that are connected to your trauma. Often, people think that avoiding what hurts them can help reduce stress, but it typically does the opposite. Avoidance can actually trigger anxiety and allow the emotions behind the avoidance to grow.

Boosting Creative Expression

Engaging in creative endeavors like music or art can be a great way of reducing stress and managing emotions. Instead of putting emotions aside, you can put them down on paper or sing them out, giving you further insight into your emotional responses.

Artistic hobbies can also become a form of self-care. These hobbies give you the opportunity to take some time for yourself and unwind while also helping to bolster your self-esteem.

Developing New Coping Skills

When you participate in many different activities, you learn better ways of coping with difficult emotions. For example, if you learn to use drawing as a way to express yourself and cope with stress, you can depend on this activity when you’re struggling.

What to Expect From Experiential Therapy

Because experiential therapy is so diverse, the exact course of your treatment can vary greatly from someone else’s. The focus, however, will generally be on “hands-on” experiences. It’s a client-centered therapy option that allows you to express preferences for certain therapeutic interventions.

Some therapists work with one form of experiential therapy, while others incorporate many types into their practice. For example, some therapists offer both adventure therapy and equine therapy, while others may prefer music and art therapy for their patients.

No matter the intervention you engage in, your therapist will focus on your perception and awareness of what you experience as you draw or sing a song. You can then speak about the emotions the activity brought up. This can happen during the activity or after, such as in a talk session.

Examples of Experiential Therapy Activities

You may wonder exactly what trying experiential therapy may involve. Take a closer look at some examples of what this therapeutic option can look like in real life.

Empty Chair

In this exercise, you sit in front of an empty chair and begin a dialogue with the person you’ve had a conflict with. It may also be an aspect of yourself that you want to address. The exercise lets you have an imagined conversation that can help you give voice to your emotions and gain resolution to issues.

Expressive Dance

During an expressive dance exercise, you move to music in any way you want. You’ll usually need to close your eyes. This activity can suit both individual and group therapy sessions.

Hiking

Hiking lets you be outside in nature, which can help reduce stress and improve your mood. You also have the chance to build self-confidence in your physical abilities. It can be helpful for many mental health conditions, including substance use disorders.

Equine Leading

Leading a horse through a series of obstacles can help you with problem-solving skills and building confidence. You can also learn to observe the horse’s behavior and reflect on how it relates to your own emotions.

Guided Imagery and Music

In this exercise, you listen to a piece of music while engaging in guided imagery that your therapist has created. For instance, your therapist might encourage you to visualize a peaceful situation while listening to soothing music.

Creative Writing

With creative writing, you can explore difficult subjects from a safe viewpoint. Creative writing encourages your imagination and also offers a sense of accomplishment that boosts self-esteem.

Soliloquy

During this exercise, you get to give a “speech” about what you’re experiencing, and you’re encouraged to talk about your feelings. An example would be speaking about the death of a loved one and what that experience meant for you. Soliloquy can help you pinpoint the variety of emotions you feel.

Camping

Camping gives you the chance to unplug from your regular life and enjoy the calm of being outdoors. It can be a great option for group therapy and encourages you to build connections with others.

Finding Your Balance Through Action at APN Lodge

Experiential therapy is one of the many therapeutic options available for people who are struggling with mental health concerns, relationship problems, and anything else that affects their self-esteem and psychological well-being. With experiential therapy, you give yourself the permission to play, removing inhibitions and focusing more on action.

Experiential therapy can work very well when combined with talk therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy. You can uncover emotions in the activity and then address them in the CBT session so that you can start making behavioral changes. It can be challenging to make changes without first understanding the underlying emotions that are causing problems.

At APN Lodge, we offer a wide range of treatment options to help you address the obstacles you face, including experiential therapy. Whether you’re battling a substance use disorder, depression, or a combination of mental health concerns, our team can help you find the most appropriate treatment plan for your needs.

Contact us to speak with one of our experts and get started on finding the path to wellness today.

References

• Dijkstra, Maria T., and Astrid C. Homan. “Engaging in Rather than Disengaging from Stress: Effective Coping and Perceived Control.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 7, 2016, p. 206818, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01415. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.
• Keller, Jennifer et al. “Forest Bathing Increases Adolescents’ Mental Well-Being: A Mixed-Methods Study.” International journal of environmental research and public health vol. 21,1 8. 20 Dec. 2023, doi:10.3390/ijerph21010008
• Stewart, Joanna, et al. “Music Use for Mood Regulation: Self-Awareness and Conscious Listening Choices in Young People With Tendencies to Depression.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 10, 2019, p. 452056, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01199. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.
• Tomaszewski, Crystal et al. “Impact of dance therapy on adults with psychological trauma: a systematic review.” European journal of psychotraumatology vol. 14,2 (2023): 2225152. doi:10.1080/20008066.2023.2225152