Ryan Holmes Counselling

Working with individuals, relationships/couples and families where there is:

• Single-even and complex trauma histories
• Emotionally stuck relationships
• Spiritual or values based work

Unpacking this further: 

• Relational, developmental, and attachment-based trauma.
• Helps for those who feel overwhelmed, shut down, or disconnected from their emotions.
• Working with core emotional pain that underlies presenting issues like depression and anxiety.
• Supports healing attachment Injuries and relational wounds like misattunement, neglect, or rejection.
• Restores a sense of  self through affirming emotional and relational experiences.
• Fully feel and integrate grief, while also accessing transformation and meaning.
• Teaches couples how to speak and listen with respect, clarity, and emotional intelligence.
• Addresses destructive patterns like criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling.
• Helps partners rebuild trust, intimacy, and emotional attunement.
• Offers structured pathways for healing trust and restoring the relationship.
• Helps build a foundation of friendship, shared meaning, and healthy conflict management.
• Supports navigating external stressors while staying emotionally connected.

Imagine walking along a concrete path. Your attention drifts — the hum of traffic, the breeze through the leaves, the rhythm of your heartbeat. Then, something catches your eye: a small flower pushing its way through a crack in the concrete. Fragile yet determined, life finds a way to flourish even in unlikely places.

This image is a perfect metaphor for Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP). Like the flower, humans have a natural capacity for healing, growth, and wholeness, even when life has left cracks of trauma, pain, or stress (Fosha, 2024). AEDP focuses on nurturing that potential, helping clients transform and thrive.

What is AEDP?

AEDP is a relational and experiential therapy designed to help people process emotions, heal from past trauma, and foster resilience. It draws on modern neuroscience, attachment theory, and emotion research to guide people toward transformation.

At its core, AEDP believes that:

• Humans are wired to heal and flourish.
• Positive, safe relationships help the brain restructure and grow in adaptive ways.
• Emotional experiences, when processed safely, can lead to lasting change.

AEDP creates a therapeutic environment that notices, nurtures, and amplifies these natural capacities.

How AEDP Works

AEDP therapy works in four main states, each helping you experience and integrate change:

1. Creating Safety & Undoing Aloneness
   Healing begins when you feel safe and connected. AEDP therapists focus on building a secure, supportive relationship so that you don’t have to face difficult emotions alone.
2. Transforming Overwhelming Emotions
   In a safe setting, you can explore emotions that were previously too intense to face. This helps release old patterns and opens the way for positive emotional experiences.
3. Metaprocessing Transformational Experiences
   AEDP helps you reflect on your own emotional growth and integrate what you’ve learned, reinforcing positive change and resilience.
4. Integrating Change into Your Sense of Self
   Finally, the insights, strengths, and emotional growth gained in therapy are woven into your sense of self, helping you move forward with a stronger, more resilient identity.

The Science Behind AEDP

AEDP is informed by five core principles:

1. We’re wired to flourish – Our brains have a natural drive toward growth, healing, and thriving.
2. Positive neuroplasticity – Our experiences shape our brains; safe, positive experiences can help us build new pathways for resilience.
3. Attachment and connection matter – Healthy relationships are central to emotional healing.
4. Emotions guide growth – Experiencing and processing emotions is essential for transformation.
5. Positive relational experiences amplify change – Supportive interactions in therapy help strengthen resilience and well-being.

What to Expect in AEDP Therapy

In AEDP, therapy is experiential and relational, meaning it focuses on what you feel in the moment rather than just talking about your thoughts or memories. Some key markers of change include:

• Glimmers of Resilience – Noticing small signs of hope, motivation, or healing.
• Undoing Aloneness – Feeling genuinely supported and connected in the therapy process.
• Emergence of the New and Good – Experiencing new perspectives, feelings, or ways of relating.
• Experiential Transformation – Real change comes through experiencing emotions fully and safely.
• Processing Core Emotions – Working through deep emotions like sadness, anger, or fear.
• Metaprocessing Growth – Reflecting on progress and amplifying positive change.
• Integration into Self – Bringing insights and emotional growth into everyday life.

Why AEDP Can Be Transformative

Research shows that AEDP can lead to both immediate and long-lasting change (Iwakabe et al., 2021; 2022). Even early sessions can help clients feel safer, more resilient, and more connected to their own capacity for growth. Over time, AEDP helps create lasting improvements in emotional well-being and relationships.

In Summary

Just like the flower pushing through concrete, your natural capacity for growth and healing exists even in the midst of challenges. AEDP provides a safe, supportive space to notice, nurture, and amplify this potential. Through relational safety, emotional processing, and guided reflection, AEDP helps you transform past pain into resilience, well-being, and a richer sense of self.

The flower is a mirror — a reminder that life, hope, and transformation are possible even in the toughest circumstances.

AEDP resonates because it integrates the approaches I value most: psychodynamic, existential-humanistic, social constructivist, neuroscientific, and attachment frameworks. It offers a coherent theory and practice that aligns with my holistic view of therapy while engaging deeply with relational and emotional transformation.

COMING SOON