How does it compare with other treatment options?
This unique method addresses the root causes of what separates us from health and happiness: the need for the tools to process stress and access joy.
The Solution Method will provide you not only with the tools to process optimally the current stress in your daily life, but to rewire and heal the build-up of stress from the past. It is based on cutting-edge neuroscience and is so powerful that Health named it “One of the Top 10 Medical Advances of the Year.”
Let's compare this method to other treatments.
Prescription medications for mood effect changes in neurotransmitters to alleviate the symptoms of anxiety and depression. However, other than genetics and circumstance, those chemical imbalances have at their roots an insufficiency of the skills in nurturing and limit-setting.
Although drug treatment can be an important adjunct to this training for some people, if we keep processing our daily lives without high levels of these skills, distress will continue to accumulate. They do not solve the root cause of our problems. Also, we may become dependent upon these drugs, have difficulty with the side-effects or find that they really don’t work very well.
Psychotherapy can provide repeated contact with nurturing and effective limits, but it may or may not result in the client mastering these skills. Retraining the brain requires intense practice over time. Psychotherapy is usually provided for one hour per week. Solution Training – with groups, kits and connections, provides that direct and intense practice.
For those who are at high psychological risk, having a secure nurturing relationship with a therapist can be important. However, to the extent that the therapist relies on insight –– a thinking brain activity –– rather than nurturing support, it may only have a weak effect on the feeling brain or it may take many years to see results. Gaining insight into the past can be helpful, but unless we have the skills to change how we process our daily lives, the improvements in our lives may not be substantial.
Cognitive behavioral therapy was the original basis for The Solution Method when it was first developed more than 25 years ago. Still today, the method incorporates behavioral therapy to encourage lifestyle modifications. In addition, the skills to nurture and set limits from within involve cognitive changes.
However, the center of stress is our feeling brain. Feelings are deeper than thoughts, and for transformation to occur, we must affect the feeling brain. Although cognitive therapy can impact feelings, The Solution moves this treatment to the next level, equipping us with the emotional and cognitive skills that retrain the feeling brain to heal the stress of the past and to stay resilient to stress in the moment.
Meditation can have a powerful impact on the feeling brain. However, it is not easy to meditate, and when stresses are high, it’s highly challenging to “pop” ourselves from depression, anxiety, or numbness to a state of personal balance through meditation alone.
Many people start looking for relief from stress by meditating and then add Solution Training to their experience, using the skills to retrain their brains to heal past hurts and to stay present throughout the day.
12-step programs provide a nurturing environment for millions of people. The slogans of the program and the steps can increase one’s nurturing and limit-setting skills.
However, many people use these programs without mastering the skills to nurture and set limits from within, and some programs produce dependency, a situation in which going to a meeting or calling a sponsor substitutes for acquiring the skills to connect with oneself.
About 25 percent of people who join Solution Groups have gone to 12-step programs and have found that they gave up one excess only to take up another; they find that these skills move them to the next step in their recovery. They may or may not continue to participate in 12-step meetings, but they are clear that they need training to acquire more of these developmental skills.
How does it compare with other treatment options?
