People, both young and adults, who have problems telling each other and expressing their emotions can bring greater difficulty in metabolizing painful experiences.
There Superhero Therapy It can help in these situations. Transferring problems to stories outside their personal events meant that patients speak more openly. They can thus more easily access resources of resilience and processing processes.
The origins of this therapy
There Superhero Therapybased on the fundamental principles of the accepance and Commitment Therapy and the Compassion Focused Therapy, was developed by Dr. Janina Scarlet. He leads patients, often teenagers, but also adults, on a journey of awareness and change.
The author starts from her personal difficulty experience: exposure to chernobyl disaster radiation during her first years of life. The serious psychological and physical consequences of this exposure led it to a progressive isolation, to a sense of impotence and inhauling common to many patients.
When at 12 he saw the film X-Men for the first time, inspired by the homonymous series of Marvel comics, the young (not yet doctor) Scarlet began to look at his diversity and difficulties with different eyes.
From that moment on he became passionate about world of superheroesnoting that his favorite characters all had something in common. Most of them faced painful personal experiences that modeled their personality until they transformed into those heroes who eventually became.
The first publications
Continuing his studies and becoming a psychologist and researcher at New York University, he decided to try to apply his personal experience and passion for the culture of comics to help their patients. So in 2016 his first publication was born “Superher Therapy – A hero journey through the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy”, Masterfully illustrated by Wellinton Alves.
In the small and dynamic self-help manual the author guides the reader through the awareness that his suffering can be faced differently, when this is considered a starting point for the road that leads to the discovery of the superhero within us.
The journey unfolds in 10 chapters that deal with well -known issues of the Accept Therapy and Commitment and the Compassion Focused Therapy. 6 characters, each with powers and with different symptoms, tell their story and travel to transform into superheroes.
In the first chapters we meet Monica Mercury, Dr. Semper and Neil Scott, all victims of anxiety, shame and sadness. Through the descriptions of the destructive behavior of these characters, the author introduces us to the concept of experiential avoidance (Hayes et al. 1996). It underlines how this maintains many disorders, including obsessive compulsive disorder (Abramowitz et al. 2013), specific phobias (Singh and Singh 2016), substances abuse disorders (worden et al. 2015), eating disorders (Rawal et al. 2010), as well as anxiety disorders (Drake et al. 2015).
The trap of experiential advancement
The real “enemy” is identified in this mechanism, as a trap that retains us in an attempt to control or Avoid difficult emotional experiences. It makes them more likely that they occur and maintain rather than resolve.
Two other characters, Katrina Quest and Shadow Gray, who are facing the symptoms of post -traumatic stress disorder, introduce the concept of mindfulness as a conscious presence even in the face of disturbing emotional and physical experiences.
Practical exercises are illustrated here, such as focus on five senses, daily informal practices and gratitude practice.
He perceived and himself superhero
Continuing, the author differentiates between the perceived self and what the self -superhero calls.
Contrary to the perceived Self, which highlights our defects and our imperfections through often aspries, the self -superhero self in the positive, instructive and altruistic self with which those who suffer from a psychological disorder often loses contact.
Drovin and again Dr. Semper show us how trapped in theirs they are negative patternsidentifying themselves in them. Thus giving great space to the judgments that the most painful emotions such as shame, anger, anxiety and sadness feed and having great difficulties in cultivating healthy parts of self.
Personal values
Continue on the road of personal valuesthe cardinal principle of Act. The identification of its positive characteristics automatically leads to identifying the significant directions of one’s life more clearly.
Here the concept of superhero takes its most relevant form: what is important for me to do with my superpowers?
The exploration of what is important in our life, creativity, altruism, friends, family and much more, helps people understand how and where to invest their efforts and bring their “superpowers” together.
Defusion and availability
The superhero path continues with “the spell of the defusion“, Another founding concept of the Act, which allows you to take a distance from the worst scenarios that the mind, by its nature, offers us in the face of moments of anxiety and insecurity.
We then reach the “final weapon”: the Sword of availability. The counterparty of experiential advancement is the willingness to open up to all emotions and experiences, even the most painful ones.
This allows you to know your “monsters”, to be able to have them next to them while continuing to pursue their values. Not to be forced to use all the energies to avoid painful experiences such as anxiety, shame, anger or sadness, but to be free to feel what normally emerges, because we are superhero but also human.
Self-compression
After this demanding part of the path, we arrive at the “secret hiding place” ofself-compression. Self-compasion elements are analyzed and some practical exercises are suggested, such as the compassionate letter (Gilbert, 2009).
The small manual ends with the encouragement tocommitment and the normalization of the setbacks.
The author takes us by the hand on a truly rich and deep journey of discovery, through the use of family images to younger patients, but also to some of the “less young”. The volume can be a valid help, based on evidence-based approaches, for those suffering from anxiety disorders, PTSDs, mood disorders, dependence disorders on substances and disorders related to physical pathologies.
His mixture of compassion, emotional intelligence, honesty and fun makes him a valid method of presenting principles well known in the Third generation of cognitive-behavioral therapy For those patients who, like myself, sink their imagination in the colorful and moving world of superheroes.
