5 Questions (and Answers) about Lifespan Integration Therapy

Healing from past psychological trauma is a popular topic today, thanks to strides that have been made in accepting the realities of poor mental health. It is widely accepted that therapy and psychological interventions can have a significant positive impact on an individual’s emotional state and quality of life, and counselors are a recognized part of many people’s lives. Lifespan Integration Therapy is one of those modalities.

New therapy techniques are also being developed, one of which is lifespan integration therapy, which focuses on resetting the body’s neural system to help heal traumatic memories. This article answers some common questions about this relatively new technique and explores how a Christian counselor might incorporate the treatment into their sessions.

What is lifespan integration therapy?

American marriage and family therapist Peggy Pace is the founder of the Lifespan Integration Therapy technique. She describes how, in 2002, she discovered how to use her clients’ life narratives in a way that seemingly changed their neural organization and structure.

She began to study the developments in neuroscience that started to emerge in the 1990s. The exact neuroscience of how our nervous systems integrate new information is still largely unknown.

However, the evidence of what Pace saw in her counseling patients, and what numerous subsequent counselors have seen, confirms that lifespan integration therapy, when used by a fully trained therapist, is a beneficial way to help individuals deal with both the memories of difficult events as well as the bodily sensations triggered by the painful memories.

Unlike traditional cognitive behavioral therapy, lifespan integration therapy bypasses the cognitive mind and focuses on how neurological pathways associated with trauma can be rewired in the brain so that clients can work through painful aspects of their past without being re-traumatized. As their memories become better organized and rational, they can develop healthier strategies and discard unhelpful defense mechanisms.

What kinds of trauma does Lifespan Integration Therapy help with?

Trauma can be defined as the collective physical, emotional, and mental effects of a damaging event. Often, we think of traumatic events as being extremely intense – sexual abuse in childhood or witnessing a violent crime.

While these instances are certainly traumatic and will require much healing, other situations that may not be deemed traumatic by others might produce the same emotional damage. Some researchers describe trauma as anything “extremely upsetting”, for example, if you’ve undergone any kind of neglect, abandonment, bullying, or tragedy of sorts, you might benefit from the restoration that lifespan integration therapy provides.

Trauma can be likened to a bruise, which is an obvious sign that someone has had force applied to them that has damaged the tissue beneath the skin. Until that bruise has healed, which takes place as the body replaces the damaged blood cells with new ones, the area will be painful when pressure is applied to it.

Likewise, while we might ‘move on’ from traumatic events, if our brains do not process them fully, when this emotional bruise is touched or triggered, pain is experienced.

According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, approximately 25% of American children will experience a traumatic event by the age of 16. This could be psychological, physical, or sexual abuse; witnessing or experiencing domestic violence; community violence; national disasters or terrorism, to name a few.

Lifespan integration therapy can be extremely beneficial in helping children and adults make sense of what has happened and help rewire their neural pathways so that there is healing.

How will a counselor help me through LIT?

Lifespan integration therapy’s primary tool is to go through a timeline of memories that a client has from their life, in a repeated and sequential order. Together with a trained, gentle counselor, the individual is taken through each memory, and held there, for a “window of tolerance”. Being able to stay in this moment will alone bring about more stability in what is called the person’s ‘self-system’.

The human body-mind is a complex self-organizing system that, like all self-organizing systems, follows certain rules. They also spontaneously re-organize under certain conditions, and so the goal of lifespan integration therapy is to create conditions that optimize neural plasticity.

These include focal attention, optimal emotional activation, and repetition. In this way, the client’s system can be pushed into a more stable structure, so that they can function more effectively.

The input that the counselor gives during lifespan integration therapy can be informational, saying for example, “It is over now”, “You are here and safe now”, or a proposed imaginal activity: “Imagine that you are looking into the eyes of your four-year-old self…” as brain scans show that imagined actions light up the same neural circuitry in the brain as the actions themselves.

What are the benefits of Lifespan Integration Therapy?

Lifespan integration therapy has been shown to yield great benefits in helping victims of trauma, given its powerful effect on rewiring the brain. Traumatic events can have occurred in the client’s present or past, with deep trauma usually needing a series of sessions with repetitions of the timelines.

The therapist will be able to ascertain the type and number of repetitions needed, as they control the process of remembering and help the client not become overwhelmed at any point.

An example of a scenario where lifespan integration therapy can provide benefit (although it can be successfully applied to any traumatic situation) would be where a person has been involved in a serious car accident. While they survived the accident, and are now safe and recovered, the very act of getting into the driver’s seat evokes fear and its physical manifestations.

The lifespan integration therapist would indirectly target this fear by leading the person through a timeline of what happened, ending in the present where all is well. Through repetition, the goal of the therapy is to “convince” the body that the trauma has passed – being able to do this so that their instinctive reaction is one of peace rather than panic is a successful outcome. It is a knowledge of safety that goes deeper than just cognitive understanding.

Is it okay for Christians to do Lifespan Integration Therapy?

Lifespan integration therapy is based on neuroscience principles, and in no way contradicts biblical values. It would be valuable to connect with a Christian counselor who is trained in the technique, and who can offer input and encouragement based on Scripture.

God is the one who has designed our brains and bodies, and He alone knows how they function. They are magnificent creations, made in the image of our magnificent creator.

On this side of heaven, our lives are broken by the effects of sin. This creeps into every facet of human life, and no one is immune from it. Even if a person has not been a victim of violent crime or sexual abuse, there are “mini” traumas all around us, from the less-than-perfect parent who carries the generational sin of their less-than-perfect parent; and the sin of the flesh inside us that hurts others with our anger, malice, slander and impure thoughts and motives.

Lifespan integration therapy recognizes this, and how each person can benefit from processing the emotional damage they carry. By being able to heal from these deep-seated hurts, we can love others better and be more fruitful in our service to God.

If lifespan integration therapy is something that you feel could be helpful in your life, do not hesitate to contact a Christian counselor who is able to start the journey with you. You might have tried other types of counseling and therapy, but your body is still keeping score of the trauma, and you find yourself triggered in certain situations.

This therapy offers a great opportunity to heal from the wounds on a mind, body, and soul level, and move into a more joyful space free from this past trauma.