A Special Monograph Issue: Triangles of Emotional Pain: A Conceptual Model for AEDP
By Neta Offer and Hans Welling
Abstract: The authors present a theoretical integrative model of Triangles of Emotional Pain for the categorization and transformation of emotional pain in experiential psychotherapies. We propose two major conceptual innovations to existing views on emotional pain. The first is distinguishing three types of emotional pain that are not only different in origin but also require distinctly different interventions to undo their emotional learning. Our second conceptual innovation is distinguishing the originating experience of emotional pain from the problematic emotional learning that can result from these experiences. Integrating data from research literature and clinical work, the model distinguishes between three types of emotional pain differentiated by three different functional systems through which pain is registered and processed: core emotional pain, relational pain, and self-pain. The authors show how each type of emotional pain has a distinct developmental etiology and evolutionary function, and how each type requires a fundamentally different transformational process to be healed. Though patients experience all three types of pain in their life, usually one particular pain is dominant in a session. The model provides markers for identifying the active pain in the session, directing the therapist to one of three transformational paths. It thus provides a focus for the work but also leaves plenty of room for intuitive moment-to- moment tracking of emerging experience. The Triangles of Emotional Pain can thus be not only an important conceptual model for working within AEDP but also a useful tool for systematically selecting and integrating interventions and techniques from a variety of experiential models.
Introduction
From its inception, AEDP has emphasized a bottom-up approach and moment-to- moment tracking as hallmarks of its clinical work (Fosha 2000, 2021; Prenn