How experiential therapy unlocks emotional growth

Experiential therapy uses a hands-on approach to help you immerse in emotional experiences in real time. This can help you process feelings in a deeper way and learn more about how your emotions show up in your body. It can help you address a variety of mental health concerns, including trauma, eating disorders, substance use disorder, and more. 

Especially if traditional talk therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), hasn’t worked for you, experiential therapy methods might be worth exploring. 

How experiential therapy works

Experiential therapy is a broad category of treatment methods. Each can work in a different way. Generally, the goal of all types of experiential therapy is to give you a hands-on approach to process experiences and emotions.

These methods are believed to bring healing by giving you a way to process and express without relying only on verbal language. You don’t just talk about how you feel, you actually feel and experience things in sessions.

Some common techniques used in experiential therapies include:

• Role-playing: Acting out a situation or emotion with your therapist in session to understand your inner world more clearly. This focuses on skill building and rehearsing how you will respond to a given scenario. 

• Psychodrama: A structured form of role-play where you reenact scenes from your life to explore patterns, emotions, and unmet needs. This helps with shifting the meaning life events have had on you and gaining a better understanding of everyone's roles. 

• Creative expression: Activities like art, music, or writing that help you express feelings that may be hard to say aloud

• Somatic techniques: Approaches that focus on physical sensations, like those achieved through breathwork or movement, to help you understand your emotions 

Fundamentally a type of humanistic therapy, experiential therapy highlights the value of each person and their capacity for growth. It focuses on your internal strengths and ability to build self-awareness over time.

Experiential therapy refers to techniques that emphasize doing and feeling, like role-play, chair work, or other emotion-focused or embodied exercises. Experiential-dynamic therapies, in contrast, are a specific group of psychodynamic treatments that focus on helping people better experience and regulate emotions by working with unconscious processes, defenses, and attachment patterns. 

While experiential-dynamic therapies may include experiential techniques, they do not require them. That’s why the two terms are related but not the same.

Types of experiential therapy

Many approaches fall under the umbrella of experiential therapy. Sometimes, people assume that experiential therapy is the same as expressive or creative arts therapy. But the expressive arts are only one type of experiential therapy. 

Different approaches to experiential therapy can include:

Psychodrama

Most people associate experiential therapy with psychodrama. This type of therapy invites you to act out your past or internal experiences. 

For example, your therapist might ask you to do a role-play to understand yourself more deeply. You might do an “empty-chair” exercise. This is where you pretend like someone important in your life is sitting in session with you.

Music therapy

Music is powerfully connected to our moods and memories. Research shows ^[1] that music can change the way our brains work. Just like it sounds, music therapy uses music to bring healing. You might listen to music, write songs, or play an instrument to better understand your emotions. 

Art therapy

In art therapy, you use artistic tools to express feelings that might be difficult to put into words. It can include painting, sculpture, or collage. Many people find that the creative process brings up emotions more naturally. Art therapists are trained to help you explore these experiences at a pace that feels safe.

Somatic therapy

Somatic therapy uses techniques to help you physically feel and experience your emotions. Your therapist may guide you to tune into your body and understand what sensations mean for you. Over time, these methods may help you feel more grounded and connected to your body’s signals.

Animal-assisted therapy

Animal-assisted therapies use the healing power of animals to help you feel calmer while building trust with yourself and others. For example, you might work with horses or dogs. A bond with an animal companion can give you a safe and unconditional relationship to explore your emotions.

What experiential therapy is used for

Research around experiential therapy is still limited — especially compared to more established treatment methods like cognitive behavioral therapy. It’s also not clearly defined what, exactly, is considered a type of experiential therapy. So, the research results can be unclear.

But generally, the research is promising for a wide range of mental health conditions, including: 

• Trauma: Experiential therapy has been found to be helpful ^[2] for people experiencing the effects of trauma. This could be because trauma is often stored in parts of the brain unrelated to language. So, it could be easier to experience these emotions and memories than to talk about them.

• Eating disorders: Many therapists use experiential techniques for eating disorders. These techniques may be able to help you understand more about yourself and how the eating disorder has affected you. Experiential therapies can be used both individually and in group therapy ^[3].

• Depression: Many experiential therapies have been found to be helpful for people with depression. For example, one review ^[4] found that animal therapy improved well-being for people with depression.

• Substance use disorder (SUD): We need more research to say for sure how experiential therapy can help with SUD. One review ^[5] found that music therapy specifically could be helpful for people living with substance use disorder.

The benefits of experiential therapy

While there’s less research around experiential therapy, it could still work for you. 

The benefits of experiential therapy can include: 

• Gaining a new perspective by helping you step into experiences — sometimes, as someone else — instead of only talking about them

• Accessing and expressing emotions you may not be able to describe in words

• Processing memories in a way that works better for you 

Additionally, you might find these therapies more engaging and enjoyable than traditional psychotherapy. This can make it easier to stick with.

Getting started with experiential therapy

If you’re interested in experiential therapy, look for a therapist who's trained in these methods. Many therapists use experiential techniques even if they don’t specialize in them. So, you might find more options than you expect. 

Before you start, it can help to think about your comfort level with activities like role-play or creative expression. These approaches can feel unfamiliar at first, and that’s OK. It’s important to work with someone who helps you feel safe — not judged — during the process.

It might also help to know that you don’t necessarily need to choose between experiential therapy and other methods. Many therapists weave these techniques into their sessions and also borrow from other methods. If you want to focus only on experiential therapy, it could be helpful to find a dedicated program.

Clinician’s take

When experiential therapy starts to work, people often feel it in their body before they understand it. This can show up as a wave of emotion, a release, or suddenly getting teary. Many say, ‘That makes sense now.’ The feeling becomes easier to hold instead of feeling stuck or overwhelmed.

Ashley Ayala, LMFT

Clinical reviewer