What I’ve Learned as an AEDP Therapist - By Alaina Grable, Founder of Our Kind Therapy
How Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy shapes the way I work, and the heart of Our Kind Therapy.
In one of my favorite moments in therapy, a client said, “I feel like I wasn’t built for this world.”
She looked up at me, half-waiting for a fix, half-bracing for judgment. Instead, I stayed with her and asked, “How does it feel to say that to me right now?”
She paused. “It feels strange,” she said slowly. “Because you’re actually here. I can tell you’re not trying to make me feel better,you’re just with me. That makes it… less heavy.”
That was the moment I realized what makes AEDP different. It’s not about rescuing someone from their pain; it’s about creating enough safety for truth to land in shared space. The work isn’t to make it better, it’s to be with it, together, until the nervous system recognizes it’s not alone anymore.
That shift, from isolation to connection, is the foundation of every transformation I’ve seen since.
*All client stories in this article are composites drawn from common themes in my practice. Identifying details have been changed to protect privacy.*
Before AEDP: When Therapy Felt Like Management, Not Connection
Before I found AEDP, I was quietly suffocating inside the walls of traditional talk therapy.
I was doing everything I was taught to do: track symptoms, assign coping strategies, offer cognitive reframes. My clients were making progress on paper, but they weren’t understanding how to reduce their anxiety, to identify their triggers, to restructure their thoughts.
But inside the room, I felt like something sacred was missing. There were moments when a client would say something raw, something that begged for humanity, and instead of meeting it, I’d redirect, analyze, or “normalize.” I could feel it every time: a subtle break in the connection.
I was doing “good therapy,” but I could see it in their eyes, there was no movement. No aliveness. Clients left sessions understanding themselves more, but not feeling themselves more. I left sessions wondering how we’d both ended up in a relationship that was meant to be transformative, yet somehow stayed polite.
I didn’t become a therapist to teach people how to think differently. I became one because I wanted to help people feel differently, to experience themselves as real, whole, and human again.
So when I came across AEDP, it felt less like learning something new and more like being handed the language for what I’d been longing to say all along.
Finding the Missing Language
When I first encountered Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), three ideas landed in my body before they landed in my mind: metaprocessing, tasteful self-disclosure, and the question, “How does that feel to say to me?”
Metaprocessing, in its simplest form, means we don’t just talk about what happened; we also notice what it’s like to talk about it together.
The first time I asked someone, “How does it feel to hear that from me?” we exhaled together, both of us noticing the depth of how that landed. It wasn’t analysis. It was attunement. It was presence. And it was the first time I felt therapy shift from something I did to someone I was.
Then came tasteful self-disclosure, not oversharing, not crossing lines, but allowing small, genuine reflections to exist in the room. Saying, “I feel really moved hearing that,” or, “Something in me feels protective of you right now.”
For the first time, I felt that I didn’t have to shrink behind the role of therapist. I could bring my whole self, professional, intuitive, embodied, and meet clients as equals in the work. AEDP didn’t teach me to feel more; it validated that feeling deeply was the work.
It gave me words for what I had always believed: that therapy is not a sterile process of fixing people, but a living, relational experience of helping them find safety within themselves and in connection to another. The relationship is the therapy.
That realization became the cornerstone of Our Kind Therapy. I didn’t just want to practice therapy differently; I wanted to build a practice that was different, where connection wasn’t a side effect, it was the method.
What AEDP Looks Like in Practice
At its core, AEDP starts from one radical belief: we are wired to heal. Beneath anxiety, depression, and burnout lives a natural drive toward connection, growth, and truth.
In session, we slow down. We notice what’s happening not just in the story, but in the body. We explore what’s happening between us. I might ask, “What happens inside as you tell me this and I’m here with you right now?” or “What’s it like that I’m not judging you?”
This is what AEDP calls undoing aloneness. You don’t have to sit in shame, fear, or grief alone while I take notes. I stay present with you. We co-regulate. It’s not softness for the sake of softness, it’s precision. Emotional attunement becomes the pathway to change.
What Healing Looks Like
Across clients, the pattern is remarkably consistent. They arrive with exhaustion, perfectionism, anxiety, or heartbreak, and leave with more ease, clarity, and self-respect.
A woman who once described herself as “stuck in static” learns to name sensations in her body and finds movement where there was numbness.
A high-functioning executive realizes that self-respect, not self-criticism, fuels better leadership.
A founder drowning in burnout learns that accepting help isn’t weakness, it’s safety.
These moments aren’t abstract. They translate into real life.
Anxiety drops. Depression lifts. Relationships deepen. Attachment patterns shift toward security. Many clients repair marriages, open up sexually, change careers, or finally feel safe enough to rest.
But the real marker of change is quieter: they begin to feel in control of their lives rather than controlled by them.
What I’ve Learned:
Over the years, AEDP has taught me that:
Safety always precedes insight.
Attachment can be repaired in real time.
Most people don’t need to be challenged first, they need to be accompanied.
The nervous system is the map of the psyche.
Undoing aloneness isn’t a metaphor, it’s biology.
When therapy moves from analysis to connection, people don’t just think differently, they feel differently, and that difference endures.
How AEDP Shapes Our Kind Therapy
At Our Kind Therapy, AEDP isn’t just a modality, it’s a philosophy. It’s how we hire, train, and supervise. It’s how our sessions feel.
When I bring new therapists onto the team, I’m not only asking about technique. I’m asking:
Can you sit with a client’s pain without rushing to fix it?
Can you feel your own body in the room and use that awareness wisely?
Can you be real, warm, boundaried, honest?
Supervision mirrors the same values. We look at what happens inside the therapist as much as inside the client. We explore moments of connection, rupture, and repair. We practice being brave and kind at the same time.
I want Our Kind Therapy to embody the kind of therapy I was searching for at the beginning of my career, real, intelligent, emotionally safe, and culturally attuned. A place where both clients and clinicians grow.
AEDP and the Future of Therapy
I believe AEDP points toward the future of therapy: a future where insight matters, but connection leads. Where the therapist isn’t a distant observer, but an attuned partner. Where progress isn’t measured by how many coping tools a client learns, but by how deeply they feel seen and understood while learning them.
Clients often tell me, “Every session feels worth the time in my schedule,” or “I feel inspired to keep learning about myself.” These aren’t just compliments; they’re proof that therapy can be more than symptom management, it can be an experience of being met, known, and changed by relationship.
If you’re a potential client reading this, I hope you can already sense the safety here, that you won’t do this work alone, and that your humanity will be met with humanity.
If you’re a future Our Kind therapist, I hope this gives you a glimpse of how we practice, with skill, with depth, and with heart.
Because at the end of the day, AEDP and Our Kind Therapy share the same belief:
You were never meant to heal alone.
And you are far more capable of healing than you’ve ever been taught to believe.
Written by Alaina Grable, LMHC-D
