Empowerment Therapy

The Empowerment Therapy (ET) framework is founded on the fulfillment of needs. The underlying principle is that when their needs are met, clients feel and do well. Beyond symptom reduction, we support clients in creating lives of connection, community, creative expression, freedom, and meaning-elements of a fulfilling life that look different for every individual but speak to universal human needs. ET proposes various innovations to the field of mental health, such as awareness of life-alienating systems.

REVIEWS

"In this major new book, Myra Walden makes a brilliant and original contribution to psychotherapy practice.

Empowerment Therapy aids clients in identifying their experienced needs and helps them articulate them in a nonviolent way. […]

They become more able to articulate their needs, and they communicate more effectively with greater self-acceptance and self-respect.

Walden makes a particularly important contribution by explicating how societal systems of domination and oppression tend to invalidate and suppress our real needs. This lack of confidence in our own lived experience and obfuscation of our genuine needs for respect, equality, and connection with others manifests in addictions, anxiety, and depression. By contrast, as we are more aware, direct, open, and honest about our real needs, we gain more self-respect and fulfillment, and are empowered to seek higher levels of functioning and joy in life."

- Marge Witty, PhD, Professor of Clinical Psychology, Illinois School of Professional Psychology