A Comparison Between Traditional Talk Therapy

Comparison Between Traditional Talk Therapy and Mind Map Therapy in terms of The Power and Effectiveness

Mind Map Therapy

My Entry into Mind Map Therapy

I graduated from the California Institute of Integral Studies with a Master’s in Drama Therapy, in the spring of 2018. In the spring of 2021, I had the pleasure of being hired by Dr. Judy Rosenberg. Dr. Judy Rosenberg created the Mind Map Be the Cause System, after 20 years of practicing Psychological Healing Center. The idea came to her in 2001, while in conversation with a friend about the sad state of the world.

“After many years of extensive and intensive psychological and spiritual study, I believe I have finally captured, condensed, and abridged decades of theories, case studies, and simple wisdom into an easy-to-use fast and effective system (my personal E=MC2) for taking any problem in life and converting it into a transformative, paradigm-shifting solution.”

-Dr. Judy Rosenberg, PhD.

By 2008, Dr. Rosberg had translated her vision into a tangible reality. The Mind Map is a 10-session psychodynamic healing modality. Since working with Dr. Rosenberg and offering Mind Map Therapy to clients, my eyes have been opened to the method’s potency. What follows is a comparison between Mind Map Therapy and traditional talk therapy.

Brief Therapy vs. Long Term therapy

“Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things”

-Peter Drucker

One area where the Mind Map differs from traditional talk therapy is duration. Traditional talk therapy can go on for as long as a client desires or a therapist deems fit. The process can be slow and span over years and sometimes decades.

Mind Map therapy, on the other hand, can be completed in 10 sessions. Depending on how ardently a client wants to approach these sessions, the therapeutic process can be completed rather quickly. The average completion time is around 10 weeks.

I have had my preconceptions of the effectiveness of brief therapy. Before working with the Mind Map, I was caught in the notion that brief therapy was weak and time obsessed. What I did not understand, is that an effective brief therapy model, can offer people a highly concentrated dose of psychological potency. In a short period of time, work that might have taken years, can be accomplished in less than 3 months.

The Power of Directness

One of the most pivotal differences between the Mind Map Be the Cause System and traditional talk therapy is its directness. It has been my experience with long term talk therapy that clients can become confused as to what the objectives of the therapy are. There can be a lot of talking around subjects rather than addressing them head on.

The roots of the Mind Map are based in a “DYI” approach to healing. Every intervention I use, I explain. By using a method that is direct, I have also been able to develop a rapport with every client that is personal, honest and transparent. When I am working with a client, I like to say, “there are no smoke and mirrors here” and it is very true.

A Psycho-Educational Model

I find it to be imperative when working with clients, that the method that I am using allows them the opportunity to “learn how to fish”. At the end of each session, I want my client to leave having learned something about the way they operate psychologically. By using the Mind Map Be the Cause system, I can teach my clients “how to fish” and “think like a shrink” by instructing them on how to use, what Dr. Rosenberg refers to as, their “psychoperceptual” lens.

“Let me reassure you that once you learn to adjust your vision and begin perceiving, or “seeing”, your world through a new lens, it seems like a master key is unlocking the mysteries of your unconscious. I call this new lens, or “psychoperceptual” lens, the Be the Cause System for Healing.”

Dr. Judy Rosenberg Ph.D. Be the Cause Healing Human Disconnect, p. 15

Once my clients gain access to this new lens, their view of themselves and their world begins to shift rapidly.

Expressive Catharsis

Being a Drama Therapist, I am schooled in the power of catharsis. Sigmund Freud was the first to coin the term “catharsis”, as it relates to Psychodynamic therapy. However, the importance of catharsis has been understood by indigenous tribes around the world since the beginning of human civilization.

As humans, we have always undergone trauma. Whether it was on the hunt for food, in childbirth, or through the witnessing of death, the impact of life has always left its mark. Our earlier human ancestors had a keener sense of the intensity of those experiences. They also understood that those experiences left us needing to purge. Through storytelling, dancing, and emoting intense expression, we learned how to release emotional toxins. These kinds of emotional release are forms of catharsis.

The Mind Map Be the Cause system includes the use of catharsis, through an intervention Dr. Rosenberg calls the “truth conversation”. I have guided many clients through this process and have watched as they release levels of pain, they were unaware they had. Clients are often astounded by the expanse of their own feelings while engaging in the “truth conversation”. Once my client can have awareness around these intense emotions, they begin to access a certain level of freedom in interacting with them going forward.

A Therapeutic Model Focused on Sustainable Change

Throughout the process of administering Mind Map Therapy, my focus remains on encouraging my client’s emergence into a new world of their own understanding. This focus fully blossoms in the last stage of Mind Map therapy, which Dr. Rosenberg refers to as “Recoding”.

“Research in the field of epigenetics tells us that rather than set in stone, the expression of our DNA is malleable, meaning that we are coded to have the ability to recode! As you let go of the old coding, you can now Be the Cause of selecting the new life-sustaining psycho-DNA into the fiber of your being.”

Dr. Judy Rosenberg, Ph.D. Healing the Human Disconnect p. 159

Through the systemic approach of the Mind Map system, I can help my clients see the ways in which they are still in the throes of their childhood wounding and how to pivot into new behaviors and ways of being. At this stage of the therapy, I spend time with each client helping them to find new ways of relating to the world around them. We create an individualized approach to bringing more health and light into their lives. With this strategy, I can better help guide my clients into new ways of living that alter their current lifestyles for the better.

In this sense, Mind Map Therapy helps to bridge the past into the future. The wounding of the past becomes transformed into a gift for how to better live in the present. Whereas, in traditional talk therapy, clients can often become trapped in the processing of their own pain and suffering, Mind Map therapy offers them a path to becoming something new.

Gratitude for Mind Map Therapy

I am grateful to have the opportunity to work under the guidance of Dr. Rosenberg. By using the Mind Map Be the Cause system for healing, I can offer my clients an approach to mental and emotional health that is effective and engaging. I look forward to offering this to anyone who is seeking a powerful transformation in their lives that will alter the way they live.

-V. Haddad Drama Therapy MA/AMFT