Therapists tend to specialise in just one field of therapy and one school of thought: for example, psychoanalysis, and psychodynamic therapies; behaviour therapy; (including cognitive behavioural therapy); cognitive therapy; humanistic therapy, and integrative, or holistic therapy (blending elements of different therapeutic approaches together).

My approach is closest to integrative therapy, but is applied very differently using additional personality profiling and sensory modality assessment to identify very specifically how the individual clients’ connectome is wired and to build a bespoke toolkit of physiological and psychological techniques, which suit their individual needs.

Stress coaches and life coaches focus on goal attainment in multiple aspects; they look at psychological and physical wellbeing and personal aspirations; and help their client to become that person in incremental and achievable steps.

They use metaphor work to help the client to understand their experience and give them the language to be able to express their feelings. They identify self-defeating belief systems. They often use visualisation to work towards goal attainment.

They also use affirmation to build self-confidence and self-worth. In addition, stress coaches look for stress triggers that may not always be immediately obvious.

I do all of this too. However, although these coaches tailor their programmes to the clients thought patterns, they do not tailor it to their individual brains.

I actually dig much further back into the neuroscientific roots of these thought patterns by using targeted assessments and profiling, This is because it is essential to establish the origins of these thought patterns in evolutionary terms. We essentially have caveman brains, whether we like it or not, trying to cope with the sophisticated and complex demands of the modern world.

Furthermore, I use techniques to harness neural plasticity (which is the brain’s natural ability to relearn and acquire new knowledge and new skills), to not only reframe thought patterns, but to consolidate that new learning faster than perhaps would normally be achieved in a coaching session.

As a result, I generally only need three individual sessions to enable the client to actualise their desired thought patterns, thus reducing stress and mental duress.

Meditation, breathing, yoga and wellbeing apps are all ways of managing the stress response by bringing about calmness, clarity, relaxation and providing essential “time out”.

However, whilst these are all valuable interventions, they ultimately address only the symptoms of stress and not the underlying cause. This is because, from the brain’s point of view (if you explore the underlying neurophysiology), our stress response is actually determined principally by cognitive load.

I do include techniques of breathing, meditation and movement, but these are applied in a targeted and intentional way that is designed to interact with the specific requirements of my clients’ unique connectome, in order to effectively reduce cognitive load and any associated stress responses.

Going to these workshops is a great start, in terms of generating awareness of issues and possible techniques to address them. But, by necessity, these sessions are bound to have a generalist approach, and are unlikely to provide all the answers for your unique brain and the very individual way in which it is wired (i.e., your connectome).

If you want to truly connect with your connectome, and really optimise the way that your brain and nervous system works, it is worth having individual Connectome Connection sessions and building your own personal toolkit of techniques, which work best with your individual wiring.