AEDP Therapy
Emotional work you don’t have to do alone
When Feeling It Is the Point
Many people come to therapy able to describe their feelings in detail — and find that describing them hasn’t changed much. You can explain exactly why you’re anxious, or where the sadness comes from, and none of that explanation reaches the place where the feeling lives. AEDP starts from the observation that insight alone rarely changes much. What changes things is having the emotion, fully, in the presence of someone who stays with you while you do.
AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) is an emotion-focused, attachment-based therapy developed by Diana Fosha. Its central idea is that most of what hurts us most was suffered alone — and that emotions we couldn’t bear by ourselves become bearable, and then transformable, when we’re no longer alone with them.
Vista Counselling provides AEDP in Langley, BC, with Dr. Kevin Klassen — in person at our Langley office or online across BC.
Undoing aloneness is the treatment.
How AEDP Works
AEDP is experiential: the work happens in the room, in the present, rather than in the retelling of the past. Instead of only talking about a painful experience, we slow down and notice what’s happening right now as you approach it — in your body, in your breath, in the impulse to change the subject. You aren’t left to do that alone: Kevin stays actively present through all of it — engaged, warm, and explicit about being on your side. That relationship isn’t the backdrop to the therapy; in AEDP, it’s the mechanism.
Two things tend to happen. First, defences that formed to keep feeling at bay — intellectualizing, minimizing, going blank — soften, because they’re no longer needed in the way they once were. Second, underneath them, core emotions like grief, anger, or fear get to run their course. Emotions that are fully felt tend to complete and resolve; emotions that are blocked keep circling. On the far side of that process, people often find something AEDP pays particular attention to: relief, calm, a sense of being more fully themselves. AEDP treats that as part of the work too, not an afterthought.
The approach draws on attachment research and on what’s known about how emotion is processed in the nervous system, and it fits the way we work generally — matching the pace to the person, and paying attention to what your body is telling us as much as your words.
What AEDP Can Help With
AEDP is most often used for:
AEDP’s research base is smaller than EMDR’s or CBT’s. A 2020 practice-based study across 62 clients in private-practice settings — including Canada — found large improvements in depression, emotion regulation, self-compassion, and interpersonal functioning after 16 sessions, and a follow-up study found those gains held at 6 and 12 months. These are outcome studies without a control group, so they show that people improve, not yet that AEDP outperforms alternatives. We use it because, in our experience, it reaches what talking-about doesn’t.
AEDP and Trauma Work
At Vista, AEDP is one of three approaches we use most for trauma, alongside EMDR and IFS. They fit together. IFS helps the protective parts of you trust the process; EMDR reprocesses specific memories; AEDP works with the emotion that comes up along the way, and with the relational wound that complex trauma so often leaves behind — the learned expectation that no one will be there.
Being emotionally accompanied through hard feelings, session after session, is itself a corrective experience.
Who Provides AEDP at Vista
Dr. Kevin Klassen, PsyD
Kevin completed AEDP Level 1 training through the AEDP Institute and has continued training in the model with Richard Harrison, PhD, Registered Psychologist and AEDP Institute faculty member in Vancouver. He has worked with AEDP since 2022, integrated with EMDR and IFS. RCC #3496, RMFT #2017033.
AEDP is one of several approaches Kevin works with — a choice we make together when it fits.
What to Expect in an AEDP Session
Sessions are 50 minutes, with a 75-minute option when the work benefits from more room. Some people feel a shift within a few sessions; deeper relational work takes longer.
AEDP is available in-person at our Langley office or online via secure video for clients across BC.
Is AEDP Right for You?
AEDP tends to be a good fit if you:
- Understand your patterns well but don’t feel any different for it
- Notice you go numb, change the subject, or get analytical when feelings come close
- Have a history of being alone with hard things
- Want a therapist who is actively engaged rather than neutral
- Are willing to feel things in the room, with support
It may be less of a fit right now if emotions feel dangerous or uncontainable — in that case, we’d build stability first, and AEDP can come later.
We’ll assess together which approach, or combination, makes sense for you.
FAQs
How is AEDP different from EFT?
They share roots — both are experiential and attachment-based — but Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is primarily a couples model, while AEDP was developed for individual work. Kevin uses EFT with couples and AEDP with individuals; see our couples counselling page.
Will I have to cry?
No one has to do anything. Some sessions involve strong emotion; many don’t. What AEDP asks is a willingness to notice what’s there rather than step around it, and you set the pace.
Is AEDP evidence-based?
The evidence is promising and still developing: outcome studies show substantial improvement across a range of concerns, with gains maintained at a year, but controlled trials comparing AEDP to other treatments haven’t yet been done. That’s where the research stands, and we use it alongside approaches with a longer research record.
Can AEDP be done online?
Yes. The work depends on presence and attention, both of which carry well over secure video.
What does a session cost?
Sessions are 50 minutes. The fee is $200 per session. Full details, including our cancellation policy, are on our FAQ page.
Curious whether AEDP might fit? You don’t need a diagnosis or a referral to start.
Book a session through our secure online booking, or contact the office if you’d like to ask a question first.