Time Line Therapy

What this is

Time Line Therapy is a structured technique for working with old feelings that are still doing work in the present. Most of us carry a small number of moments that set something in place — a decision about what we are worth, what people are like, what is safe to want. We rarely remember making the decision. We just live inside it.

The technique works with the way you organize time internally: what feels behind you, what feels ahead, and what is somehow still happening. It is a complementary approach rather than a clinical treatment, and I do not claim more for it than that.

The aim is not to erase a memory or to decide it did not matter. The event stays. What we work on is the charge still attached to it, and the conclusion you drew at the time and have been carrying since.

What it can help with

• Anger you end up apologizing for, arriving before you have decided anything
• Guilt about something that ended years ago and still runs through your head at night
• A sentence you have believed about yourself for a long time — not good enough, too late for me, I always ruin it
• Trauma, and living with PTSD — specifically the part of it that has not moved with the calendar, where something years old still sits in the present tense
• Grief or sadness that has stayed at the same intensity while everything around it has moved on
• Anxiety attached to a particular kind of moment: being criticized, being left, being asked to speak
• Repeating the same ending in relationships or jobs and not being able to see where it starts
• Setting a goal and quietly knowing you will not go after it

I work with trauma and with people living with PTSD. I do not diagnose PTSD and I do not present this technique as something that cures it. This is deliberately not an approach that asks you to go back into an event and feel it again — we keep a distance, you set how much, and we stop the moment you want to.

What a session is like

We start by talking. I want to understand what you are carrying and what you would like to be different, in your words, not in technical ones. That conversation is often most of the first session, and there is no rush to get past it.

When we do use the technique, I will explain what we are about to do before we do it, and you can decline any part of it. It usually involves sitting comfortably, often with your eyes closed, while I ask you questions and you follow your own thoughts. You are awake the whole time. You can open your eyes, speak, or stop.

Here is something people are relieved to hear: you do not have to narrate the event to me. You can work with something without telling me what it was. I need to know how it affects you now, not the details you would rather not say out loud. Some people choose to tell me everything. Some tell me almost nothing. Both work.

If you get near something and your body says not today, we stop there. That is information, not failure, and it does not mean we start again from zero next time.

Practical details

• Session length: Ask when you message — I’ll tell you before you book
• Fee: Ask when you message — I’ll tell you before you book
• How many sessions: It depends on what you come with. We review as we go, and you decide whether to continue
• Languages: Ask when you message — I’ll tell you before you book
• Where: In person at Center St. Elie in Antelias, or online
• Cancellations: Ask when you message — I’ll tell you before you book
• To book: Message me on WhatsApp or call 03-267-243

Common questions

Will I have to relive something painful?

That is the fear almost everyone brings, and it is a fair one. The work is not about going back in and feeling it all again as intensely as you did then. We approach it with some distance, deliberately, and you control how close we get. If it becomes too much, we stop — not later, immediately.

Do I have to tell you what happened?

No. You can keep the content private and still do the work.

Will I forget the memory?

No, and I would not want that for you. Your memory stays where it is. What can change is how much of your present it takes up, and what you concluded about yourself from it.

Is this a treatment for PTSD, depression, or anxiety?

No, and I am careful about this. It is a complementary technique, not a substitute for medical or psychiatric care, and it is not right for everything or everyone. I work with people living with PTSD, but I do not diagnose it and I do not claim to cure it. If what you are living with needs a different kind of support, I will tell you plainly rather than keep you in the chair. If you are already under someone’s care, keep that care.

If you are in immediate danger or thinking of harming yourself, please do not wait for an appointment. Call the Embrace Lifeline on 1564 (free and confidential) or the Lebanese Red Cross on 140. This page is not an emergency service.