What Is Constructed Awareness®?
Creating Change Through Deeper Awareness
Constructed Awareness® (CA) is a nonviolent, resource-based approach to psychotherapy developed by Tyler Orr, PhD, LPC. Informed by his work with EMDR, body-centered therapy, attachment theory, and mindfulness, CA explores how awareness of our present-moment experience can support understanding, regulation, and meaningful change.
Rather than focusing solely on changing what we think or feel, Constructed Awareness® invites us to become curious about how we are experiencing ourselves and the world around us.
At the heart of the model are three principles that guide this exploration.
The Three Principles of Constructed Awareness®
Constructed Awareness® is guided by three principles that help us explore how we experience ourselves and the world around us. Together, they offer a way of understanding our thoughts, emotions, and responses through mindful awareness rather than force or willpower.
First Principle - Bringing Awareness to Your Experience Changes Your Experience
We're often taught that meaningful change requires effort, self-control, or the determination to make ourselves think, feel, or behave differently. Yet our inner experiences don't always respond to willpower.
For example, trying to force yourself to relax or fall asleep can sometimes make those experiences even more difficult.
Constructed Awareness® begins with a different possibility: bringing awareness to what you're experiencing can itself bring about change.
Rather than trying to immediately alter an uncomfortable thought, emotion, or sensation, we begin by observing what is already happening. This gentle, nonviolent approach allows change to emerge through awareness, without requiring us to force a particular outcome.
Second Principle - Human Experience Is Constructed Through Three Building Blocks.
Everything we consciously experience can be explored through three interconnected building blocks:
Thoughts: The words, images, memories, interpretations, and other mental activity occurring in our minds.
Sensations: The physical experiences we notice within our bodies, such as warmth, tension, pressure, or movement.
External senses: What we experience through sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell in the world around us.
These building blocks come together to shape our experiences, including what we recognize as emotions.
For example, an experience we call anxiety might involve thoughts about what could happen, tightness in the chest, and heightened awareness of sounds or activity around us.
The word anxiety describes the experience as a whole, but becoming aware of its individual components allows us to explore what is actually happening.
In Constructed Awareness®, we bring mindful attention to these building blocks to deepen understanding of how our experiences are constructed and how we respond to them.
Third Principle - Most People Naturally Orient Their Awareness More Strongly to One of the Three Building Blocks
Although we all experience thoughts, sensations, and external senses, we don't necessarily attend to them in the same way. Some people naturally spend more time in their minds, analyzing situations, planning, imagining, or reflecting. Others are more attentive to bodily sensations, while some are especially aware of what is happening in their surrounding environment.
Constructed Awareness® refers to these patterns as orientations.
Our orientations influence how we navigate everyday experiences, regulate ourselves, connect with others, and respond to challenges. By exploring how your awareness is naturally oriented, we can begin to recognize familiar patterns and understand which resources may be particularly supportive for you.
The intention is not to determine which orientation is best, but to deepen awareness of how you experience yourself and develop greater flexibility in the ways you engage with your inner and outer world.
How Constructed Awareness® Informs My Counseling Practice
I developed Constructed Awareness® through my clinical work and exploration of how people experience and respond to thoughts, bodily sensations, and their environment.
In counseling, I use CA to support a collaborative exploration of present-moment experience. This process may involve noticing thoughts, sensations, or responses that arise during a session, becoming curious about how they relate to one another, and exploring what becomes possible as awareness deepens.
CA can be integrated with other therapeutic approaches, including EMDR, and is adapted to each client's individual needs and experiences.
The intention is to support greater understanding and flexibility while respecting each person's autonomy and natural process of change.
Constructed Awareness Institute
Professional Education, Research & Training
In addition to my counseling practice, I am the Creator and Founder of Constructed Awareness Institute LLC.
The Institute provides professional education, clinical training, consultation, and certification opportunities for mental health clinicians interested in learning and integrating Constructed Awareness® into their work.
The Institute is also dedicated to research and the continued development of the CA model.
Mental health professionals interested in exploring CA training, research, publications, or certification are invited to visit the Institute's dedicated website.
What are people saying about Constructed Awareness?
“CA has been transformative to my practice. The idea that I can support my clients in becoming the best version of themselves in a non-violent way is life changing. CA is the blueprint for deep insight and emotional freedom from layers of trauma and attachment damage.”
Leah Sampson, MSW, LCSW, Director of Clinical Services, Three Oaks Behavioral Health and Wellness, Durham, NC
“The CA process helped to increase my awareness of how I view the world which also helped me to increase the way I regulate and process events both in the here and now and in the past. I'm so grateful for this experience!”
Monica Snyder, LMFT, Clinical Director, Wellspring Counseling, Miami, Florida
“This training really gave me a blueprint for how to be more present with my clients. I thoroughly enjoyed Tyler's teaching/coaching style and gained a deeper awareness of myself. I am confident that this training will vasty improve the therapeutic relationships that I build with my clients. The information is practical and I am impressed with how well this model works.”
Kourtney Young, LPC, EACC Counselor & Intake Coordinator, University of Alabama at Birmingham