De-Escalate Co-Regulate Ground

Therapists are working with more severely anxious, panicked, grief-stricken and traumatized clients who are actively in crisis with far fewer resources than they were accustomed to due to the ubiquity of remote therapy sessions.  This often makes it more difficult to notice signs of early dysregulation, panic or disassociation so that our interventions often start later and then, unfortunately, make some of our tried and true interventions less effective. This creates a difficult decision for therapists— to either to try and avoid working directly on the most sensitive needs of our clients to protect their psychological and physical safety, which become harder to avoid the longer the pandemic goes on, or to know that this dysregulation is inevitable in times of chronic stress and to widen our toolbox so that we have multiple avenues of intervention that we feel able and confident to draw upon when dysregulation occurs. This workshop discuss how to identify signs of dysregulation (e.g. anxiety, panic attacks, traumatic flashbacks, disassociation) in both its earlier and more advanced stages; how therapists can regulate themselves using knowledge of Porges’ Polyvagal Theory in preparation to co-regulate their clients; will experientially present more than 30 simple embodied, sensory, and creative arts therapeutic interventions to avoid dysregulation, co-regulate and deescalate a dysregulated in-person and remote adult client that therapists can incorporate into their work immediately; will help therapist to develop actionable crisis plans for remote clients.