Emotional regulation is about focus, how we use our body, and our willingness and ability to wait.
Any and all emotional regulation tips or techniques come town to some combination of these three.
Even emotional regulation techniques that draw upon neurofeedback or come packaged with cool sounding names and/or alphabet soup abbreviations, boil down to SOME combination of our mental focus, how we use our body, and how we manage our time.
I’ve noticed something interesting about myself as a therapist (well, I think it’s interesting, anyway): I’m reluctant to frame what i do in terms of coaching “emotional regulation.”
Yes, emotional DYSREGULATION is one of the most common and most debilitating symptoms of complex trauma; and it may even the the top problem survivors seek out psychotherapy for trauma.
It’s definitely the case that I teach, coach, support, whatever word you wanna use, people in developing emotional regulation skills— but I’ve noticed that I don’t like SAYING that’s what I do.
I’m not quite sure why. I think it’s because I don’t want patients to get it in their head that emotional regulation is “the thing” in trauma recovery. It’s certainly part of trauma recovery, and a problem EVERY survivor in recovery has to confront— but I don’t want people coming to me thinking that I’m an expert in emotional regulation. (I’m assuredly not.)
Maybe I worry that an overemphasis on emotional regulation will lead to an under-emphasis on trauma processing, which is what needs to happen in order for the emotional dysregulation of complex trauma to dissipate.
(This is one of my issues with Dialectical Behavior Therapy— as useful as it can be for many survivors in staying alive and reducing self-harm, I haven’t seen DBT be particularly helpful in actually RESOLVING trauma memories or symptoms.)
But it’s also the case that we’re not READY for trauma processing UNTIL we’ve built up some emotional regulation skills and tools— which leads us right back to where we started.
How do we regulate our emotions when they’re all over the place, flooding us one moment, completely locked away behind dissociative barriers the next?
In my view, we can’t rely on anything EXTERNAL to manage our emotions for us. For as helpful as certain tools outside of us can be— up to and including medication— we’re only going to develop true CONFIDENCE in our ability to manage our emotions when we can do so using skills we can whip out in ANY situation, regardless of our resources or supports in the moment.
What does that leave us with?
It leaves us with mental focus— notably self-talk and visualization.
We know language impacts the nervous system. Just ask any survivor of verbal abuse.
If words can hurt us, words can heal us— and specific words, chosen with care and put in the right order (much like a combination lock), can and do have a soothing impact on our overheated, jacked up nervous system.
We know images impact the nervous system. It’s why even WITNESSING trauma can be damaging.
If images can damage us, they can also heal us— and specific images, chosen with care and utilized in the right order (all you film editors out there know EXACTLY what I’m talking about), can and do have a soothing impact on our overheated, jacked up nervous system.
How we use our body involves everything from our breathing— including “box breathing” and the technique so many of my patients will recognize, “smoking the oxygen joint”— to how we use our eyes (blink blink blink), to specific gestures we’ve attached specific meaning to (again, many of my patients will recognize post hypnotic cues we’ve attached to certain gestures).
When we combine our mental focus with targeted use of our physical body, we’re then confronted with the variable of time. The research tells us that for ANY emotional regulation skill to be effective, we have to give it 90 to 180 seconds at minimum.
That’s right. We have to wait.
(Even if we don’t engage a particular emotional regulatory routine at all, some research suggests just sitting with an emotion non-judgmentally for at least 90 seconds very often leads to that emotion beginning to dissipate.)
You may have realized, reading this, that within these general guidelines, there are HUNDREDS of variations. The reason why I don’t give super specific advice on the internet is because EVERYBODY reading this is a combination lock with a SPECIFIC cheat code. What works for any one survivor is going to be just that: what works for THEM.
Yeah. In our trauma recovery, we are ultimately on our own.
But certain broad rules do apply.
When you’re working on emotional regulation, remember: mental focus, use of body, use of time.
Everything starts there.
Use Your Damn Skills 