If you’ve ever wondered when the STOP skill might come in handy, here’s an example. The other day little Miss 5 was in the pool with her cousins Master 5 and Little Miss 4.  Little Miss 5 was standing on the side of the pool leaning over and looking in to see where the creepy crawly was because she’s scared of it and wanted to avoid it. Little Mr 5 comes up behind her with mischief written all over his face.  He got up close, took a stable stance and the arms came up in perfect pushing position. Before my sister or I could act we saw him Stop.  He just froze. He took a deep breath.  You could see ..

So I decided to make a beautiful roast chicken dinner for my fussy Miss 5 recently.  It had all the works, roast potatoes, pumpkin and sweet potato that had been floured so they were crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, corn on the cob, gravy, the chicken had been marinated in an apricot marinade.  There was also broccoli and carrot. Anyway so Miss 5 takes one lick of the chicken and says “That’s horrible Mummy’ and refuses to try anything else.  So I decided that this was the moment to talk about the difference between evaluative Vs discriminatory judgments. I explained that when you say that something is ‘horrible’ you are evaluating it as completely and objectively ...

I have been thinking of the DBT skill of Urge Surfing this week as I am planning the most effective way to teach it in skills group. Urge Surfing refers to experiencing an urge to do something (drink, eat, engage in target behaviours, say something mean…) and not acting on the urge. For many people, experiencing an urge without acting on it is something that seems so intense that they will ‘not be able to stand it. ‘ And because they think that they can’t stand it, they are more likely to give in. When we practice urge surfing as a skill, we notice and are curious about the urge. When did it start? What prompted it? Where are we ...

Happy holiday season. I have been to a few social events lately with some lovely food, including an old favourite of mine – pistachios. But this year, I have developed anaphylaxis to Pistachios. I used to really enjoy eating the Pistachios. As well as the sadness of not being able to eat pistachios, I could also be saying: ‘why me?, “its not fair’, ‘but I love pistachios’ ‘this can’t be happening’ this shouldn’t be happening maybe the Doctors were wrong or mixed up the tests. Why couldn’t it happen to Jane. She doesn’t even like pistachios.. Mike looks like he is really enjoying those nuts. Lucky him, I wish I could. This would generate some strong emotions including anger, envy, ...

I am very passionate about Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and thoroughly enjoy working with clients and seeing changes occur in their mood, relationships and lives. One of my other interests is Sensory Modulation. This is a term used to describe using sensory input to change how we feel. There are some distress tolerance techniques within DBT that use the senses to change the physiology of intense emotions. (although they aren’t called sensory modulation skills).  Sensory Modulation techniques are broader than distress tolerance and based on some different theories. These include the theory of sensory processing differences, an understanding of the 8 senses and considering the person and their environment. Sometimes it is difficult to use a cognitive (thinking technique) until the ...