Self-Soothing in Emotion-Focused Therapy: Building

the Capacity for Emotion Regulation

Dr. Serine Warwar, Ph.D., Psychologist

Self-Soothing in Emotion-Focused Therapy: Building

the Capacity for Emotion Regulation

Dr. Serine Warwar, Ph.D., Psychologist

Self-Soothing in Emotion-Focused Therapy: Building

the Capacity for Emotion Regulation

Dr. Serine Warwar, Ph.D., Psychologist

The ability to regulate painful emotion is essential for psychological well-being and productive emotional processing. In Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), the goal of emotion regulation is not simply to reduce or control emotion. Therapists need to continually assess when emotion needs to be regulated and when it needs to be accessed and deepened so that it can be understood and transformed. Emotion can be problematic when it is either under-regulated or over-regulated, and regulation can occur deliberately, automatically, and within the therapeutic relationship. 

This workshop explores two complementary forms of emotion regulation. Deliberate regulation involves helping clients intentionally manage overwhelming emotional arousal through concrete strategies such as identifying triggers, establishing a working distance, breathing and relaxation, safe-place work, and coping self-soothing. These strategies can be particularly important when emotional arousal exceeds a client's capacity to process emotion productively. 

The primary focus of the workshop will be on self-soothing as a deeper, transformative process for developing automatic emotion regulation. In EFT, self-soothing involves helping clients respond to emotional pain and anguish with compassion, tenderness, caring, and comfort directed toward the self. Rather than simply decreasing distress, transformative self-soothing works with underlying anguish and primary maladaptive emotions such as fear, sadness, and shame. This process illustrates the EFT principle of changing emotion with emotion, as caring and compassion are brought into contact with painful emotional experience. 

Therapists will learn to recognize when clients need deliberate regulation and when emotional suffering provides a marker for transformative self-soothing. Particular attention will be given to identifying the self-soothing marker where there is a familiar feeling unresolved pain or anguish..

Participants will learn how to facilitate the EFT two-chair self-soothing task, in which clients access a caring, compassionate part of themselves and respond to the vulnerable self and its unmet emotional needs. Different pathways for evoking compassion will be explored, including working with the compassionate adult self, an imagined caring other, and compassion toward another person when compassion toward the self is initially difficult to access. 

Using teaching and detailed review of clinical video demonstrations, the therapeutic process will be slowed down to examine the moment-to-moment decisions and interventions involved in facilitating self-soothing. Particular attention will be given to common challenges, including clients who cannot access compassion toward themselves, protest having to provide for themselves what they did not receive from others, difficulty differentiating vulnerable and caring parts of the self, and protective processes that interfere with self-compassion. Participants will learn how to work through these difficulties and facilitate movement from emotional suffering toward compassion, grieving, greater security, and resilience. 

For therapists who are newer to EFT 

With the purchase of this workshop, participants will automatically receive 2-month access to a 3-hour recorded workshop with Dr. Leslie Greenberg introducing Emotion Focused Therapy. We recommend watching this recorded workshop before attending as it reviews foundational knowledge and skills to work with emotion in psychotherapy.

Learning Objectives

In this workshop, participants will learn how to: 

• Understand emotion regulation from an EFT perspective and differentiate deliberate regulation from automatic emotion regulation. 
• Assess when clients need emotion to be regulated and when emotion can be accessed and deepened for therapeutic processing and transformation. 
• Use deliberate regulation strategies to help clients manage emotional arousal when it interferes with productive emotional processing. 
• Recognize markers for transformative self-soothing, including pain, anguish and despair. 
• Facilitate the EFT two-chair self-soothing intervention and help clients access compassion, tenderness, caring, and comfort toward the vulnerable self. 
• Use different pathways for evoking compassion when clients have difficulty accessing a caring response toward themselves. 
• Work with common challenges and impasses that arise during self-soothing. 
• Help clients move from emotional suffering toward self-compassion, grieving, greater security, and resilience. 

Details

Date: TBD

Time: TBD

Format: Live Online Training

Continuing Education Credits (CECs)

Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA)

• Pending Approval

Ontario Association of Mental Health Professionals (OAMHP)

• Pending Approval

Canadian Psychological Association (CPA)

• Pending Approval

Ontario Psychological Association (OPA)

• Pending Approval

Please note that live attendance is required in order to receive CE credits

The ability to regulate painful emotion is essential for psychological well-being and productive emotional processing. In Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), the goal of emotion regulation is not simply to reduce or control emotion. Therapists need to continually assess when emotion needs to be regulated and when it needs to be accessed and deepened so that it can be understood and transformed. Emotion can be problematic when it is either under-regulated or over-regulated, and regulation can occur deliberately, automatically, and within the therapeutic relationship. 

This workshop explores two complementary forms of emotion regulation. Deliberate regulation involves helping clients intentionally manage overwhelming emotional arousal through concrete strategies such as identifying triggers, establishing a working distance, breathing and relaxation, safe-place work, and coping self-soothing. These strategies can be particularly important when emotional arousal exceeds a client's capacity to process emotion productively. 

The primary focus of the workshop will be on self-soothing as a deeper, transformative process for developing automatic emotion regulation. In EFT, self-soothing involves helping clients respond to emotional pain and anguish with compassion, tenderness, caring, and comfort directed toward the self. Rather than simply decreasing distress, transformative self-soothing works with underlying anguish and primary maladaptive emotions such as fear, sadness, and shame. This process illustrates the EFT principle of changing emotion with emotion, as caring and compassion are brought into contact with painful emotional experience. 

Therapists will learn to recognize when clients need deliberate regulation and when emotional suffering provides a marker for transformative self-soothing. Particular attention will be given to identifying the self-soothing marker where there is a familiar feeling unresolved pain or anguish..

Participants will learn how to facilitate the EFT two-chair self-soothing task, in which clients access a caring, compassionate part of themselves and respond to the vulnerable self and its unmet emotional needs. Different pathways for evoking compassion will be explored, including working with the compassionate adult self, an imagined caring other, and compassion toward another person when compassion toward the self is initially difficult to access. 

Using teaching and detailed review of clinical video demonstrations, the therapeutic process will be slowed down to examine the moment-to-moment decisions and interventions involved in facilitating self-soothing. Particular attention will be given to common challenges, including clients who cannot access compassion toward themselves, protest having to provide for themselves what they did not receive from others, difficulty differentiating vulnerable and caring parts of the self, and protective processes that interfere with self-compassion. Participants will learn how to work through these difficulties and facilitate movement from emotional suffering toward compassion, grieving, greater security, and resilience. 

For therapists who are newer to EFT 

With the purchase of this workshop, participants will automatically receive 2-month access to a 3-hour recorded workshop with Dr. Leslie Greenberg introducing Emotion Focused Therapy. We recommend watching this recorded workshop before attending as it reviews foundational knowledge and skills to work with emotion in psychotherapy.

Learning Objectives

In this workshop, participants will learn how to: 

• Understand emotion regulation from an EFT perspective and differentiate deliberate regulation from automatic emotion regulation. 
• Assess when clients need emotion to be regulated and when emotion can be accessed and deepened for therapeutic processing and transformation. 
• Use deliberate regulation strategies to help clients manage emotional arousal when it interferes with productive emotional processing. 
• Recognize markers for transformative self-soothing, including pain, anguish and despair. 
• Facilitate the EFT two-chair self-soothing intervention and help clients access compassion, tenderness, caring, and comfort toward the vulnerable self. 
• Use different pathways for evoking compassion when clients have difficulty accessing a caring response toward themselves. 
• Work with common challenges and impasses that arise during self-soothing. 
• Help clients move from emotional suffering toward self-compassion, grieving, greater security, and resilience. 

Details

Date: TBD

Time: TBD

Format: Live Online Training

Continuing Education Credits (CECs)

Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA)

• Pending Approval

Ontario Association of Mental Health Professionals (OAMHP)

• Pending Approval

Canadian Psychological Association (CPA)

• Pending Approval

Ontario Psychological Association (OPA)

• Pending Approval

Please note that live attendance is required in order to receive CE credits