ABSTRACT
The most common presenting problems psychotherapists encounter in their practice all involve emotional distress: depression, anxiety, trauma, grief, relationship problems. Helping clients to develop strategies to regulate their emotions and manage their distress has a rapid beneficial effect and contributes significantly towards the client's process of change. From a TA point of view, emotional distress deactivates the Adult ego state and the Child ego state has dominance. Therefore therapists need to soothe the Child ego state before engaging the Adult ego state. Fortunately there are many simple-to-use emotion regulation techniques which can be part of their therapeutic repertoire. Many emotion regulation techniques are based on activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, or ‘rest and digest’ systems which in turn lowers activation of the sympathetic nervous system, or ‘fight and flight’ system. Two such techniques are what the author refer to as ‘soothing rhythm breathing’ and ‘self-soothing touch’.
