Our Team’s Favorite Mental Health Strategies
If you’re here, you might understand mental health is a key factor in overall health and wellness. Whether dealing with everyday stress, overwhelm, or recovering from trauma, we all benefit from noticing what helps our system regulate.
Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash
Regulation is an ongoing process to better understand what helps, and what hurts, our systems. Our team of therapists have spent valuable time on their own healing, education, and training. In this blog, they offer their insights and favorite resources for regulation and mental health.
Keep reading to explore our team’s favorite strategies to help with anxiety, stress management, self-care, and mindfulness.
Patricia Parra Moreno - Container Exercise
“My favorite strategies are visualizations and I can think of one containment strategy in particular- the ‘container’ used in EMDR therapy.”
What is the container exercise? In EMDR therapy, many therapists lead clients through a visualization exercise that uses any type of container, vessel, box, etc., that feels like the right place to store thoughts, memories, and other material. The key to the container exercise is that you can access it with some frequency, i.e., as a therapy session is ending, during a time of more intense distress, or when there is a change in state. One can then return to the material, or “open” the container when your system is in a more grounded state.
“I use it mostly when I switch roles from therapist to mom, for example. The ‘container’ is a place where I can leave my thoughts and feelings associated with one role and sort of ‘start fresh’ as I engage in my other role.”
Morgan Levine - Anchoring
Photo by Robert Woeger on Unsplash
“For me, my favorite mental health strategy is anchoring — and I use it daily for myself and my clients. Anchoring can be a thing, a person, a place, or rituals that return me to the present moment.
Some might be familiar with the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. Similar to that, I use my senses to orient myself to the room using sight, smell, taste, touch, and/or sound.
An anchoring ritual could be lighting a candle, playing a song, or taking a bath at the end of every day. An anchoring person could be someone I think about or someone I reach out to for support.
Similarly, an anchoring place could be a place I go to physically, like my favorite park or the beach, or maybe it’s a place I just think about.”
Katy Levine - Body Scan
“My most used strategy is a simple check-in with the body by way of scanning from my toes to my head. This provides me with more information than what just my thinking parts can offer. By taking time to slow down and notice what is showing up in my body (tension, ease, fidgeting, heat, etc.) I gather a richer picture of where I’m really at. It’s easy for my thoughts to do all the work, but stopping to take a scan allows me to remember I have a whole body that also needs to be attended to. I turn to this for myself and my clients on a regular basis.”
*Note - Katy and Morgan share no relation.
Our team is here to provide tools, strategies, and a supportive environment to help our clients better understand themselves and what helps their systems. If you are interested in working with us, click here to schedule a free consultation. To learn more about each clinician, check out their bios here.
More Reading:
How We Regulate: Using Polyvagal Theory and Somatic Experiencing
Healing Attachment Wounds: How Parts Work and EMDR Can Help
The 7 Kinds of Trauma: Understanding Different Forms of Psychological Impact
Authorship: This blog was written by Katy Levine, LMSW in collaboration with the IFS EMDR Therapy Group team. Katy (licensed in Washington, D.C., MD, VA, & PA) focuses on supporting clients with complex trauma history, attachment wounding, anxiety, and perfectionism, using IFS-informed EMDR.
Disclaimer: The information in this blog is provided for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for mental health care nor a recommendation or endorsement for any particular treatment plan, organization, provider, professional service, or product. The information may change without notice. No claims, promises, or guarantees are made about the completeness, accuracy, currency, content or quality of information linked. You assume all responsibility and risk for any use of the information.
IFS EMDR Therapy Group is an outpatient therapy group founded by Morgan Levine. We specialize in helping adults struggling with the effects of living in dysfunctional systems move toward healing and wholeness. We provide therapy to address symptoms such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, grief, obsessive and compulsive thoughts and behaviors including but not limited to using work, perfectionism, substances, relationships, food, etc. We offer ongoing support as well as EMDR intensives; both of which are informed by IFS, EMDR, DBT, CBT, Polyvagal Theory, trauma-informed yoga, attachment, and other recovery principles. Our therapists work virtually with clients living throughout Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Florida. Morgan Levine also provides trauma-informed consultation to therapists worldwide.
