Seven contributors describe practices that would qualify as withdrawing from excess sensory distraction as important to their overall grounding plan. Getting enough sleep, setting boundaries, and taking a nap all fall into this category.

As I learned when I trained in trauma-informed yoga from Mark Lilly (the founder of Street Yoga), so many movement and breath practices within yoga can be both a trigger and a resource.

An Infinite Mind and The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) are continuously running trainings and making resources available. In 2021 my own company, The Institute for Creative Mindfulness, launched a special certificate program in dissociative studies for EMDR Therapists, and we hope at some point to expand

Clinical social worker Deb Dana7 breaks down the three main components of polyvagal theory: autonomic hierarchy, neuroception, and co-regulation.

As Curt shared, reflecting on his forty-year career, “Most of the stuff I’ve learned how to do I’ve learned from my patients. I always tell my colleagues, ‘Find a dissociative client and listen to them. That will make you a good therapist.’” Contributor Wayne William Snellgrove, a member of the Fishing Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada and

In her recovery process, she’s learned the importance of experiencing a sense of safety in her own body while also staying attuned to practicalities like knowing where the exits are. She can also find a simple self-questioning strategy helpful when she is feeling especially unsafe: “Is this a past fear or a present situation?” When it’s a present

Using verbiage from the late Dr. Francine Shapiro, the creator of EMDR Therapy, these experiences can be adaptive (i.e., serving or helping us) or maladaptive (i.e., keeping us further stuck). She used these terms in describing responses to traumatic experiences (as opposed to terms like healthy or unhealthy) because she saw them as less of a value

The general definition that I teach for grounding in my clinical courses is a combination of spiritual director Martha Postlewaite’s work on grounding2 with some of my own flair added in. Grounding is using any and all available senses and experiences to remain in the present moment, or to return to the present moment.

Emphasizing hard science alone can keep us dissociated from the other aspects of ourselves—namely the emotional and the spiritual (or whatever you may want to call that realm that surpasses rational understanding). Not to mention that keeping the focus solely on neuroscience cuts us off from millennia of Indigenous wisdom. According to Julian