The five senses help make the world an interesting and intriguing place for children to explore, except for those who easily experience sensory overload. Children with sensory processing needs do not experience their surroundings at the same level as their peers or even parents. Just as children with ADHD struggle to filter out distractions around them, a child with sensory processing needs finds it difficult to organize and appropriately quantify the amount of sensory input he receives. With some children, they seek out sensory input just to feel balanced, today we will look at the children who become overwhelmed by the touch related input they receive just by living in their environments. Winter months can help exasperate sensory problems; let’s look at a few trouble spots in winter and brainstorm suggestions. Touch Sensory Input via a 1-10 Spectrum As a fellow touch-sensory overload sufferer, winter is my least favorite season. If sensory input needs are on a 1-10 scale with 1 meaning I do not want anything to touch me and 10 meaning I need to be wrapped up like a mummy, my body tends to hover around the extreme numbers. If it is a “2 or 3” day, I may spend 15 minutes trying on different sweaters because the first few suffocated my arms too much. If I am at work and am experiencing a “3-4” day, I may take off my rings and bracelet and feel miserable in my boots. “2” days for me are NOT jean days. My dog loves “8 or 9” days because this is when I invite him to come lay across my chest. I give these examples because I am a grown, accomplished professional adult and I have emotional regulation. I know what my body is experiencing and I understand how to accommodate it. I do not have another adult telling me I have to wear the tight jeans and if I did, I would not cry and scream, but instead would twist and squat and contort my legs into all sorts of pretzel like shapes until the jeans felt just right. You would never know I struggle with these issues unless you witnessed me wearing flip-flops inappropriately out of season…even then you would probably assume it was my fashion sense and not my sensory needs. Our children need us to be their regulators. They need us to understand that gloves, hats, scarves and big fluffy coats restrict and constrict those who experience sensory input overload. Maybe your child is experiencing a “7” day on Monday and then melts down when he is told to put on his jeans on Thursday. Understanding that the numbers fluctuate day to day is important. Having a couple of go-to sensory safe pants, shirts and sweaters can be helpful. Looking at Misbehavior in Children Through a Sensory LensBeing open to look at defiance and stubborn behavior from a sensory perspective may give more information as well as potential solutions. Are the arguments often about the same topic? Sometimes behaviors such as putting on socks, washing hands, brushing hair for example, can be defiance due to shying away from sensory input. Being curious about potential reasons for the misbehavior may help point out something new. Become a detective for more information. If your child wants to inappropriately wear summer attire in the winter, ask more questions. Is it just for fun or is there a sensation she is trying to avoid or achieve? Not all clothes are created equal. With older children, talk about what feels good with pants and tops and what does not. Take note if your child is describing the cut and tailor of clothing, the tags or the fabric itself. Often children will become inconsolable and greatly upset if they are experiencing more touch input then their bodies know how to filter. Understanding and learning to avoid these situations can be huge, but helping calm their bodies after is important too. Helpful Tips to Help Calm an Over-Stimulated Child The first thing to look at when trying to calm a child who is over-stimulated, is to reduce, remove or shed the stimuli. I remember seeing a cutie a few years ago here at the office who experienced too much stimuli at school. She developed an after school ritual that helped her shed the extra stimuli she received all day at school and with peers. Each afternoon she removed any bothersome clothing, grabbed her favorite book and jumped into bed. The coolness of the sheets and lack of restriction helped calm and re-set her body rather quickly. This routine became such an important tool that her parents made sure not to schedule any activities directly after school. Some children enjoy the refuge of a homemade fort. Forts allow the child to escape into an imaginative space that is disconnected from the stimuli of the real world. Allowing your child to eat an after school snack in his fort may create just enough space and calm to help re-set his body. Epsom salt baths can also calm a child physically and emotionally. Putting a basket of fun imaginary toys next to the tub can help children play out the stress of the day by projecting it through the toys. Here you have a win-win by allowing the body to calm and giving his emotions an exit through play. Be mindful of patterns to the sensory saturation. Some children struggle to hold it together all week at school and then melt down for mom and dad by Thursday and Friday. If your child becomes habitually fragile towards the end of the week, it may be important to look at a regular daily sensory shedding diet. Children whose sensory over-stimulation builds as the week progresses need down time to rest and unload and to not be required to frequent noisy restaurants and activities towards the end of the week. When to Call a Professional to Help Your Child's Sensory Processing Needs Brainstorm ideas with someone who knows your child. Understanding the philosophy behind your child’s needs will help you creatively tailor a successful approach. When these tips do not work, sometimes it is time to call a professional. A Play Therapist can help sensory needs if there is also an emotional component to it. If the outbursts feel truly sensory based, calling upon an Occupational Therapist, OT, can help. OTs are specifically trained to help re-wire the brain to accept input in a more balanced manner. These professionals can also teach parents techniques such as joint compressions and limb brushing that can help organize and calm the body physiologically.
Feel more empowered this winter as you learn more and more about your child’s sensory needs and in turn gain more tools to help her body get to that calm space. Gabrielle Anderson is the Director and a Therapist at the Family Therapy Center of Northern Virginia, llc She and the other team members can be contacted directly from the Center's Meet the Team page.
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Remember when the differences between you and the one you love felt good, refreshing and even complimentary? Meeting someone who is different from ourselves can be a gift. A private view into a world not our own. Someone to suggest new foods, venues, activities; to be stretched and grateful for it. Those are the days of a couple in love. Quite often couples complain of these differences in couples’ sessions. “She always leaves her shoes and clothes all over the bedroom and expects...” “If it wasn’t for me, we would be drowning in debt. I’m the saver and apparently the only one who...” “You are so scheduled. Would it hurt you to be a little more spontaneous?!” Remembering What it Felt Like to be a Couple in LoveRemember when you liked the fact that she captured your chaos and organized it? The days when you felt grateful that he pushed you and nudged you to spend money on yourself? When he helped you feel like you were worth it? What at one point made you feel complimentary and grateful, now leaves you feeling resentful and angry. Where did it all go? How do partners lose each other in the process of it all? Couples often need to be reminded-gently nudged to go back and remember the early days. The days when it felt ok and even right to be different. When there was still enough trust in the relationship to reveal one’s true self and feel like it would be accepted and appreciated. To be loved, truly loved despite it all. Is it Time for Couples Therapy? Couples therapy can help take the relationship backwards, to a place of equality and trust where being different felt safe. Where black and white could find their way to a comforting gray, and maybe just maybe to a new place; a place resulting from the evolution of two people refusing to be stagnant and stuck. Two who more than anything want to find a life that feels congruent with the evolution of themselves as well as the relationship. Whether you feel the need to reconnect with your past selves or move to something new, therapy can help freshen up the relationship and create the connection you crave.
Gabrielle Anderson is the Director and a Therapist at the Family Therapy Center of Northern Virginia, llc She and the other team members can be contacted directly from the Center's Meet the Team page. Although the structure of many couples counseling sessions may be quite similar, what occurs behind the closed doors of a session is well tailored to the needs of the couple. Every relationship has its own dynamic, one that is unique to the couple. Negative cycles appear in all relationships from one time or another. Learning to recognize how to not get sucked into the tornado funnel of distance can be priceless and will look differently from one couple to the next. One’s communication style, levels of emotional safety, trust, love, friendship, and passion are all components and ingredients of a relationship. Where each of these lie and how balanced and fulfilling of a connective opportunity they yield helps determine where the couple feels they are. Helping clients evolve their relationships and determine what it is they want from love and marriage can be a rewarding process to help navigate and assist. The Importance of Friendship & Respect in a RelationshipJohn Gottman, a well-respected couples researcher, has conducted many longitudinal studies with a focus on marital satisfaction. He claims to have the ability within 5 minutes to extrapolate and determine whether or not a couple will remain married or divorce just by analyzing the way in which they argue. Arguments are inevitable. Good marriages have bad years. Terrible events happen to good solid families. What separates the satisfied marriages from those that are unfulfilled? Gottman believes friendship is the key. Being truly interested in building bridges and connections with your partner and liking who your spouse is as a person, makes you fight fairer and work towards resolution instead of defensively planning your next move of attack. He states that developing a curiosity and a desire to really know your partner creates a bond that gets stronger through connectivity and has the ability to weather times of adversity and pain. Couples Need to Feel Emotionally Understood and Connected Sue Johnson, another contemporary pioneer in the field of couple’s satisfaction argues that couples need to understand each other at an emotional level. She believes that when arguments and disagreements arise, couples sitting in their emotional brain can quickly recognize what they are truly fighting about and not just how it initially appears. Feeling this emotional connection can almost be addicting. Couples begin to seek it out not just to squelch disagreements, but also to feel that much closer to each other. Johnson believes that teamwork and partnership are vital to a lasting fulfilling relationship. She looks at problems within the relationship as being a fault of the dynamic that the couple has created as opposed to looking to blame the individual spouses for the demise of the relationship. Teaching couples to understand their spouse’s emotional needs and desires and helping them to feel heard by their partner breeds connectivity and a deeper bond. When couples begin to routinely reach for one another, trust begins to build. Protecting this trust and union is often what builds the foundation of a newly evolving relationship and dynamic. The Waxing and Waning of Passion in a Marriage More than friendship, arguments and teamwork, where does passion fit into marital satisfaction? Esther Perel, a world renown couples therapist with a special focus on erotic intelligence, talks about the positive power of tension. Perel believes that couples need to develop separateness in order to spark romance. Helping couples develop individuality helps the couple re-kindle desire. She believes that intimacy and sexual desire are very different entities and attempts to help couples re-create a healthy degree of mystery within the relationship. Looking at a marital dyad through the lens of roles can be an important step to understanding and dissecting waning sexual desire. When couples begin to fill too many roles for each other, it leaves little room for sexual mystery. Perel believes that knowing too much of our partner’s inner and outer world can cause us to not need to seek them out passionately and may even create an environment for sexual numbing to occur. Sorting out the Pieces of the Marital Puzzle With such differing information, how does one sort it all out? One word: Balance. Some couples come into my office with a well-established friendship and genuine love for one another. They know well how to be a team player and feel that their spouse believes in them and wants the best for them. Maybe they are living through a family trauma or lost the romantic spark. This couples probably does not need to learn connectivity and teamwork. Another couple may include one spouse who has grown accustomed to meeting his/her own needs in a self serving manner and who seems to struggle with focusing this energy on the family and spouse. This spouse probably does not need more understanding in creating differentiation and separateness, but may need to learn to look to the other spouse and understand his/her needs and desires. Even still, another couple may come into therapy after practicing fighting to win at all costs. This couple may benefit from learning to sit inside his/her partner’s shoes and begin to feel what it is like to be the other. To gain empathy and connectivity by experiencing a little of what it is like to be married to oneself can be a powerful motivator to change. Then of course there is the family of young children. Where the role of being a 24/7 parent begins to snuff out the role of passionate pursuer. This couple may need help creating distance from the baggy t-shirt, pony tailed mommy and overwhelmed over tired daddy and may need help initiating mystery and separateness. How do you Know if Couple's Therapy is right for you?Only you can answer whether or not you are ready for couples counseling. Therapy is hard work and you really have to be ready to take an honest look at yourself and your dynamic. I have seen therapy do wonderful things for many people, but you have to be ready. So often couples come into therapy hoping that the therapist will "fix" their partner. It is rarely about that and most often about collaborating together, as a team to create a dynamic and level of connectivity that is worth fighting for...learning to fight for what is best for the relationship and not just fighting to win.
Gabrielle Anderson is the Director and a therapist at the FamilyTherapy Center of Northern Virginia, llc. She and the other team members can be reached directly from the Center's Meet the Team page. I received word from my brother that an old friend committed suicide recently. I have to be honest. I couldn’t even remember who he was. My sister suggested I check Facebook and reminded me of a summer during college when I knew him and he began to know my family. Tom and I were in each other’s lives for a short, short time. We became friends, hung out a bit; he would come over to my house and do things with my family. Later that summer he began to date my sister. He was in my life for yet a blink. When I checked my sister’s Facebook page to remind me of who he was, I couldn’t believe how much Tom looked the same as he did 20 years ago. I looked at his wife and his two children and suddenly felt pain. Everyone looked so happy, so together. I felt sadness for the trauma his children must be feeling and for the dark loneliness his wife must be experiencing. I have a family of four. Seeing his family felt too similar to filter. I couldn’t help but wonder what on earth happened during his last 20 years to make him end it all. On and off last night, I drempt about Tom and his family and my sister. I woke up confused that I was grieving someone I didn’t even know and couldn’t even remember. Grief's JourneyGrief can be complicated. My grief wasn’t about missing Tom, but was more about experiencing a snapshot of my life all over again. Remembering that summer and his heart felt impact on my family opened up a part of my life I hadn’t thought about in years. I was experiencing my own vulnerabilities and mortality too. Quickly and without hesitation, my mind connected the dots to all the other losses I experienced this year; and made me wonder what else I would be experiencing. When emotions don’t make sense, sometimes it is better not to ignore them but rather to curiously investigate. For an hour last night and some this morning, I went back in time to a place 20 years ago and reflected on my recent life as well. Surprisingly, that small journey cost me a little. The Many Face of GriefGrief indeed has many many faces. My mother died unexpectedly seven years ago. Having five siblings it became apparent quite quickly that everyone grieves differently, at different times and for different things. Some of us grieve quietly, others agonize demonstratively. Some grieve more for the actual person others more for a time of their lives that will never return or something that will never be. It’s funny how a loss can point to things that you didn’t realize were there. I don’t miss Tom. I don’t even know him. But grief doesn’t really know the rules. It didn’t know that as soon as I saw his picture I would be reminded of that summer in an instant. I wasn't even fully aware of how much of my present life and anxieties were becoming entangled in the memories until I became curious and began to investigate it further.
I’m sorry you were in so much pain, Tom. I’m sorry wife and kids that he left so early. I’m sorry to my sister for the complicated grief she must be experiencing too. On the grand 1-10 spectrum of grief, I am at a 1 or 2. Understanding that there is indeed a spectrum, is a priceless tool to navigate it mindfully. Gabrielle Anderson is the Director and a Therapist at the Family Therapy Center of Northern Virginia, llc She and the other team members can be contacted directly from the Center's Meet the Team page. What are Common Symptoms of Anxiety?An elementary aged child was asked to think about her anxious symptoms and worry thoughts and turn them into a cartoon character. This is what she created. Pretty scary stuff! Keep reading to see how this scary picture and others like it can be used in therapy to help children (and brave adults) gain power over their feelings and calm down the brain's limbic system. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), meditation and other modalities can help create calm as well. Anxiety looks very different from one person to the next. In some, it is an almost constant buzzing, in others it presents as sweaty, heart racing panic attacks. Some report not being able to enjoy social functions and others cry uncontrollably. Worry thoughts can be common as well as harmful debilitating self talk. Anxiety, no matter its form, is uncomfortable and something we see at The Center every day. Too Busy & Driven? Not Living Mindfully can be a Common Cause of AnxietyAnxiety can come from many different sources. Northern Virginia is a perfect breeding ground for anxiety. We work hard long hours alongside others who work just as hard. We are an intelligent population with intelligent, driven successful peers. Sometimes ambition, competition, and the comparisons we do to stay ahead and crisp, can keep us out of touch with ourselves and with what keeps us grounded. Not caring for oneself can be quickly depleting. Not measuring up or feeling "if I just did…" can leave one constantly looking ahead instead of being present and enjoying small moments in life. When we stop being present and are not choosing our life choices mindfully, we begin to feel an inner incongruence. This dissonance and inner conflict can manifest itself as anxiety. What are we Modeling for our Children? Anxiety and Your Child...Many of the children we see who struggle with anxiety seem to be wired for perfection or performance. Wanting to do it "right" or "perfect" can be a trait we teach our children silently. Our children have our genetic coding and predispositions, but they also watch us and learn how to navigate life and life choices without a word needing to be shared. Not all anxiety in children and adults is learned. Some feel vulnerable after a painful experience or trauma and channel the emotions into anxiety. Some experience a tremendous amount of worry thoughts that take up way too much brain space and begin to interfere with focus and daily happiness. The habit of internalizing negative experiences can lead to chronic anxiety and can be dangerous. Stopping it before it does real damage is the key. Infection Induced AnxietyWe do not just have ambition and drive in NOVA, we have ticks…and lots of them! Ticks carry more than Lyme Disease. Bartonella, Babesia and Mycoplasma are a few infections that can cause debilitating anxiety/depression and if left untreated can create significant neurological damage. Strep antibodies can also create panic and OCD in children and teens and in some cases, adults. This is known as PANDAS. When other agents create the anxiety, such as Chlamydia Pneumonia, it is referred to as PANS. When anxiety is intense and there does not seem to be a cause or known trigger, look to rule out infection as a potential influencer. Often physicians who present themselves as "Lyme Literate Doctors" are good specialist choices to visit. Diagnosing infection based anxiety is a process that relies on more information than blood tests alone. A thorough clinical assessment is highly recommended if you suspect infection based anxiety or panic. How to Cope with AnxietyThe first step in coping with anxiety is to understand its origin and to experience it for what it is. Sometimes people are quick to medicate anxiety without first exploring some of the above possibilities or going to the source itself to heal it. It is all too easy in our Northern Virginia culture to squelch the fires of anxiety by reaching for a beer or that second martini. Often screen time is used to melt away the feelings and distract the mind. Looking to the source can be painful, but useful. Is it Trauma? Fear? Are you losing touch with yourself and your loved ones? Could it be infection based? Look for the cause before reaching for a temporary fire extinguisher. When you know the cause, you can get assistance. If life is out of balance or you have unfinished emotional business to care for, therapy can help. If you need to find ways to calm your body and control your run away negative thoughts, counseling can help teach you these methods. Learning to listen to your negative self talk, turning it around and replacing it with healthy positive self talk can be empowering. Noticing how your body reacts to stress and emotional pain and what anxiety looks like in your body BEFORE it turns into panic can be an invaluable tool when learning to get ahead of panic attacks. Learning to take deep slow breaths to calm your heart and slow your thoughts can be key to reducing the symptoms of anxiety and decrease panic attacks. What Does Treatment for Anxiety Look Like?Adults can improve anxiety by learning the habits of Mindfulness and by practicing the tangible skills taught in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Our therapists are trained to help teach and monitor these skills. Sometimes, though the anxiety is embedded in trauma or is creating too much hyperarousal (extreme buzzing and almost non-stop physical symptoms) that CBT feels like putting a bandaid on a gushing wound. In cases like these, EMDR, Meditation/Visualizations, Art Therapy, Sand Tray or Play Therapy may be a better option to first calm the limbic system part of the brain so that the cognitive, more rational part of the brain can be accessed. Going to the cognitive brain first when someone is in a state of hyperarousal can be often be a mistake and can create frustration in the one suffering. Using methods such as relaxation, EMDR or Creative type therapies can calm the body and mind and help create a foundation for CBT skills to then root beneath. Our clinicians are trained in these modalities and can help from age 3 through adulthood. To request an appointment or for more information, click here. Creative Therapy ApproachesOne method to calm the limbic system and create empowerment over anxiety and other traumas is the use of a drawing series. Let's look back at the cartoon character above. In the series shown here, a young girl was asked to sit in the anxiety and create a cartoon character that embodied all of it. The next step is to have her get inside of herself and determine how she feels within her body and where she feels each emotion when she is within proximity of this creature (this is another picture not shown0. The third step is to make her face the anxiety and begin to feel empowered over it. She is now asked to do what ever she feels compelled to do to the character itself. This child chose to put her anxiety monster in jail (called encapsulation), lock up it's hands, feet and fingers, lock the jail in four places, gag it's mouth, soften it's prickliness and re-shape it's eye brows. We then check back in with the child to see how she is feeling. When children and adults are asked to approach their trauma or scariness head on and then learn to become empowered over it, the trauma/anxious feelings decrease and the empowerment increases. Some clients need to do more than one drawing series, while others choose another modality to continue to calm the limbic system. EMDR participants experience a similar experience as those who create via art. It seems to be about finding a safe way to revisit something uncomfortable…to sit with the scary and BE OKAY. I have had some adults brave enough to try this drawing series with great success. Please. Do not try a series like this without proper training. The series is intensive and involves more pictures and steps than what are shown here today. Gabrielle Anderson is the Director and a Therapist at the Family Therapy Center of Northern Virginia, llc She and the other team members can be contacted directly from the Center's Meet the Team page. The Holiday Season is quickly approaching. With Thanksgiving just around the corner and Christmas and Hanukah sneaking up behind it, I already feel the buzz and excitement of it all. Those of you with children who celebrate, know that energies are about to soar. Just as we get them under control from the sugar rush of Halloween, the winter holidays begin.
With all the excitement and projected fun, why do many feel blue and sadness during this time of year? I hear from many in my practice that the Holidays seem to shine a light on their lives showing where they are in the moment. Sometimes this direct realization can be great, but other times, a bit unsettling. Those of you who have lost someone or something important this year such as a loved one, marriage, home, family pet will understand that doing the Holidays without this special someone/thing can be difficult. If your life is not where you want it to be, maybe there has been a job loss or move or maybe you or a loved one are chronically ill, then the Holidays make this challenging too. The common thread to all of this is EXPECTATIONS. The Holidays bring about an expectation that things should go a certain way or feel a certain way and when they don’t we either feel disappointed or greater still maybe even feel failure. Sometimes it is easier to glide through life and not notice where we truly are until something makes us…forces us to stop and assess. Holidays are notorious for that. “I am supposed to feel connected” "I am supposed to be with my kids on Thanksgiving” “I am supposed to be happy..it’s Christmas!” All of these self messages become loud enough to hear when something as magical as the Holiday season forces us to feel our lives more authentically. Sometimes the dissonance between what we feel should be happening and what is happening makes us want to hide. I don’t suggest hiding at all. What I suggest is moving through the Holidays mindfully. Make mindful, purposeful decisions every step of the way. If you all of the sudden feel blue, take a step back. Ask yourself what just happened to create that? Find out what you can do in the moment to stop the spiral downward. Sometimes it is more than stopping or controlling the impact of the negative. Sometimes it is guarding what is good and increasing the possibility of positive connections and experiences. Make use of time and activities. Only do the ones you want to do…the ones that fill you or other family members. Who says you have to over schedule yourself and attend everything to which you are invited? When you spend time with family, pick something meaningful. Start new traditions. Whatever you decide to do, remember that it IS a choice and that you CAN navigate the holidays mindfully and wind up better and more fulfilled on the other side. |
AuthorThese blog entries are written by our very own clinicians. When inspiration hits, another entry will be logged. Get Blog UpdatesWhat is an RSS FEEDER? If you click on the RSS Feeder, anytime a new blog entry is added to the website, you will be automatically notified of it. The only thing you need to do is get an RSS READER app. Chances are, if you click on the RSS Feeder, and you do not have a reader, it will take you directly to the app store so you can install one. It takes 60 seconds to get set up for auto notifications of new blogs sent directly to you!
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