Self Regulation Therapy

Domain IV · Body-oriented psychotherapy · Lynne Zettl, Edward Josephs · 2001 · Vancouver, Canada

What it is

Zettl describes SRT as a "non-cathartic mind/body approach aimed at diminishing excess activation in the nervous system". It grew out of the founders' training in Somatic Experiencing. Zettl had also spent about twelve years combining SE with Bodynamics and CranioSacral Therapy. Zettl's 1998…

Format

• Move on when: the client can find a resource and feel it physically, can report sensations, and settles back within the session after a small rise in activation.
• Each session should end with the client settled and with a sense of control.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Format. Individual sessions with the client seated and talking. The work runs through attention to sensation, imagery and small movement, not through manual technique (see touch note in 4.20). Zettl gives no fixed number of sessions. She says clients typically "begin to feel better after a few sessions" and that treatment is usually much shorter than conventional therapy. Shock-trauma work is often brief.…
• Map the client's pattern of dysregulation. Sympathetic over-activation shows as hypervigilance, startle, panic, rage and insomnia. Parasympathetic over-activation shows as depression, numbness, exhaustion and alexithymia. Many clients alternate between the two.
• Phase D. Consolidation, meaning and self-regulation

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Freeze tipping into collapse or dissociation (see 4.14).
• Ruptures within the therapy relationship itself (Section 5).
• Clients who expect a dramatic breakthrough. Re-explain the non-cathartic aim.
• Clients with mostly shutdown or dissociative patterns need slower pacing and more resourcing (see 4.14).
• Images that the client experiences as suppression ("shut it off"). The aim is graded release, not shutting down.

Problems the guide addresses

• Screening and contraindications
• Overwhelm, flooding and flashbacks in session
• Increased symptoms after sessions
• "I don't feel anything" / poor interoception
• Stuck: no change across sessions
• Client pushing for catharsis or the full story
• Non-adherence to between-session practice
• Ruptures and boundary issues in the relationship
• Memory and suggestion risks
• Scope, claims and modality-specific cautions

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.