Regulators

The three main concepts we need for self-regulation (as opposed to relational regulation) are gauges, regulators and containers.

While imagery, breathing techniques, relaxation exercises, DBT Skills, mindfulness, distraction etc are all „regulators“, you can literally use a regulator to return to your window of tolerance.

Before you start to create a regulator you might want to go back and look at your gauge(s). Maybe you would like a matching regulator. And maybe you want to use something else.

A regulator should be able to increase and decrease whatever it is regulating. We want it to help us to balance between the „too much“ and the „not enough“, so it has to go both ways.

 

Things you might want to regulate with your regulator:

• feelings
• thoughts
• impulses
• inner images
• body flashbacks
• arousal levels
• ….

 

Some ideas for regulators could be:

• gas pedal/brakes
• thermostat
• pressure valve
• cooling/warming containers
• faucet
• volume dial
• an imagined path to walk back and forth on
• color-coded circles to jump to
• going up and down stairs/ a ladder
• a remote control
• ….

 

If you choose one that includes movement it absolutely helps to take the steps or do the movement.

The remote control is probably the one taught the most in therapy, as it can be helpful to deal with flashbacks, using the screen technique.

To do this you ban the inner image to a screen, maybe a TV, to create some distance. Then you can use your remote control to change things. You could turn the sound up and down, change the brightness of the picture or the colored filters or you could change the channel completely and watch a nice program with positive pictures instead. We personally like to turn down the volume to nothing, then brighten the picture until it disappears in a white screen and is gone.

 

We also use a regulator to deal with body flashbacks. It is possible to decrease uncomfortable body memory and physical pain this way, if you practice for a while. Body flashbacks are tricky. This might sound horrible, but when we try to regulate them down we actually turn the regulator up at first to increase the pain a little, just to make sure the regulator is working. For some reason I can’t grasp fully that makes it a lot easier to then regulate it down.

As always it could be helpful to paint or otherwise create a visual/tangible image of your regulator.

There are also some for sale (picture: arousal regulator as offered by Michaela Huber)

The more you practice this the easier it will get.