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About Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and Ayres Sensory Integration

This feature article was written by Claire Smith, one of the first UK OT’s to deliver Sensory Integration alongside Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). I am delighted to introduce Claire to you, as she was one of the first people I ever lectured about how to apply Sensory Integration’s in Mental Health. That was way back in 2004 and tonight she features on a BBC Documentary – Girls on the Edge.

Here is what Claire would like to add about how Ayres’ Sensory Integration can be used when we work with adults who have trauma and related sensory integration challenges.

As a DBT therapist and SI Practioner I am fortunate to be able to deliver a full DBT programme, alongside an inter-disciplinary DBT team, provide ASI intervention and use sensory strategies that I believe make a real difference to people’s lives.

We combine sensory strategies with DBT skills that support young people to self-regulate and reduce high emotional arousal. These are personalised and individualised to each young person forming part of their positive behavioural support care-plan. Sensory strategies are often used to help young people become ‘talking therapy ready’ prior to starting DBT. There is much stigma around mental health and what it means to be in a secure unit.

Three teenage girls and their families will be sharing their stories and lookIng at the impact on families in a documentary on Thu 22nd Feb, Girls on the Edge, at 9pm on BBC2. Their bravery, openness and honesty helps to break some of this stigma.

The programme has footage of some of the activities offered at FitzRoy House and features glimpses of a number of OT’s I work with providing meaningful occupations and supporting young people in their journey to recovery.

You can see some short clips from the documentary here, and once it has aired, links to watch it again on the BBC.

You can learn more about DBT here.

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Developing self-regulation is important

Many children may have difficulties with self-regulation, especially those who have had tricky starts; including from traumatic illness, accident, trauma or neglect.

Increasingly OT’s are using Ayres’ Sensory Integration in combination with CBT( Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), adapted DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy) and Attachment-based approaches in CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental health Services) and other paediatric roles to assess and provide intervention.

These two books are valuable additions to the bookshelf, with great ideas to inform practice and support time between therapy sessions.

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What happens to attachment when nurturing is not as it should be?

As OT’s using Ayres’ Sensory Integration, we are mindful of her early work which reminded us of the importance of sensory input in developing the mother-infant bond, a building block which she saw as essential for emotional stability alongside sensory-motor and sensory-perceptual skills that underpin our ability to engage in purposeful activity.

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Ayres’ recognised the importance of being able to take in, process and integrate sensory input not just for activity and praxis but also for future health and well-being, including the development of self-esteem, self-control, and self-confidence.

I am constantly amazed by her vision and insight, and how she built on the seminal and emerging neuroscience of her peers, how she valued this work of others and built on it, leaving a legacy that has continued to be developed and researched by others since her.

A lovely article “The Neurobiology of Attachment to Nurturing and Abusive Caregivers” by Regina Sullivan summarises more recent literature and helps remind us about and understand more why positive experiences or nurture from the primary caregiver are essential. This nurture is experienced through the senses, and when what is experienced is not as it should be, in early phases of critical development, it irrevocably changes the brain.

” a mother’s sensory stimulation of the infant is  the hidden regulator of the infant’s physiology and behavior”

Myron Hofner 1994

To read the full article please click here

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The Repair of Early Trauma: A Bottom Up Approach Suggested: The Window of Tolerance

Reminded again today on FB about this amazing animation from Beacon House – which fits so neatly with our practice of Ayres SI in combination with other techniques when we work with children, adolescents and adults with trauma. The window of tolerance fits neatly with many approaches used in mental health by SI Practitioners including Alert Program (aka Engine Run), Sensory Ladders, Sensory Attachment Intervention and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy.

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Occupational Therapy, Ayres’ Sensory Integration and Mental Health

Click here to read this article, and on the last day of OT Week! OT has so much to offer mental health care – we have a unique role using Ayres’ work to inform current practice in inpatient care – proud to be an OT owning the sensory integration frame of reference!

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcap.12174/fullIMG_1088