Introduction to grounding, anchoring, and regulating tools and techniques

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Welcome to our online event, Introduction to grounding, anchoring, and regulating tools and techniques! As we know many of us and the children, parents, and adults we support can understandably struggle with anchoring and regulating their emotions. With this in mind, it is crucial to support ourselves and others to regulate. This is a precursor to any work that can be done, we need co-regulation, before people are able to self-regulate. If people are in their survival brains, they cannot access their thinking brains, because brains in pain can’t learn in the same way. Moreover, we cannot regulate a child or adult if we or the people around them are dysregulated.

This abridged introduction workshop facilitated by award winning Psychologist and bestselling author Dr Karen Treisman will present some creative, physical, sensory, and cognitive emotional regulation tips and tools which can be used and transferred to work with children, adult, and parents, including for our own regulation and wellbeing. This will include some of the tools from her bestselling creations; Presley the Pug, The Therapeutic Treasure Box, and the Therapeutic treasure deck of cards. This will include breathing tools and technique, sensory ideas, creative extensions of the safe place exercise, grounding, and sensory boxes and much more.

Attendees will learn an array of practical and creative tools and tips around supporting themselves and others to regulate.

Attendees will learn about the difference between up regulating and down regulating ourselves and others

Attendees will learn about how to use multiple different sensory systems to support regulation

Attendees will have the opportunity to practice some breathing and calming exercises

Attendees will learn how to take a traditional therapy exercise such as the safe place exercise and enrich and expand it using creative and expressive ideas.

About Karen

Dr Karen Treisman is a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist who has worked in the National Health System and children’s services for several years. Karen has also worked cross-culturally in both Africa and Asia with groups ranging from former child soldiers to survivors of the Rwandan Genocide. She also is the author of 10 books, including the bestselling book, “The therapeutic treasure box”, 4 sets of therapeutic card decks, and 6 therapeutic soft cuddly toys.

Karen has extensive experience in the areas of trauma, parenting, adversity (ACE’s) and attachment, and works clinically using a range of therapeutic approaches with families, systems, and children in or on the edge of care, unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people, and adopted children. Karen also specialises in supporting organisations and systems to move towards becoming, and to sustain adversity, culturally and, trauma-informed, infused, and responsive practice. This work focuses on creating meaningful and multi-layered cultural and paradigm shift across whole systems. This was the focus of Dr Treisman’s Winston Churchill Fellowship Karen was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship Travel Award which involved visited several places in the USA to further study whole system and organisational approaches to trauma-informed and trauma-responsive care and this topic is the focus of Dr Treisman’s newly released book: “A Treasure Box for Creating Trauma-Informed Organizations: A Ready-to-Use Resource For Trauma, Adversity, and Culturally Informed, Infused and Responsive Systems”.

In addition to holding a doctorate in Clinical psychology, Karen has undergone a range of specialist training courses including in EMDR, Narrative Therapy, Trauma-focused CBT, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, Systemic Psychotherapy, Video Interaction Guidance, Sensory Approaches, and Theraplay.

Karen has previously worked in both Milton Keynes’s and Kensington and Chelsea’s Looked after Children and fostering services, and within the National Implementation Service for evidence-based interventions for Looked after children, children on the edge of care, and children in custody at the Michael Rutter Centre in the Maudsley Hospital; and as Clinical Lead for a court assessment and intensive intervention team for children on the edge of care and in proceedings in Islington.

Karen is an external consultant, trainer, speaker, and assessor to a variety of local authorities and organisations including Barnardos, PAC-UK, AdoptionPlus, BAAT, Pause, Action Trauma, Grandparents Plus, Three Steps Ireland, MedicaCPD, and the Fostering Network. Karen is also an expert witness and regularly undergoes a variety of assessments for court. Additionally, Karen is also a reviewer for the Journal of Adoption and Fostering.

Karen was also awarded the 2018 Psychology Professional of the Year Award for Excellence in Attachment and Trauma; and Youth Psychology Professional of the Year 2020. Karen was also awarded an MBE (Queens Honour list 2020).

Karen regularly attends and presents at local, national, and international trauma, parenting, and attachment conferences (See the events tab on this website). Karen is also a TEDx speaker on the power of relationships and viewing behaviour as communication.

Karen is the author of “Working with children and adolescents who have experienced relational and developmental trauma” (Routledge, 2016); and the best-selling book- “A Therapeutic Treasure Box for Working with Children and Adolescents with Developmental Trauma: Creative techniques and activities”. Karen is also the designer of “A Therapeutic Treasure Deck: Sentence-completion and Feelings Cards”; and “A Therapeutic Treasure Deck: Grounding, Regulating, Coping, and Soothing Cards”; and the Parenting Patchwork Treasure Deck. Karen is also the designer of Neon the Ninja toy and workbook- ; Gilly the Giraffe (Self-esteem & confidence), Cleo the Croc (Children who have been hurt and learned to be afraid to let people close, Presley the Pug (Emotional regulation, relaxation, calm, mindfulness, and finding an emotional safe place), and Binnie the Baboon (Anxiety, fear, stress, and worry).