BLOG: Journey of Insights; Stories and Inspirations from the TSS team - Therapeutic Support Services

Are Regulation Techniques the New Suppression?

12/5/2025

In Western culture, there is now a strong focus on learning how to regulate emotions. While these techniques are valuable, it’s important to recognise that they can sometimes inadvertently suppress necessary emotional release.

We were recently supporting a family with a young girl who has Autism and PDA. Understandably, her parents were trying to prevent her meltdowns to avoid distress. However, during a recent storm, she experienced a significant "meltdown" when she couldn’t regulate herself in her usual way by going outside. This intense episode seemed to act as a trauma release, and since then, she has been noticeably happier, more engaged, and more relational with her family.

Another client I am working with is in the early stages of sobriety and addiction recovery. While she knows and uses regulation techniques, she has reported times when she was aware that they were suppressing emotions that needed to be released. She found that allowing this charge to release from her body left her feeling more organically regulated and less stifled. She could then use regulation techniques and self-soothing strategies to calm her system afterward.

These recent conversations have reminded me of the importance of discernment in how and when we use regulation techniques. In England, we have a cultural tendency to suppress or repress emotional expression. It could therefore be very easy for us to use these techniques as a new way to suppress essential trauma releases, rather than allowing the body to process and heal naturally.

This is what real healing looks like when it comes to trauma. Culturally, we suppress the organic process of trauma release. Trauma itself is not the issue—the human body is designed to handle trauma. The problem lies in our cultural conditioning to suppress the body’s natural reaction, which is how it releases trauma and restores balance. This means the trauma becomes stored in the body, often leading to physical and mental health issues over time.

It’s crucial to ensure that regulation techniques are not used as another way to suppress trauma, thereby preventing the body from completing its natural healing process and restoring its inherent health.

Supporting someone through trauma release can be challenging and, at times, frightening. Ideally, this process should be facilitated by a trained professional, at least until the individual feels confident and safe to support this themselves.

Trauma release may involve shaking, crying, or hyperventilating, and can appear volatile. If your child is experiencing this at home, it’s essential to create a safe and supportive environment and consult a trained professional. Offer verbal reassurance, such as “It’s okay, I’m here,” and maintaining relational contact with them is really important as this allows and internal sense of safety to develop. Allow them to go through the process if it's safe to do so. Once they have started to calm, you can then introduce gentle regulation techniques, like breathing exercises or self-soothing strategies.

I wanted to share this perspective because, in a culture that often emphasises emotional regulation over supporting emotional or trauma release, it’s important to recognise that relying solely on regulation techniques might inadvertently perpetuate distress in the long term. If a child or adult cannot complete the process of releasing trauma, they remain stuck in it, leading to a cycle of firefighting and keeping the trauma trapped in the nervous system.

It is truly healthy to allow trauma to move through the body in a safe environment. Ideally, this process would take place in a therapeutic setting, but if it arises at home, it’s vital to approach the situation gently and carefully. Follow the advice of a trained professional and seek support from your networks if needed. It can be challenging to manage this for your child or yourself.

Remember, it’s a journey. Seeking help and creating safe spaces for emotional expression can make all the difference.

Katherine Jordan (Ma MBACP)
Founder & Director

When Anxiety Masks as Productivity: The Hidden Costs of Staying Busy

1/14/2025

Anxiety is often recognised through its more obvious symptoms—feeling nervous, panicky, or having full-blown panic attacks. But anxiety can also hide in plain sight, masked as a relentless drive to stay busy. This form of anxiety often goes unnoticed, as it’s frequently mistaken for productivity and efficiency.

In its essence, anxiety is an energy of mobilisation. It’s a response triggered by the brain to prepare the body for potential threats. While this can be life-saving in genuinely dangerous situations, it can become a chronic state for some people, manifesting as a constant need to act and accomplish. These individuals might appear as go-getters—always on the move, tackling tasks quickly, and thriving in fast-paced environments. However, this rapid pace can be a sign of underlying anxiety, driving them to stay perpetually mobilised and avoiding the discomfort of stillness.

To notice if you might be running your life in anxiety, pay attention to the pace at which you operate. Anxiety is often linked to a rapid pace—if you find yourself constantly rushing and feeling the need to stay busy, this could be a manifestation of anxiety.

Another way to recognise it is by observing how you feel when you’re not busy. If you feel agitated or irritable when you have to stay still, it’s a sign that busyness might be a way of coping with anxiety.

One way that we can start to bring awareness to this is through the practice of mindfulness, actively slowing down, attending to pace, and self-soothing/self-regulating. By incorporating these practices, we can start to break the cycle of constant mobilisation and find a healthier balance in our lives and in our society on a wider level.

Katherine Jordan
Founder & Director

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