How do you stay within/expand your ‘window of tolerance’?

[barefoot]

I’m finding that I’m getting very emotionally flooded very quickly in sessions. And then I go into shutdown. I’m somewhat aware that I’m shutting down when it’s happening but don’t know what to do to either prevent it from happening in the first place or to get myself out of it in the moment.

I’ve come across the term ‘window of tolerance’ online and think this may be relevant to what I’m experiencing.

Has anyone’s therapist ever talked to them about it? And, if so, what did you gain from it/how did you use it etc?

Or does anyone have any thoughts about emotional flooding generally - whether you’ve learnt any tools to help avoid it/reduce it etc.

I just seem unable to speak about anything beyond super practical here and now things without getting totally overwhelmed at the moment.
Thanks

 

[Mee]

Is this staying the same or getting better or worse over the time you have been seeing your therapist?

If there has been a change, has it coincided with anything?

If it hasn’t- can you think of things that are making you feel unsafe currently?


it can get better. I didn’t used to think i’d Get through a therapy session without retraumatision/ ‘shutting down’. It’s happening now. I shut down still through the week, but I know that progress is achievable.

 

[barefoot]

Good questions @Mee thank you.

I’ve been seeing her for five years. Which I feel a bit ashamed of ?

I spent probably the best part of the first three years dissociating in sessions. We’d dip a toe into trauma stuff and I’d just instantly check out. Then the dissociation pretty much stopped and I’ve been able to be more present. Which was hard at first because it meant I was feeling more. Ugh!

The past few months I’ve found it difficult to relax in general. I’ve been triggered more than usual, I feel more on edge and hyper vigilant than I have for ages. I feel a bit low at the moment. Not really depressed. Nothing major. Just a bit low and meh.

My mum died just over a year ago - I don’t want to think about her or talk about her because it is so painful, so I have been consciously avoidant of that. But I am finding that approach more difficult I think at the moment. I went to her best friend’s funeral a few weeks ago, which was very...confronting. My T nudges me to talk about my mum...she asked today if the funeral evoked any feelings about my mum...I just got instantly flooded and couldn’t speak.

The push/pull of therapy also feels really intense at the moment. I’m finding it quite excruciating sitting in the room with her at the moment. I don’t know why that is.

I feel stuck and despondent and, while I get that progress isn’t generally linear, I do feel like I’ve taken steps backwards.

 

[Mee]

I offer virtual comfort of what ever suits... a hug, a vitual cup of tea.

I recently suggested to someone that if we see a dentist we don’t feel ashamed. I am not sure why the aim to not have mental health support if we have trauma issues. If we have a filling at the dentist we still go and have check ups and cleaning. And get told off for brushing too hard ??

I have been going for I think 2.5 years now. I Feel no shame at all- just fascinated that my opinion has changed so much.

Shame is often a source of problem I think?

And yes, backward steps feel AWFUL- but you had new really hard things happen. It’s fair to yourself to expect impact from those. If you aren’t giving yourself kindness over that but instead feel ‘ashamed’ you might make more stuff to wade through?

Of course, all easy to say! Not easy to live and ride through the up and down. But from what you laid out I can immediately want to offer compassion and time and understanding that you might feel overfaced.

 

[Wendell_R]

I agree with @Mee that tough times can send you backwards, or at least it will seem at the time that you have taken a step backward.

Although I've seen my trauma therapist for about 2 1/2 years, I did a psychoanalytical approach for about 10 years before that. That wasn't too productive, but I mention it as a way of saying it's okay you've been working on this for five years. I had a breakthrough about three years ago, but we're still working.

My therapist has talked to me about my window of tolerance, both doing talk therapy and doing EMDR. We pay attention to what sorts of things cause distress both in our sessions and afterward, and most importantly, whether that distress is disabling or causes me to shut down. For example, I know asking for anything is really hard for me, and we need to take baby steps. But I do really well in withstanding floods of emotion, and we don't need to worry about that. The first step is to notice what is and is not outside the window of tolerance. The second step is to adjust the therapy so that you can stay predictably within the window.

So, maybe it's too much to open up all the feelings about your mum. Maybe it's more within your tolerance to pick one memory to briefly visit before talking about something else. Little steps are good.

It's a lot like going to the gym. If you go and pull a muscle, you can't make progress. If you go and feel a bit sore the next day, you'll make progress. A big part is learning that if we need to take really, really small steps to stay safe, that's okay.

 

[NightSky]

I struggle with this. It’s so hard. It happened when I was several months into therapy and I could not move. I stared at a spot on her shelf for god knows how long and she kept talking quietly, letting me know she was there, and I barely heard her. I can’t remember how it eases enough for me to get home. I’ve had many similar but less intense instances through our years of therapy since then. We’re on a little over 4 now. When she sees it happening now she works very quickly to get me back into the room. She has me name things in the room. Or breathe. She changes the subject. She checks in a lot and asks if I’m still with her. She said she can see it in my eyes as soon as it’s happening. Three weeks ago it happened again and was as bad as the first time. But this time she asked if she could sit with me. And she did. And handed me a fidget thing so I would keep moving. Went over session time by a half hour to help me out of it. I went in the next week so frustrated. And she apologized and said it’s her job to keep me in the window of tolerance and she had pushed too far. It happens because I don’t want to cry usually. So for me, working on allowing myself to be emotional in front of her is key. I can then say more, and not shut down. I want to heal. And that means I have to continue to (SO gradually) work to let my guard down. That’s the only thing that has helped...trusting her and letting myself become more vulnerable than is comfortable.

 

[Ireusa]

The window of tolerance is something we have talked a lot about in therapy. I struggle with dissociation A LOT and even though there has been progress (identifying triggers and 1sr symptoms of dissociation) it still happens most sessions.

Titration and pendulation has been so important for me. Titration is to go at it at a snail pace. To talk or work on slivers of things and for a very little time, pendulation is to furst establish safety (safe place/grounded), then work on the trauma and immediately after go back to a safe topic/safe place, etc.

I think it also has to do with emotional dysregulation/managing affect. It'll take a while lol.

 

[Friday]

No. Idea. :banghead:

Triggers & Stressors? No problem! I can flirt around the edges of those suckers, spiking my own reactions and backing away in tiny infinitesimal degrees -and great bounding leaps- pushing those boundaries further and further in. Until there’s no tolerance needed, because there’s no reaction anymore. Totally in control of how out of control I am, until there’s no control needed.

Around trauma stuff otoh? No. f*cking. Clue.

My T says that’s why stability has to happen before working on trauma. To CREATE a window of tolerance to work within. Because if you’re unstable to begin with? There is no window, or there may have been, 3 miles back thattaway. Can’t maintain stability you don’t have to begin with. <<< I DO know that’s often why short term meds are often used in conjunction with trauma therapy. To create a stability the person isn’t capable -yet- to achieve on their own, to do enough work so that they can have stability off-meds; before doing trauma therapy again straight, with the skills & practice backing them up, instead of meds propping them up.

 

[hithere]

I was never able to do it. Sorry I have no suggestions. well come to think it actually, what very little IFS therapy I did I was able to have a window of tolerance with that. It seemed to 'give a distance" from it. It was interiorly spatial. I could tolerate it for some reason using some ifs techniques. I wish the therapist could have continued in this fashion with me, but he got bored of me so that was that.

 

[grit]

I am really sorry barefoot that you are struggling to hold your feelings in. Flooding is so counterproductive to healing so I can understand how frustrating this might be. It is hard to give advice on window of tolerance because it is really a personal thing...it is like safety...how you feel safe and how anyone else feels safe are different but we all sort of know what safety means. so I wish you the best.

However, one thing that stuck out for me in your post is continues dissociation in therapy. It has been proven that it is almost impossible to heal when still experiencing dissociation and actually even hard to establish a healthy attachment to heal through. Because dissociation is opposite of attachment in such it was a way to hide from dangerous attachment. From my own experience, dissociation in therapy was so de-stabilising that I had to change therapists few times until the change prompted me to get to the bottom of the issue of dissociation (for me it was the fear of death ironically which is what adaptive dissociation is ultimately) and only then can I say I start to feel the benefit of therapy. Dissociation is a wall that saves us during trauma (it is mini death) but to die every week in therapy is extremely dangerous both physically and psychologically.

I wont blahh on it too long cause I do not know what your condition is and maybe this is an improvement in the scheme of things but if you are interested I would recommend reading Allan Schore's books or articles and he truly talks about regulation (which is what you are calling window of tolerance) and how a therapist and clients co-regulate until it is internalised by the client. Great stuff.
Allan Schore on the Science of Psychotherapy

Enjoy.

 

[Freida]

Oh ya. That. The dreaded window of tolerance. My t yammers on about that a lot. Because if I cant tolerate my feelings I cant work on them. And if i cant work on them I cant recover.

She says the way to build it is to just "sit with my feelings." Dont judge them, don't analyze them, dont explain them. Just sit and let them be. Feel them. Each time I do it the goal is to sit a little bit longer. Later, when I can stay regulated just feeling the emotions, we can talk about where they came from.

It's been 5 years and I'm still trying to figure it out. Emdr has helped alot. But. My window still isnt very big :(

 

[Deleted member 36028]

Yep still learning how to expand this. I think there were topics that even after 5 years with one therapist I couldn't approach without dissociating. For me it when i have to think and feel at the same time which I suppose is the crux of processing. Sometimes I think I need to just say these things and risk dissociating so I can then see the I am not going to be shamed for it. But that is just one theory I have at the moment. I have been working on this for 5 years or more and have just stated with another therapist so suspect it will take a while longer yet...