Laurie Belanger, LCSW shares how to use science to create felt safety in your office for your clients. Often in grad school, we hear of things like polyvagal theory but are never taught how to use what we know about the brain and body to help our clients regulate and co-regulate.
Laurie M Belanger LCSWR has been providing services to children, adults, and families for over 20yrs in Western NY. She is passionate about serving the needs of families coping with multi-layered, complicated concerns. Laurie has a strong interest and background in trauma, sensory development, chronic pain, adoption, mental health, and neurodiversity. She is an approved EMDR Consultant through EMDRIA, and was professionally trained in TBRI®️ (Trust Based Relational Interventions) by the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development.
Laurie currently provides individual and family therapy and professional consultation in her private practice setting in East Amherst NY. She includes access to some of the most up-to-date trauma therapies and supports in her practice. Included in this is The SSP (Safe and Sound Protocol), a Polyvagal informed, evidence-based therapeutic tool designed to reset the nervous system and return it to safety.
OFFERS & HELPFUL LINKS:
Laurie Belanger, LCSW shares how to use science to create felt safety in your office for your clients. Often in grad school, we hear of things like polyvagal theory but are never taught how to use what we know about the brain and body to help our clients regulate and co-regulate.
Laurie M Belanger LCSWR has been providing services to children, adults, and families for over 20yrs in Western NY. She is passionate about serving the needs of families coping with multi-layered, complicated concerns. Laurie has a strong interest and background in trauma, sensory development, chronic pain, adoption, mental health, and neurodiversity. She is an approved EMDR Consultant through EMDRIA, and was professionally trained in TBRI®️ (Trust Based Relational Interventions) by the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development.
Laurie currently provides individual and family therapy and professional consultation in her private practice setting in East Amherst NY. She includes access to some of the most up-to-date trauma therapies and supports in her practice. Included in this is The SSP (Safe and Sound Protocol), a Polyvagal informed, evidence-based therapeutic tool designed to reset the nervous system and return it to safety.
OFFERS & HELPFUL LINKS:
Jennifer Agee:
Hello. Hello. And welcome to Sh*t You Wish You Learned in Grad School. I am your host, Jennifer Agee, licensed clinical professional counselor. And with me today is Laurie Belanger. Laurie is a licensed clinical social worker who owns a private practice that specializes in trauma. She's also a keynote speaker and a trauma educator. So, welcome to the show, Laurie.
Laurie Belanger:
No problem. Thank you so much for having me.
Jennifer Agee:
Absolutely. So tell me, what is something you wish you learned in grad school?
Laurie Belanger:
You know what? If I could go back in time, I wish I had understood about bottom-up processing, the very, like, foundations of, you know... Trauma-informed care has become such a buzzword these last few years. But what a lot of it boils down to for me is felt safety. So, that whole idea that I can use all the cognitive strategies in the world, I can have all these wonderful skills and tools, but if my nervous system doesn't believe me that I'm safe, safe enough, then really it's like trying to use a remote control when the cable's out the back of your TV. It's just not effective.
Jennifer Agee:
Mhmm (affirmative).
Laurie Belanger:
So, it's something I'm passionate about, you know, helping people understand the autonomic nervous system and these mind-body approaches that help us get back, like, online, you know, good reception, the wifi is not out, where you can actually connect enough with yourself that you have a shot at, like, reframing things, you know, coming up with new ideas, looking at things a different way, building new skills and routines. So, that's something that, wow, you know, if I could go back in time, I wish I had known that back when I started my practice.
Jennifer Agee:
Yeah. So, developing that sense of felt safety in the room and knowing enough about what's happening in the brain and body that you can lead a client into that and so that they can understand what's happening within their system. That is incredibly powerful. What got you interested into learning really kind of the science, the nerdy parts of this, you know, this stuff? I like the nerdy parts myself. So, like, what kind of got you interested in that?
Laurie Belanger:
Well, it's kind of funny. It kinda, like, all came together organically. I started my career in adult mental health, thought I was going to be working at a hospital setting, kinda switched gears when I was in graduate school and was put in an internship with children, found that I loved working with children, became very interested in developmental psychology and how things can go sideways, right? And then I went to this really neat training. it has to be, like, so many years ago. I wanna say, like, 2010, -11, somewhere around there, called TBRI, Trust Based Relational Interventions, down at TCU in Fort Worth. And, that was very eye-opening. That was a training that was developed to help meet the needs of kids coming from what they called hard places. So, kids who had been through, you know, adoption, foster care system, you know, add up all these, like, you know, the aces, so adverse childhood experiences, tons of them, and then what works. And they had this great basket of strategies, and they introduce me to the field of occupational therapy. I got to know occupational therapists and went, woah, wait a minute. Why don't I know this? This is amazing, and it made such good, intuitive sense that, yeah, kids are concrete learners. You know, what was I doing out there in the clinic world initially straight out grad school trying to do cognitive behavioral things with kids? With play therapy, things mixed in, but things were so in our heads. I'm like, that's not how kids are put together in the first place.
Jennifer Agee:
Yeah. Can you give me some examples of what you're talking about?
Laurie Belanger:
Sure. I learned some great, like, nerdy words, like proprioceptive—the idea that you can tell the difference between a light touch and a deep push, right, and that, a really great hug can be so stabilizing. I have weighted lap pads in my office and weighted blankets. Both children and adults use them as grounding tools. The deep, heavy, nice, even pressure is so calming to the nervous system. I'm like, this is so simple. Why don't we all know this? Why wasn't I told this in graduate school? So, you know, there are these wonderful strategies. Just the other day, I had a little girl in my office who was extremely dysregulated. She was behaving in a way that was less than half her chronological age. There was whining, rolling around on my floor, didn't wanna be separated from her adoptive parent. And I was like, you know what? Let me just borrow this tiny human for a minute. And she's not that tiny. She was like, you know, almost ten. And we sat down and we did a tactile exercise together. And so, we just used, we made slime, but not like slime, like really gooey slime. We made, more like putty. And so, we're, like, working with this with just, you know, Elmer's glue, and all the things, and some sparkles, and then we're ripping it apart, and poking it, and squishing it. Before you know it, I've got a ten-year-old's vocabulary coming out of this child. She's sitting and telling me about how hard things are and things she's worried about for the coming school year. She's sitting instead of rolling all over my floor. We were able to engage and connect and talk. And then we brought Parent in, and then we kind of got curious together and talked about why we needed to start with the body before we used any of our other skills. Before we thought about our thinking and the way that we were behaving, first, we needed to start with making our body feel okay. And it was really simple and straightforward. It took ten minutes. I wish I had that on video.
Jennifer Agee:
Tell me, so, what was happening in her brain and her body as you were doing those interventions? What was going… What's the process behind the scenes that is actually regulating her?
Laurie Belanger:
Sure. One of the things that I've become, in more recent years, very comfortable with and just love the language of is polyvagal theory. So, you know, when we're talking about where they are in terms of being, you know, hypo-regulation or hyper-regulation, whether she's in her sympathetic or, you know, dorsal vagal. And these are all kind of fancy-schmancy sounding, sciency words, but essentially what we're talking about is the window of tolerance, right? So, being outside of her window of tolerance, her nervous system gets hijacked by stress, so she will become dysregulated. So, the way that I'll describe it to Mom is that she literally doesn't have access to her prefrontal cortex. Like, not really. We're not getting a lot going lighting up there in the front part of the brain. And that's where all our discernment lives. And so, our brains, our bodies are hardwired to skip the slowness of the prefrontal cortex where you have to think through things and go straight to reacting when our body thinks there's an emergency. And this kid's body falls into emergency really quickly. And that's part of her trauma history. Victor Frankel used to always say, you know, between the stimulus and the response there is a space, and that's where all our power for changes. I've always been a big Victor Frankel fan. But what I've learned through trauma therapy and understanding this body first, bottom-up processing is really that that space can be shrunk down so small when you've been through a lot of adverse experiences, especially when you're trying to traverse through those developmental milestones, and you're growing as a whole person. And really high-quality therapy that focuses on nervous system regulation as part of therapy helps widen that space. And then you get it back. And you're able to, like, empower your client to be able to make the better choices that everybody wishes they would be able to make. So, it's really very client-empowering. And let me know if I'm a little bit all over the place. One of the things I tell folks is I am completely owning I am one of the ways that ADHD can look all grown up, and I'm excited about this topic, so I'll be like, oh, we're over here and over there. And–
Jennifer Agee:
You're doing great. So, what are.. What I'm hearing really is that a lot of these interventions that you're talking about and with polyvagal theory is how do we increase that window of tolerance so that we have time to actually access maybe some of the other skills before that prefrontal cortex goes offline? So, what are some other things that you do, or tips, or tricks, tools that you can share with therapists who are maybe just really building their toolkit in terms of being able to teach these skills to clients?
Laurie Belanger:
Yeah. I think one of the ones is, you know, breathing strategies have been around forever, right? We all know that they could be helpful. I think most of us know the science even behind why they can be helpful. Yet how many of us are actually really using them in a deeply meaningful way? Even with our clients, how successful are you at getting them to use them? And I think part of it is because, culturally, we're so in our heads. We wanna think our way through things. And when we're working with adults or kids, that's our default. We go to trying to think our way through things. So, in order to be able to use a lot of these regulating strategies, even these physical ones, one of the things I've really latched onto is noticing, so just body noticing. So, not trying to actually do anything. I'll say our job right now is to do nothing. Our job is to just notice what's going on for the body just now.
Jennifer Agee:
Mhmm (affirmative). One of the tips I would give any new therapist is to practice these same things in session with your clients, because explaining them and then having them expected to do it outside of session when they've never successfully seen it done or have it patterned for them, it's very difficult. And, actually, I mean, research shows that clients find sessions more helpful when there is something that we actually do with the clients physically beyond just the talk therapy. So, practicing these things in session is going to help them get away from the sillies of “I look ridiculous doing this or what” because you're gonna look ridiculous with them doing some of these things.
Laurie Belanger:
Oh yeah. In fact, I always tell both kids and adults, I won't ask you to do anything I wouldn't do. Here, I'll go first.
Jennifer Agee:
Mhmm (affirmative).
Laurie Belanger:
And then we'll do it together. And it is so important that, you know, all of these physical regulating strategies that I'm talking about being such a fan of, I really think it's incredibly important for the practitioner to have a practice themselves of learning to be as deeply regulated, you know, that felt safety feeling in your body, to be able to check and slow down with yourself before you go trying to engage with your client at all. Because, you know, Doctor Purvis, who is one of the authors of that TBRI, trust-based relational interventions, one of the things she used to say that really hit me was you cannot bring a child to a place that you are not. And I love that. And whether it's kids or adult clients, the same is true. How often do we come in and out of session, right, like, session after session, and it's like, stop, you need to do more than just go run and warm up a cup of coffee or use the bathroom, even if you're running a couple of minutes behind.
Jennifer Agee:
Yeah. Resetting your own energy.
Laurie Belanger:
Yeah. Exactly. Get back to that peaceful space as best you can, and use those same strategies yourself first so you can be a quality coregulator. Coregulation is such a huge part of therapy.
Jennifer Agee:
It is a massive part of therapy. And then that's one of the things—I'm a clinical supervisor as well—and that I talk to all of my supervisees about, because it plays out in a thousand different ways. I do wanna go back, for the breathing. If you are not, if you're listening and you're like, yeah. I know how to breathe. I'm breathing right now. I want you to look into some specific strategies that research has shown actually create these cascading positive effects in the system. So, belly breathing, for example, a lot of therapists even do not understand that breathing from the chest and breathing from the belly, the diaphragm area, create two different responses in the body, right? Both will get us oxygen. True. Right? But knowing and seeing what that looks like… Actually, there's an amazing Sesame Street video, a little song called belly breathing, where the Sesame Street characters teach them how to belly breathe, and put their hand on their stomach. And when they breathe in, their stomach goes out. And when they breathe out, their stomach goes in, which is really the opposite of what most of us do.
Laurie Belanger:
[INDISCERNIBLE]
Jennifer Agee:
Also, look into box breathing. Right? Everyone has access to a rectangle or a square somewhere in their periphery, most of the time, even if it's your phone. So, using those as guideposts for your breathing of your inhale hold, exhale, hold. Mhmm (affirmative).
Laurie Belanger:
There's another favorite of mine is candle breathing. And what that entails is, you know, the idea is you breathe in through your nose, a good deep breath, and I always tell people, you know, hold your belly, make a big fat belly. And then as you blow out, blow out like you're blowing out a line of candles. And then I'll have people like follow. I'm holding up my index finger in front of my mouth and slowly tracking out, and I'll make it like a game with kids and make a big deal of, like, woah, as I run out of breath. But to breathe out longer than you breathe in actually helps trigger your vagus nerve, which helps you reset and come back into that more neutral space.
Jennifer Agee:
Well, and I love these very practical bits of advice because, again, often you hear the theory, you hear you need to breathe, but what does it look like? We've all blown out a candle before, so I can access that felt experience myself of knowing what it feels like to blow out a candle, and the way you position your mouth so that you're really directional. You know, you're not you're not hah hah breathing all over the cake. Right? You're very targeted in how you're breathing and things like that. So, I appreciate the specific examples. What are some other things that you do to create felt safety in the room for clients or to teach them that?
Laurie Belanger:
Yeah. There's so many little things that you can do in your therapy office that I think we sometimes just gloss right over. One of my favorites is lighting. I'm very particular about the lighting in my office. I use those light bulbs you can get in the grocery store for bug lights, the yellow light bulbs.
Jennifer Agee:
Oh, yeah. Uh-huh (affirmative).
Laurie Belanger:
My office is full of lamps, and they have yellow light bulbs in them. Because one of the things we know—science, time to geek out a little bit—is that, if you have a blue filter on your Kindle or your phone, there's a reason for that. Your eyes take in the spectrum of the yellow light, it tells your nervous system that the day is ending and it's time to rest, right? Rest and reset. This is one of the reasons why people love sunsets and looking at campfires and things like that. So, we think of warmth and coziness and that kind of thing. So, it's relaxing. Whereas, blue light, one of the reasons why everyone hopefully has a blue light filter on their phone—especially if they're looking at their phone less than an hour before going to bed, that's not good for you—is because that blue light is alerting to your nervous system. It sends a signal in directly through your eyes that that is morning light. And the response of your nervous system is to produce more cortisol to help you wake up naturally. So, that's why we have blue light filters on our devices. If you don't, please download one. They're free. And that's why in my office, I encourage yellow lighting. So, I have this calm, cozy kind of feel to my office that is partially just about light and knowing the effect it adds.
Jennifer Agee:
Yeah. Setting up your physical space so that people's systems are primed for success.
Laurie Belanger:
You got it. I also believe very strongly in nurture activities. I feed my clients. It doesn't have to be a lot, but there is something deeply connecting about breaking bread together. So, you know, kids come in, and I'm like, hey., hot chocolate with or without marshmallows? Lemonade? It's something simple. It takes me two minutes. Adults often take me up on, you know, my Keurig and a hot cup of coffee or quick cup of tea. And then we sit together, you know, each with our mugs, and it's connecting. You know, it's got that nurturing, we are 2 humans together. This is not like your pediatrician's office or your, you know, a more formal medical kind of feel. It feels more human and more relational. And, you know, breaking bread together has been something that people have done since the beginning of time to feel more connected. So, that's a simple strategy.
Jennifer Agee:
Absolutely. And most of us have those things, you know, in our office. I even think I have mints on my desk and, like, the little end table that's, you know, that's in front of the clients. And oftentimes, people are always getting into that little candy drawer or that little mint box or whatever, and they notice when I'm running low, they notice when I'm running out, you know? And so, I think there's definitely something to that being offered a beverage, being offered, you know, a snack or whatever is very nurturing. Yeah. For adults and kids. [CROSSTALK]
Laurie Belanger:
Yeah. Exactly. I also… I don't know if people really think a lot about your chairs, your setting, like how many chairs, the options. So, in me running off to go grab a hot chocolate or lemonade, it gives my client a minute to settle in, and they choose where they're gonna sit. I don't have a designated chair in my office. I've got a bean bag on the floor. I've got a big square chair. I've got a couch. I've got one of these little rocker chairs that I think was meant for gaming. I've got a bunch of different options. I usually end up in my orange yoga ball if nobody takes it. but they get to pick out, like, where they feel most comfortable in terms of where you situate yourself in the room. Some people wanna sit close of the door. Some people want to be on the opposite and deep in the corner and, you know. And I wanna give them a minute to figure that out. And so, it provides that natural transition as I go grab a beverage real quick.
Jennifer Agee:
Absolutely. I think of the first sessions that I have with clients, I never go towards a seat when I invite them into the room, when I, you know, walk them back and invite them in. And inevitably, people will ask or I'll just offer, you know, where do you want me to sit? And I'll say, I like all the chairs in here, so you pick whatever feels good to you because I like them all. Doesn't really matter to me, but I like that idea of your system is, whether you know it or not, making choices for you to feel safe in that space. And so, giving them the freedom and the option to do that is a very simple thing, and it costs you nothing.
Laurie Belanger:
Exactly. Exactly. It's really just about tuning in and offering up someone else's nervous system options that might help them feel more steady in your space. And there are just so many little things that you can do like that that, like you mentioned, cost you nothing or very little. You know, I have a big basket of fidgets. My adults play with them as much as the kids. I've got a heavy ball that I toss back and forth. Particularly, for some reason, teenage guys seem to really like that. We'll just toss it back and forth. It's heavy, and I'll do it like, oomph, you know? Just, it's kind of a goof. There's that deep proprioceptive, kind of, aspect to it where you're getting that nice weighted feeling. But it's also something that you're doing between you back and forth, so it's relational as well. And these are different ways to help someone feel more comfortable and able to start talking about some things.
Jennifer Agee:
Yeah. Even with adults and teens, taking a racket ball and bouncing it between the two of you, especially if you're going to opposite hands—let's cross the midline while we're at it, you know—that is extremely both connecting and coregulating, because what you'll find, especially if you get two balls going, which a lot of the teens especially enjoy, but you get the two balls going and you'll find you fall into a rhythm. And that is coregulating without having to say, it’s time to coregulate now. Right? You're being playful, which is also doing all sorts of amazing things in the brain at the same time. And it's getting their system a chance to exhale, to breathe, to come into the space with you, get a little of that chitter chatter out of the way, you know, in the beginning too while their systems are just really easing into the space. It's a gentle way to do that.
Laurie Belanger:
Exactly. And a lot of these things can be done, like you mentioned, in a very playful, natural way without being like, okay, we're doing a skill now. And then later at some point, you can always jump in and interrupt yourself and be like, oh, oh, science moment. Do you know something? This is actually a strategy. Like you just thought of it. You know, and then explaining the science and geeking out a little bit about it. And often, you know, teenagers think, oh, that's quite interesting. And they may even ask you some questions, you know, more about that. But, yeah, having it happen so organically, so naturally and not as, like, a forced tool or strategy but just playfully, you know, with both adults and kids. I think a lot of times—I'm an EMDR therapist and consultant—and so with my consultees, a lot of times, the playfulness just seems to drop out after a certain age. I'm like, why? Stay connected with this version of yourself, because adults have many of those same needs and a lot of those things that kids will gravitate really naturally to to help themselves regulate in such a physical way, adults benefit from these too. They just might be a little encouragement and feeling like it's not weird. It's okay, you know, to do this. So, you know, in my self-effacing, goofy, you know, all over the place, ADHD, nutty therapist way, I kinda help give permission to rock your weird, you know? Just unwind, be yourself, bounce on my yoga ball, you know, see what kinds of sensory inputs help to help you feel a little bit more connected to yourself.
Jennifer Agee:
Yeah. Give yourself permission to explore and try out different things to see what actually fits for you, what's gonna be helpful for you. Absolutely. Before, we're coming, we're getting close on our time, but I want any little tidbits, anything that you really wanna share or that you think could be helpful for our therapist listening to start to integrate, one last tip or piece of advice.
Laurie Belanger:
Oh, gosh. Last tip. Okay. Well, I'm doing actually a full-day workshop on all of this. This is part of why I've been doing the round robins with podcast because I spent my entire summer actually putting together a workshop on just strategies like this for felt safety. And if you had told me 10, 15 years ago that I'd be advocating for things with batteries, I would tell you that you're off your rocker. One of my favorite little things that people can explore is HeartMath. HeartMath is inexpensive biofeedback. So, it's like a little video game that you can play against yourself. It's a downloadable app and a little sensor that you can clip to your ear that measures heart rate variability. And that little device helped me so much during the pandemic. I would take myself out for walks, during the times when I was trying to do telehealth, especially with teenagers over a computer from my bedroom, and it was highly stressful. And I would go out and take a walk and use this little HeartMath device and try to get my breathing in line. And in the hot second I'd start thinking about a client, the little flower would turn red. And I'd be like, okay, slow down, breathe. And it was this great little immediate biofeedback kind of situation that really helped me train myself to be more intentional with the realigning with my own self. So, I have since, since then, had several clients use that both in my office. They use it here to, like, get a little feedback and see how quickly you can notice how quickly you can change something like your heart rate variability. So, it's really cool psychoeducation if you're starting to do mind-body connection and somebody want something a little more tangible. Right? Something they can hold. And it's great immediate feedback. So, that's one of them. And– [CROSSTALK]
Jennifer Agee:
Yeah. That’s a great way to train yourself. Oh, that's wonderful. Well, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing a little bit about how to start to create felt safety in the room. If people are interested in your training or wanna connect with you further, let them know how to get in touch with you.
Laurie Belanger:
Sure. Well, couple of ways. One is it's through the University at Buffalo, School of Social Work Office of Continuing Education. So, if you jump on to their web pages, you can find all kinds of cool trainings, and I'm on there for September 14th. That's my all-day workshop. I also have a website that currently is just grow-with-that.org with the little spacer in between each word. And, it will be changing in September to just be lauriebelanger.com. But for right now, it's grow-with-that.org, and I also have a blog there, if anyone's interested, that covers a lot about relationship, coregulation, felt safety, and all of the things that I consider to be really general skills, but really don't get enough attention. I feel like everybody's running around trying to get advanced certifications in everything. [CROSSTALK]
Jennifer Agee:
And then sometimes we skip the basics.
Laurie Belanger:
Right? And it's like, or we'll give, like, lip service to them. And I'm like, no. You can do a deep dive on the basics. You're never done learning how to improve the therapeutic relationship, how to improve your connection with your clients, so not skimming over that, you know? Like I said, I'm an EMDR therapist, and if you're familiar at all, there's eight phases. Everyone wants to jump ahead, and I am most interested in phase one and two.
Jennifer Agee:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think this is an important thing for more, I guess we call seasoned therapists, to remember, when we are teaching and training, what we know and the knowledge that we've acquired over decades, someone who is freshly out of school does not know all of those things yet, right? So, don't skip over the basic things about teaching someone how to belly breathe, about teaching them what coregulation is, because you didn't know this stuff in the beginning either, right?
Laurie Belanger:
Exactly.
Jennifer Agee:
And so, I want everybody to kinda keep that in mind. Like, don't jump over the basic, what feels like basic things because a lot of this is not taught in grad school. And then people get into these learning environments, and they feel like the only one in the room who doesn't know it. And that's not a good feeling. So, as a leader, as an instructor, please don't skip over the basics. Make sure you explain that because I promise you somebody is listening or somebody's in the room who really wants to know and is embarrassed to ask. But, Laurie, thank you so much for coming on. If you'd like to connect more with me for coaching or future retreats, counselingcommunity.com. I hope you have an amazing day and get out there and live your best dang life.