Retuning a Dysregulated World - Psychotherapy Networker
We live in a world that rarely stops. Between the relentless pace of modern demands and the constant stream of news and noise through our devices, many of us arrive at the end of the day feeling more like we've survived than lived. We long for connection — with our children, our partners, ourselves — but our bodies are stuck in a hum of protection that makes that connection feel just out of reach.
Kim Barthel, along with Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and Relationship Restoration Guide Leah Dawang, explores exactly this in a newly published piece for Psychotherapy Networker: Retuning a Dysregulated World.
At its heart, the article is about something deceptively simple — listening. Not as a passive act, but as a biological pathway back to safety. Drawing on the work of researcher Stephen Porges and the foundational observations of occupational therapist A. Jean Ayres, Kim and Leah trace the deep neurophysiological connection between sound and our sense of safety. The middle ear muscles literally change how we hear based on our internal state. In protection, we filter for threat. In safety, we open to connection.
The piece introduces listening therapies — including Porges's Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) and the Rest and Restore Protocol (RRP) — as powerful, bottom-up tools that don't ask anything of the thinking brain. They work through sensation, gently guiding the nervous system from survival back toward its natural baseline: belonging and connection.
The story of Maria — a mother sitting in her car with the engine running, unable to walk through the door to her own home — is one many of us will recognize. It's a tender and honest portrait of what it means to be dysregulated in a dysregulated world, and what becomes possible when the body finds its way back to safety.
This is a must-read for therapists, educators, caregivers, and anyone who has ever felt stuck behind a glass wall from the life they want to be living.
Read the full article here: Retuning a Dysregulated World