iERT SKILLS TOOLBOX

You have now been taught the four regulation skills we use in iERT — observing, allowing, distancing, and reframing. We teach these mindful regulation skills in this sequence because they in order of least elaborative to most elaborative. We encourage you to use them in the order we introduced them in hopes that the early, less elaborative, skills will be sufficient to restore clarity for counteraction, but that the more elaborative skills remain available if needed. Use as many skills as necessary, in order, to gain clarity for counteraction.

Practicing these skills off-line (e.g., longer, scheduled practice) and in-the-moment (e.g., briefer, impromptu) are akin to working out in a gym or rehearsing a musical instrument. The more we practice the off-line versions of these skills, the more effective we will be in using the skills in-the-moment, in emotionally intense or challenging situations.