Sensory Integration Education

Transitions can be challenging – even the seemingly insignificant ones. From moving away from a favourite activity to starting a new school year, transitions involve changes in attention, sensory input, sequencing and, for many, an emotional and interoceptive experience. 

In her latest Thoughts from a Therapist blog, Anna Stock-Willis explores why transitions can feel so uncomfortable, how anxiety can sometimes be misinterpreted as physical illness, and the important role SI therapists can play in helping clients understand and navigate what’s happening in their bodies.

For many, transitions are uncomfortable. There are big transitions, like starting a new school or job. Or small transitions, like moving from eating our breakfast to brushing our teeth. 

For parents, myself included, it is so easy to underestimate the little transitions of the day. When my children are happily playing and I interrupt with “Come on, time to put your shoes on, let’s get going!” – it’s the equivalent of someone coming in currently whilst I write this and shouting “Right, time to go to the gym!” - I’ll meet it with resistance. Not because I don’t want to go to the gym, I like the gym. But because right now, my focus is here. Granted, I may have been told this morning I’m going to the gym and given reminders. That will have helped somewhat, but it is still a shift, particularly if my concept of time isn’t very well developed.

It requires some level of sequencing, sensory changes like putting my feet into trainers (pretty shocking in itself right now after a summer of flip flops!), and potentially draining social contact. It’s far easier to ignore the demand until it becomes unignorable. 

And then there’s the big changes. A new school year. I can still viscerally feel in my body those ‘back to school’ nerves. If you conjure up that night-before-school in early September feeling, where can you feel it in your body? (Add in the Antiques Roadshow theme song if it helps… Sunday night classic from my childhood that instantly gives me long-outdated anxiety about the Monday morning to come!)

For decades, genuinely, I used to think I was ill. Coincidentally, always ill when I needed to do something in front of the class like speak out loud, or on a Sunday evening. It took me a long time to figure out what anxiety felt like in my body and not categorise everything as illness. So from a sensory viewpoint, I was registering the interoceptive input, but my perception was erroneous. 

This is a huge role for us as SI therapists – to help our clients’ interoceptive perception. Help them make sense of their interoceptive world, particularly in times of change like transitions. We can help hold space to explore what things feel like in their body, give a vocabulary of words to describe their inner experience, and then the tools to make things feel better. 

Wishing you the space and time to listen to your body this autumn.

Anna 

Thoughts From a Therapist is a regular series written by Advanced SI Practitioner Anna Stock-Willis about something that piqued her professional interest or inspired her in some way over the last month. Anna, an occupational therapist and owner of Active Play Therapies.