The DBT Self-Soothing Kit: Taking a Break from My Frontal Lobes

Several weeks into the group sessions, I learned about the benefits of a “Self-Soothing Kit.” My DBT manual described it as a way “to tolerate painful events and emotions when you can’t make things better right away.” Key word: tolerate.

Components must include something for each of the five senses: tasting, touching, smelling, feeling, seeing, and hearing. Examples from the group members included items like a few pieces of favorite chocolate, scented hand lotion, music downloads, a soft blanket, a beautiful vista on a postcard.

Even without explanation, the kit struck me as a comforting and calming idea. But I also wanted to understand how this worked in my brain neurologically. I already knew that the frontal lobes just behind my forehead were where my brain activity hung out when I was worrying, over-thinking, imagining the worst, doing twenty things at once, and mentally running in circles.

What I’d forgotten from biology class, however, was that the parietal lobes are what’s at work when I am doing arithmetic, reading, sensing temperature changes, being aware of body movements, experiencing smells, or eating. At the back of my brain the occipital lobes process images from my eyes and link them to memories of other images. Under my parietal and frontal lobes are my temporal lobes. They are how my brain responds to music and sounds. The occipital lobes also integrate memories and sensations from the other four senses. 

When I am self-soothing, I can almost picture the shift of electrical activity away from the front of my brain. I see “lights” coming on in other parts of my brain which I deliberately activate by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and feeling something pleasant. 

For example, one of my panic triggers is smelling stale tobacco smoke, strong deodorant, and cooking grease on a man I don’t know. My self-soothing kit includes a bit of peppermint oil to pat under my nose if I can’t walk away from it right away. This avoids the chain reaction that occurs when the first smell hits the occipital lobes, integrates with memories, and lights up my frontal lobes with a firestorm of toxic activity.

Instead, by immediately using a different fragrance from my kit, I shift the area of brain activity to a more pleasant pathway. 

If you don’t have PTSD or panic disorder, you might not fully grasp the impact of this simple act. But for me, the change was a big one. A year and a half ago, I would have been mentally frantic and emotionally caught up in a cycle of revulsion, traumatic memory, helplessness, panic thoughts, more revulsion, and so on. 

I make no scientific claims and have no research that this is why it works for me. I can only say from experience, it does. Eureka!

To learn more about the anatomy of the brain: www.ninds.nih.gov