In this second episode of Reconsidering Regulation, I’m joined by my dear friend and colleague Katie Fusco.
We share that we are both Aware Parenting instructors, while speaking only for ourselves (not for Aware Parenting, the Aware Parenting Institute (and for Katie, not the NHS, or Katie’s NHS trust).
We explore why the terms regulation, dysregulation, and co-regulation can lack clarity and how that can in be potentially harmful; particularly because different paradigms use the same words to mean very different things.
Katie describes her initial visceral “no” to the term regulation, shares its roots and meanings (including control, restriction, conformity, and governance), and explains how the concept is often used without nuance in professional spaces.
We discuss how these terms can be used to shame people (including children) for feeling and expressing big feelings, and Katie gives examples of how regulation frameworks can be applied in unhelpful ways in many systems.
I share my ideas about how regulation language can echo long cultural histories of believing that there is something inherently 'wrong' with human beings, especially our bodies and feelings, including moral and behavioural frameworks.
We talk about the popularity of regulation in parenting and other contexts, and I reference James J. Gross’s coining of the term, and share about how it has spread into many fields and social media.
Throughout, we emphasise welcoming feelings: especially crying, as an innate biological healing process, as well as the importance of precision, clarity, and honesty about what practices actually do (for example, Katie talks about the potential of naming diversion, distraction, dissociation, or suppression when that’s what’s happening, alongside plenty of compassion).
Katie talks about the difference between teaching about emotions versus offering listening and presence, and how the concept of “appropriate” emotional expression can function as shaming.
I connect this to my Marion Method map of the Disconnected Domination Culture (DDC), where disconnection is required before domination can occur, and we talk about the wider implications for empathy, community, and power.
Katie shares lived experience as a parent and in perinatal mental health work, including how being listened to without agenda supported her capacity to welcome feelings even more.
We end by welcoming responses from viewers, emphasising curiosity and compassion, and Katie shares that she can be reached on Instagram at @thecryingclinic.
00:00 Welcome + What This Conversation Is (and Isn’t) About
00:46 Why “Regulation” Isn’t an Aware Parenting Term
02:27 Katie’s Background (NHS) + Speaking Only for Ourselves
04:38 Truth-Telling Without Judgment: The Meaning Behind This Series
07:03 Words Affect Power: How “Regulation” Can Shame and Disconnect
11:05 Katie’s Visceral “No” + The Etymology of Regulation
22:37 Ambiguity and Regulation
33:07 Marion’s Big Picture Lens: History, Culture, and the “New Scientific Cloak”
47:16 More Nuance, More Feeling-Language: Beyond Regulated vs Dysregulated
50:38 Babies Know How to Heal: Crying, Connection, and the Cost of Suppression
01:02:13 DDC Critique: “Appropriate for Whom?” and Regulation as Control-in-Disguise
01:08:06 Big Feelings Are an Apt Response (and the DDC Would Collapse)
01:11:09 Supporting Children to Feel the Full Range of Their Feelings
01:25:03 Generational Change: Embodied Listening to Crying (A Family Story)
01:28:09 Culture, Conditioning & Colonisation: How Disconnection Gets Passed Down
01:37:46 Empathy Can’t Be Taught: It's experienced and Internalised (A Shared Moment between...
2 hrs and 13 mins