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Kelly Mahler
MS, OTR/L

Hi there, I’m Kelly Mahler

Welcome! I’m Kelly Mahler. As a passionate occupational therapist that is fired up to change the world for the better, you'll find me with lots to share, plenty of resources, and helpful blog posts. I'm so glad you're here!

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Must Reads

Interoception Assessment: Dilemmas and Practical Solutions

Must Reads

Toileting + Interoception: Tuning Into Inner Signals

Must Reads

Interoception and Alexithymia

Must Reads

Unsafe, Unheard & Misunderstood: Trauma & Neurodiversity

Must Reads

5 Keys to Supporting Behavior Regulation

The Power of Interoception-Informed Yoga

Hi, everyone. Kelly Mahler here, occupational therapist, and I want to take the time to talk about the power of Interoception-Informed Yoga. Yoga is known by many people from all around the world. It’s an ancient, mind-body practice. There’s so many different forms of yoga and it is utilized in so many different settings from schools to therapy clinics, to formal yoga studios. Yoga is amazing because it can be adapted to meet the needs of a wide variety of learners in a wide variety of settings.

 

Yoga can be adapted for many different:

  • ages
  • learning styles
  • backgrounds and so forth

Research shows that yoga clearly has a lot of benefits. One of those benefits is improving interoceptive awareness, or nurturing that interoceptive awareness, and we wanted to give some tips on how to use yoga in an interoception-informed way, so that you can get the best interoception outcomes.

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6 Principles of The Interoception Curriculum

Hi everyone. I’m Kelly Mahler, Occupational Therapist. I want to take the time to talk about what makes interoception based supports so different then any other currently used approach out there when we’re talking about emotion regulation approaches or behavioral approaches. Interoception is so very different. I wanted to focus in on six principles that really sets the interoception based work, and our interoception curriculum apart from all of the other frameworks and approaches.

 

Principle #1

The Interoception Curriculum is set up to be a process where we are validating and honoring each person’s unique inner experience. What we know is that we all have very different inner experiences.

  • What your body feels like when you’re hungry is different than what my body feels like when I’m hungry.
  • What your body feels like when you’re anxious different than what my body feels like when I’m anxious.

Interoception based work is a process that is honoring and validating each person’s unique inner experience. This is quite different than other approaches that might be rooted in a process of trying to make someone more typical or having more typical experience or to act more typical. The interoception curriculum is completely against that notion and really it’s about honoring and validating our uniqueness.

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3 Tips for Helping Our Clients Develop Theory of OWN Mind

My good friend and colleague, Peter Vermeulen, and I have been discussing a certain topic lately, and that is something called Theory of Own Mind. In the field of neuro-differences, we have an over-focus on Theory of Mind which refers to our ability to think about how other people are feeling, thinking, etc. However, what we DON’T do enough of is nurturing Theory of Own Mind and helping our clients to discover more about themselves—to understand their own bodies, feelings, experiences and to learn what it is that they need to successfully flourish and thrive.

 

This means increasing the use of supports that help a person to discover and understand more about themselves, including:

  • understand their own strengths & interests
  • understand what they need to feel safe
  • understand their own inner interoceptive experiences
  • understand their own emotions
  • understand their uniqueness and see all of the value that they have to offer the world

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Toilet

Toileting + Interoception: Tuning Into Inner Signals

Most toileting programs have a strong behavioral influence emphasizing external means of reinforcement such as praise and rewards. This exclusive focus on external motivators fails to acknowledge the importance of internal factors that contribute to a person’s inner motivation needed for successful toileting. 

One of the most common questions that comes up  in our lively Interoception Facebook Group is around toileting :). So, in this blog I wanted to focus on a big thing that is missing from most toileting programs, and that is something called interoception.  If you’re not familiar with interoception, it is a sense within all of our bodies that allows many of us to notice internal sensations or internal body signals such as a racing heart or a growling stomach or tight shaky muscles or hot skin, or a full bladder. And being able to notice these body signals serves as really important clues to what is going on in our bodies and what our bodies need to be regulated. And so that’s why one of the most common questions that we hear in our Interoception Facebook Group is about toileting. It’s great to see that professionals and caregivers are starting to become aware of the fact that interoception plays a vital role in successful toileting—both for successful urination or successful defecation….in simpler terms, successful peeing and successful pooping.

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woman about to cross street

Unsafe, Unheard & Misunderstood: Trauma & Neurodiversity

 

Many times, traditional trauma viewpoints do not fully capture the experience of neurodivergent learners resulting in many children and adults being misunderstood and many underlying needs overlooked. 

The following blog is based upon my collaboration with my good friend and colleague, Kim Clairy MS, OTR/L who is autistic. We often do live online courses and in-person trainings on this topic among many other topics. You can learn more about Kim at www.kimclairy.com. 

 

Trauma is a hot topic that is thankfully getting a lot of attention in research and practice right now. Evidence supports the importance of trauma-informed care. Therefore as therapists, our practice should include a solid understanding of trauma and the influence that it has on the brain and body of our clients. 

Trauma is a response to an event or series of events that causes someone to feel unsafe, threatened and/or severely distressed. Traditional trauma viewpoints typically define a set of common events that may result in trauma such as abuse, neglect and household dysfunction. However, each person experiences life events differently, and the exact same event may be traumatic for one person but may not be traumatic for the next. In other words, trauma is dependent on how each person experiences or responds to an event(s). Therefore, each person’s unique responses should always be considered and validated.

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Christmas Tree

3 Tips for Managing Holiday Meltdowns

For many of us around the world, we are in the midst of the holiday season. And although the holiday season can be exciting and joyful, for many it can be a time of disrupted routines, new sensory stimuli in the environment and a time of uncertainty— especially this holiday season combined with a pandemic. All of these variables bundled together create the perfect storm for dysregulation leading to meltdowns for our clients, our children, and even ourselves. And so, I’m here to provide three tips for managing holiday meltdowns.

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What is Social Emotional Learning?

Use Our SEL Curriculum to Create the Foundation for Emotional Well-Being Social Emotional Learning—or SEL—is the process in which we all develop … Read more

Cards with school supplies

Part 1: Tune Into Body Signals

3-Part Series to Help Kids Succeed at School

With a new school year upon us, I thought it’d be helpful to layout a three part series filled with tips and strategies to help ease everyone back into the school year. In my area, kids have just started back to school or they will be starting back in the next few weeks. As we all know, a regular school year is a big transition in itself, but in the midst of this pandemic, where everything feels uncertain there is definitely more anxiety all around—for everyone involved—teachers, school staff, students, parents and caregivers. And so, whether school is happening virtually or in person, I wanted to share three tips to ease anxiety. Of course these tips are helpful for children, however you will see that these tips ultimately benefit the whole village of support it takes to transition our kids into a new school year — school professionals, parents and caregivers. In this blog we will talk about Tip 1: Tune Into Body Signals

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chalk drawing of a mind: Daily Activities That Can Help Develop Self-Regulation

Daily Activities That Can Help Develop Self-Regulation

For many of us, understanding our own emotions can be a very complex or complicated task. Luckily, our bodies provide many vital clues to our emotions. For example, tense muscles could be a clue that we are frustrated or a racing heart could be a clue that we are anxious. However, many adults and children are not in tune with these inner body signals. Missing these essential clues can make the emotional experience unclear, leading to difficulty managing emotions. That’s where interoception and self-regulation come into play.

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