Sensory Attachment Intervention (SAI)

SAI is an approach developed by Eadaoin Bhreathnach, focusing on an attachment and sensory based intervention. The approach hypothesises that negative experiences in the womb and in early childhood impact on an individual’s capacity to cope with stress throughout life. There is a tendency to either: flee and fight, freeze and dissociate, or fluctuate between these stress states when there is a hint or a reminder of traumatic events.

Such arousal states can impact on filtering out “irrelevant” sensory experiences such as background sights and sounds and sensory systems which can become sensitised to the possibility of danger. Intervention promotes co-regulation and therapeutic attachments, focusing on facilitating modulation of the body senses through the just right combination of up regulating and down regulating experiences. This in turn enables higher level sensory, emotional and cognitive functioning.