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The "two-person dance" of co-regulation can powerfully restore emotional equilibrium.

Mothers often provide the first experience of co-regulation, shaping a person's emotional resilience.

Intimate relationships serve as co-regulation's greatest testing ground.

For virtually half a century as a practicing psychologist, I’ve “preached the gospel” of emotional self-sufficiency as a sparkling jewel in the crown of optimal mental health. Likewise, its conceptual next of kin, emotion regulation and self-soothing, have always had my unqualified endorsement and recommendation as universally coveted abilities that should have a prominent place in everyone’s self-management repertoire.

But as important as these self-care capacities are, they may be outranked by the transcendent value of co-regulation. For centuries, the advantages of co-regulation and its allied concepts have populated the pages of a broad swath of literature in theology, philosophy, and, more recently, psychology.

For instance, the highly valued, eagerly researched science on emotional intelligence regards co-regulation as a fundamentally integral part of its family of concepts on psychological maturity, albeit it is set apart by its unique function of using one’s own nervous system to help a distressed other regulate their intense emotions. Because of co-regulation’s distinction as a two-person enterprise, as opposed to what one does for oneself to manage their emotions, it may be the highest-ranking member in this family of related concepts.

Similarly, in 1996, researchers McCaslin and Good defined co-regulation as the interaction between two or more individuals where those in caregiver........

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