Skip to main content
One preset in this category — Dan Siegel’s upstairs/downstairs brain diagram, a staple of pediatric and family-therapy psychoeducation.

​
Upstairs / downstairs brain (Siegel)

Two stacked bands with a stairs visual between them:
  • Upstairs brain (top, green): thinking · planning · feelings about feelings · calm · curious · choices
  • Downstairs brain (bottom, red): strong emotions · fight/flight/freeze · fast · automatic · no thinking
The stairs drawn between the bands make the metaphor concrete — moving from downstairs to upstairs takes effort, and the path goes step by step. Use it for: psychoeducation with kids, adolescents, and the parents of either. The metaphor lands faster than any neuroscience explanation of cortex vs. amygdala — kids understand “upstairs and downstairs” the moment they see it. The clinical points the diagram makes without you having to spell them out:
  • When the downstairs is in charge, there’s no upstairs. A kid in a meltdown isn’t being “bad” — their downstairs brain has taken over and their upstairs is offline.
  • Getting back upstairs takes time and support. You don’t reason with someone whose downstairs is in charge; you co-regulate until their upstairs is back online.
  • Practice climbing the stairs strengthens the path. Repeated experiences of moving from downstairs to upstairs (with help) literally build the neural connection between them over time.
The clinical move with a kid: drop the preset, walk through the two brains, ask them to point to which brain is in charge when they’re upset / when they’re calm. They get it immediately. The clinical move with parents: drop the preset, explain that when their child is in a meltdown they’re downstairs — and that the parent’s job is to be the upstairs brain for them until they can find their own. This single reframe shifts a lot of family dynamics. Search keywords the picker matches: Siegel, Whole Brain Child, cortex, amygdala, kids, pediatric. Pairs well with the window of tolerance (trauma presets) — the same physiology explained at two different levels of abstraction.

Presets overview

All 29 worksheets.

Trauma + somatic

Window of tolerance, polyvagal ladder.

Mindfulness + ACT

5-4-3-2-1 grounding works for kids too.