Psychosensory Therapy: An Overview

Psychosensory therapy involves the application of non-specific sensory input to generate an extrasensory response to effect a beneficial change, either transiently or permanently, within the brain. It uses sensory input to alter a person’s moods, sensations, thinking, and behaviour.

Psychosensory therapy differs from talk therapy (psychotherapy) and drug therapy (psychopharmacology):

• In psychotherapy, the active ingredient is talk/transference.
• In drug therapy, it is the pharmaceutical.
• In psychosensory therapy, the active ingredient is called an electroceutical. An electroceutical is anything that employs electrical stimulation to affect and modify brain functioning.

Examples of psychosensory therapies include:

• Havening Therapy Techniques
• Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
• Thought Field Therapy (TFT)
• Yoga
• Acupuncture/Acupressure
• Exercise and related activities
• Aromatherapy
• Craniosacral Therapy
• Meditation/Relaxation
• Biofeedback/Neurofeedback
• Music Therapy
• Massage Therapy

Many psychosensory therapies have been studied. Some activate the mind with a particular memory, while others do not. Those that engage memory may de-encode the emotional, cognitive, and sensory components of a traumatising event. All psychosensory therapies can downregulate the response to stressors and prevent the generation of symptoms.

Havening

In the psychosensory technique called Havening, touch is used to internally create electroceutical delta waves in the brain. Havening allows for the depotentiation of traumatically encoded experiences in the amygdala, targeting the neurons that are holding the traumatic experience active in the brain and empowering the brain to release these experiences. It incorporates soothing touch to four locations that exhibit the strongest response to tactile stimulation: the brow, cheek, shoulders, and hands. Havening touch decreases the impact of pain and stress while enhancing feelings of well-being by changing the electrochemical state of the brain, ultimately giving the amygdala a safe haven in which to heal.

Additional benefits of psychosensory therapy

• Addresses the physical aspects of panic: Body-based therapies like Somatic Experiencing or sensorimotor psychotherapy can help address the physical aspects of the panic response and restore resilience.
• May be more efficient than CBT for trauma: There is growing evidence that CBT is less efficient than somatic approaches and sometimes even counterproductive when treating traumatic stress.
• Mindful touch: Mindful touch techniques, such as self-havening, incorporate soothing touch.
• Targets trauma: Some psychosensory therapies have the potential to de-encode the emotional, cognitive and sensory components of a traumatising event.

Summary: Psychosensory therapy

Psychosensory therapy uses sensory input to alter moods, sensations, thinking and behaviour. Unlike talk and drug therapies, psychosensory therapy employs sensory input to generate an extrasensory response, affecting beneficial change in the brain. Techniques like Havening use touch to create delta waves, depotentiate traumatic experiences, and provide a healing haven for the amygdala. By addressing both the mind and body, psychosensory therapy offers an alternative or complementary approach to overcoming anxiety, phobias, stress and panic attacks, with potential advantages over traditional methods like CBT, especially in treating trauma.