The Havening technique for anxiety represents an innovative approach that is increasingly being integrated with traditional therapies, including anxiety coaching, to enhance their effectiveness and promote lasting changes. It offers new tools and strategies that address the neurobiological underpinnings of anxiety, leading to potentially more rapid and profound results.
How Havening Technique for Anxiety Enhances Traditional Therapies
- Addresses Amygdala-Based Disorders: The havening technique for anxiety is particularly effective in healing amygdala-based disorders, including panic attacks, phobias, and PTSD, which are often central to many anxiety conditions. By targeting the neurons that hold traumatic experiences active in the brain, it empowers the brain to release these experiences that serve as a trauma filter for present-day information processing.
- Integrative Approach: A significant advantage of the havening technique for anxiety is its adjunctive nature. It is not intended to replace traditional schools of thought but rather to be integrated with them, enhancing their effectiveness. This means it can be used alongside talk therapy, CBT, hypnotherapy, and other modalities.
- Facilitates Deeper and Faster Healing: The havening technique for anxiety creates an electrochemical environment in the mind and body that removes the amygdala filter from the psychotherapeutic process. This allows traditional psychotherapy to resonate more fully within the individual, leading to deeper levels of processing and healing in a safer and quicker way. It can also break through resistance in a gentle manner, helping individuals feel safe when exploring challenging or scary experiences.
- Content-Free Application: One of the unique aspects of the havening technique for anxiety is that it can be applied without the client needing to delve into the specific details of a traumatic event. This content-free approach can be particularly beneficial for individuals who find it difficult or re-traumatising to revisit past experiences.
New Tools and Strategies Introduced by Havening Technique for Anxiety
- Sensory Input for Mind-Body Alteration: Havening is described as a psychosensory therapy that uses sensory input, primarily touch, to alter the mind-body connection. Specific touch modalities, such as crossing the arms and rubbing the shoulders or face, are used to induce delta waves in the brain, which are associated with relaxation and healing.
- Amygdala Depotentiation: The havening technique for anxiety allows for the depotentiation of traumatically encoded experiences in the amygdala. This means that it can target and deactivate the neurons that are holding the traumatic experience active in the brain, enabling the brain to release these experiences.
- Self-Havening: Clients can be taught how to self-haven, providing them with a tool they can use independently to manage stress, anxiety, and emotional distress in their daily lives.
- Various Havening Types: There are variations of the havening technique for anxiety such as Transpirational Havening (used to diffuse chronic emotional states), Affirmational Havening and Hopeful Havening (increases psychological well being and resilience), Outcome Havening (used to alter the outcome of a recalled event) and Role Havening (allows an important individual involved with the trauma to speak).
Lasting Changes and Benefits of Using Havening Technique for Anxiety Alongside Established Approaches
- Reduced Reliance on Old Patterns: By depotentiating traumatic memories, havening technique for anxiety creates a freedom to shift perceptions. Clients are then better able to address any secondary gains they were getting from having the trauma dominate their mind and coach themselves into better ways of managing their world.
- Long-Term Efficacy: Havening can provide quick, effective, and long-lasting results. Some practitioners have found that it can complete shifts that other modalities, such as hypnotherapy and EMDR, have only partially achieved.
- Increased Resilience: The havening technique for anxiety helps individuals process and build their own resilience, enabling them to find their own solutions and cope with future stressors.
- Improved Integration: For individuals with a history of trauma, havening technique for anxiety can help heal multiple layers of trauma while also building a new sense of self that is more resourceful, worthy, and resilient.
- Paradigm Shift: Havening represents a paradigm shift in how traumatic experiences are approached and treated.
Cautions
- Integration with Other Therapies: Havening technique for anxiety is best used in conjunction with other therapies.
- Professional Use: Although self-havening can be a useful skill, the application of havening technique for anxiety to address encoded trauma is best handled by a professional.
- Skilled Practitioners: Havening requires experience and expertise.
Summary
The havening technique for anxiety is an innovative psychosensory therapy that enhances traditional approaches to anxiety treatment by addressing the neurobiological roots of trauma and promoting emotional release. It offers new tools and strategies, such as amygdala depotentiation and self-havening, that can lead to faster, deeper, and more lasting changes. By integrating havening with established therapies and anxiety coaching, practitioners can provide more comprehensive and effective support for individuals seeking to overcome anxiety and build resilience.