Understanding Havening: A Novel Approach to Anxiety Relief

Havening Techniques®, also known as Delta Wave Techniques, is a psychosensory treatment that uses simple touch to permanently eliminate unwanted feelings, both somatic and emotional, from distressing memories and events. It is derived from and consistent with current neuroscience literature. Havening is described as easy to learn, capable of self-application, rapid, gentle, and essentially without side effects. It was developed as a result of over 15 years of research into Energy Psychology. The term ‘Havening’ was chosen, and it can also be referred to as Delta Wave Techniques (DWT) due to the neuroscience behind it. Havening, as a psychosensory therapy, uses sensory input to alter the mind/body.

What is Havening Techniques® represent a breakthrough in the rapid and effective treatment of stress-related physical and psychological conditions. Havening uses touch, attention and imagination to trigger electrochemical changes in the brain that alter how memories are processed. Specifically, Havening allows for the depotentiation of traumatically encoded experiences in the amygdala. This means it can target the neurons holding the traumatic experience active in the brain, empowering the brain to release these experiences that act as a trauma filter for present-day information processing. Research suggests that Havening is designed to change the brain to de-traumatise memory and permanently remove its negative effects.

Havening offers a different approach to anxiety compared to many traditional behavioural and cognitive behavioural therapies. These traditional therapies often operate on the notion that changing anxious thoughts and feelings will naturally lead to a more vital life. Newer-generation behaviour therapies, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Havening, tend to focus on domains beyond symptom alleviation and control, such as acceptance, mindfulness, values, meaning, relationships, and quality of life.

Havening can enhance traditional approaches to helping people overcome anxiety in several ways:

• Adjunctive Tool: Havening is not meant to replace particular schools of thought but is beautifully integrative. It can be combined with various therapeutic orientations such as psychoanalytic, CBT, mindfulness-based approaches, NLP, and hypnotherapy.
• Accelerated Progress: By creating an electrochemical environment in the mind and body, Havening can make traditional psychotherapy more effective by removing the amygdala filter from the psychotherapeutic process, allowing individuals to resonate more fully and reach deeper levels more quickly in a safer way.
• Breaking Through Resistance: Havening helps individuals move through resistance in a soft and gentle manner and feel safe going into scary places.
• Rapid Relief: Clinical experience indicates that Havening Techniques® can help heal amygdala-based disorders, including panic attacks and phobias. It can also relieve present-moment emotional discomfort. Some practitioners have found it to be the most effective tool for gently and effectively healing complex PTSD.
• Content-Free Work: A significant advantage of Havening is that it allows practitioners to work with clients content-free, meaning the client does not have to re-traumatise themselves by detailing the traumatic event.
• Enhanced Safety: Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a trauma expert, emphasises the need for a safe place to heal trauma. Havening provides that safe place electrochemically for the patient. Clients are often in a more grounded, clear, and peaceful state after a Havening session, regardless of their starting point.

The use of Havening positively impacts several mental processes:

• Memory Processing: Havening is designed to de-traumatise the memory of distressing events and permanently remove their negative emotional effects. It achieves this by synaptic (receptor) depotentiation (removal) on neurons in the amygdala, disrupting the pathway laid down during the encoding of the traumatic event.
• Emotional Regulation: Havening can help individuals self-regulate their emotions. By releasing the stress of upsetting events, it can contribute to building a resilient landscape that protects the brain from encoding negative experiences. It can also help in managing present-moment emotional distress.
• Sense of Safety: Havening creates a safe environment electrochemically for the patient, which is crucial for healing trauma. This sense of safety allows clients to access and process difficult emotions more effectively.
• Resilience Building: Techniques like Affirmational Havening and Hopeful Havening are specifically used to increase psychological well-being and resilience. Affirmational Havening helps individuals connect with a sense of hope and purposeful action, focusing on post-traumatic accomplishments and improving resilience.
• Stress Reduction: Havening can reduce baseline stress and the stress stored in the body. It helps individuals manage and reduce negative stress effectively.
• Accessing Inner Resources: Havening can help clients access a sense of self, which can be a profoundly spiritual experience. It can also facilitate access to a beautiful, hypnotic, freely-associating state where the client feels completely in control.

Havening is considered a tool, not a therapy. This means it can be adapted and integrated into any therapeutic or non-therapeutic modality, with its application depending on the practitioner’s scope of practice, skill level, and ethical guidelines. Self-Havening is also a valuable tool that clients can learn to use for self-care, state management (e.g., managing exam nerves or pre-interview anxiety), and building positive resilience.

Summary

Havening Techniques® is a psychosensory method using touch, attention, and imagination to create electrochemical changes in the brain, primarily leading to the depotentiation of traumatically encoded memories in the amygdala. This approach differs from traditional anxiety treatments that often focus on cognitive restructuring and symptom management by directly addressing the neurological encoding of emotional distress. Havening enhances traditional therapies by acting as an integrative and rapid tool that can break through resistance, provide content-free processing, and create a sense of safety, thereby accelerating therapeutic progress. It positively impacts mental processes such as memory processing, emotional regulation, the sense of safety, and resilience. Self-Havening empowers individuals with a tool for self-care and stress management.