AN INTRODUCTION TO HAVENING.

AN INTRODUCTION TO HAVENING TECHNIQUES

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Havening Touch® is a wonderfully gentle, intuitive, self-healing process using inbuilt biological healing mechanisms. The developer of Havening, Dr Ronald Ruden, has elucidated the complete pathway by which traumatic events get ‘hard-wired’ into a part of the brain called the Amygdala. He also discovered a very rapid molecular mechanism for permanently deleting traumatic memories, which works in minutes. The key to healing trauma is to create in the brain a strong signal of safety, which activates the molecular mechanism that deletes the traumatic memory. During Havening, the brain is literally rewired to remove the effects of trauma. If you are a science geek and want to know the molecular mechanisms, you can read the scientific paper here.

The signals of safety are generated by applying very specific forms of soothing touch to the hands, upper arms and face. Neuroscientists discovered about ten years ago that we have specialised nerves in the skin with the sole purpose of detecting a soothing stroke from a warm object, such as a hand. These nerves send signals directly into the emotional centres of the brain to create a sense of deep safety and connection. These mechanisms of soothing touch have evolved in mammals and they form part of a natural mechanism for recovering from traumatic events.

The touch can be applied by the practitioner to the client, or else clients can apply the soothing touch to themselves during a session of Havening, guided by the practitioner.

Havening Touch also works very effectively via video call, so help can be given at a distance.

You will not be re-traumatised during Havening

Some of my clients have been further traumatised, during other kinds of therapy, by having to describe their most horrifying experiences. I want to reassure you that during Havening we never need to know the details of your trauma. When we are dealing with traumatic memories, we simply ask the client to recall the event very briefly, then we use distractions to divert your attention away from the trauma. A brief recall is all that is required, to activate the nerve circuits that encode the trauma, then se can precisely target the trauma delete function. The process does not take away the factual memory – it just erases the emotional and body reactions that get triggered when a traumatic memory is reactivated.

Your safety is the first priority

Where there is complex trauma (often starting in early life), the journey of healing may take unexpected twists and turns. We often use the analogy of peeling the layers off an onion. As we delete the more recent trauma, deeper layers may emerge, which are linked to more severe trauma. So symptoms can get temporarily worse.

How our body copes with trauma is to assess, at the time, if we have the emotional resources and resilience to deal with threatening life events. If we are overwhelmed, the trauma gets buried in the subconscious and stays there until we feel safe enough to address it. That’s the power of Havening, to create a profound sense of safety and to allow the hidden trauma to emerge and be healed, layer by layer. As this process unfolds, we often gain access to early life memories and the causes of trauma can be identified and healed.

With any new client, the first step is to assess the degree of emotional vulnerability and resilience. In many clients, we can step rapidly into addressing the trauma. In vulnerable clients, we may spend some time using Havening to build safety and resilience before we tackle the underlying problems.   An example.   A client came to me completely  overwhelmed with regard to the lack of care and over use of drugs her  mum was experience in care.  With one session, it helped her over with the emotional trauma to allow her to think more clearly and work through issues with clarity.