Exploring the Havening Technique for Grounding
Havening:
The Art of Coming Back to Yourself
A remarkably simple psychosensory technique for interrupting the intensity of an emotional trigger and finding your way back to the present.
Havening is one of those techniques that looks almost too simple to be useful. It involves touch, attention, and a little distraction. Yet I have seen it produce immediate grounding in clients who are caught in an emotional response that feels much bigger than the situation in front of them.
The Havening Techniques are a psychosensory approach that uses sensory input, particularly gentle touch, together with attention and distraction. One of the theories behind Havening involves a process called amygdala depotentiation.
I think of it as an “amygdala massage.” Not because we are literally massaging the amygdala, but because we are giving the nervous system a different sensory experience while the emotional response is active.
And that is what makes Havening interesting to me.
“It is something you can have with you.”
The practical value of self-HaveningWhat Is Havening?
Havening uses gentle, repetitive self-touch combined with attention and distraction.
The classic Havening Touch includes gently stroking the upper arms from the shoulders toward the elbows, rubbing the palms together, or gently touching other areas such as the hands or face.
I generally have my clients self-soothe rather than having me provide the touch.
I prefer this because the person learns something they can do themselves. They do not have to wait for an appointment, find a therapist, or have another person physically present.
You can use it sitting in your car, at home, before a difficult conversation, after an upsetting phone call, or whenever you notice yourself becoming emotionally hijacked.
The goal is not to sit there and analyze the entire story.
The goal is to interrupt the response.
Why Would Touch Matter?
When something triggers us, the reaction can happen incredibly quickly.
A memory, image, thought, tone of voice, smell, or situation can suddenly produce anxiety, anger, fear, tension, or the urge to fight, flee, or freeze.
By the time the rational mind catches up, the body may already be reacting.
This is where I find Havening useful.
Touch
Gentle repetitive touch gives the brain and body another sensory signal to process.
Attention
Your attention moves away from becoming completely absorbed in the emotional response.
Distraction
You introduce something simple and neutral, such as counting steps or imagining a peaceful place.
A Different State
You are changing what the brain and body are doing in that moment.
The Amygdala Connection
The amygdala is involved in detecting emotionally significant information and coordinating responses to perceived threat. It also participates in the emotional processing of memories and associations.
When a traumatic or highly stressful experience becomes strongly associated with a particular cue, that cue can later produce an immediate response.
You may know intellectually that you are safe, but your body reacts before your thinking mind has much of a chance to intervene.
The theory behind Havening is that particular forms of sensory input and attention during recall may interfere with the processes that maintain the emotional intensity of an encoded memory.
This is where the term “amygdala depotentiation” comes from.
There is an interesting neuroscience theory behind the technique involving synaptic potentiation and AMPA receptors. The idea is that traumatic memories involve changes in synaptic strength and that, under particular conditions, those changes may be altered when the memory is activated.
That is a fascinating hypothesis. But I don’t think we need to pretend that we have solved the neuroscience in order to appreciate what the technique can do in practice.
What interests me is what happens when someone is actually triggered.
Havening and the Immediate Stress Response
One of the things I notice with clients is how quickly a person can become pulled into a response.
A thought becomes a feeling.
The feeling becomes a bodily sensation.
The bodily sensation produces more thoughts.
“Suddenly the person is ruminating, anticipating something terrible, replaying an interaction, or feeling as though they are right back inside an old experience.”
Havening can give them a way to interrupt that loop.
Instead of continuing to feed the reaction, we introduce something else.
Touch. Breathing. Attention. Distraction. A different sensory experience.
And sometimes the shift is surprisingly fast.
That does not mean the underlying history has magically disappeared. It means the person has changed their state.
You Are Not Erasing the Memory
I think this is one of the most important things to understand about Havening.
The purpose is not to erase a memory.
You can remember something without having the same physiological reaction to remembering it.
A memory can remain a memory while becoming less capable of throwing you into an immediate stress response.
For me, this is where Havening is particularly useful as a grounding technique.
If someone is having a flashback or suddenly becomes overwhelmed by an emotional association, we don’t necessarily need to solve their entire history in that moment.
Sometimes we first need to help them come back to the present.
What We Know, And What We Don’t
There is not a large body of research on Havening, and I think it is important to say that plainly.
There are studies and theoretical papers exploring psychosensory approaches and the mechanisms that might explain why techniques involving touch, attention, and sensory distraction could affect emotionally charged memories.
One paper that I find particularly interesting is “Harnessing Electroceuticals to Treat Disorders Arising From Traumatic Stress: Theoretical Considerations Using a Psychosensory Model.”
The paper explores the enduring nature of traumatically encoded memories and considers how sensory interventions might affect the biological processes involved in traumatic encoding.
It discusses AMPA receptors, synaptic potentiation, intracellular calcium signaling, and the possibility of disrupting the processes that maintain traumatic encoding. It also introduces the concept of Event Havening.
The important word here is theoretical.
This is an explanation of a possible mechanism, not proof that we can simply switch off a traumatic memory by touching our arms.
And honestly, I find the distinction useful.
We can be interested in the neuroscience without turning a hypothesis into a fact.
Make It Your Own
The touch can be personalized. What matters is that the sensation feels comfortable, safe, repetitive, and soothing to you.
Try Self-Havening
You do not have to perform this perfectly. The point is to give yourself another sensory experience while your attention is gently redirected.
Begin the touch
Gently stroke your upper arms from the shoulders toward the elbows, or rub your palms together.
Choose your focus
Imagine yourself walking through a peaceful place. You might picture a beach, a garden, or somewhere that feels calm to you.
Add distraction
Count twenty deliberate steps, hum a familiar song, or notice something neutral in the room.
Stay with the shift
Notice what happens as you continue. You are not trying to force anything away. You are giving your system something different to experience.
A Tool You Can Carry With You
This is why I teach self-Havening.
I don’t want the technique to belong to the practitioner.
I want the person to know how to use it themselves.
If you suddenly feel that familiar rush of anxiety, anger, fear, or overwhelm, you can recognize what is happening and begin changing your state.
You may not be able to control what triggered the response.
But you can give yourself another response.
“You don’t have to make the memory disappear. Sometimes you just need to stop the memory from taking over the room.”
For me, that is the real value of Havening.
It is simple. It is portable. It can be done privately. And in my experience, it can provide a remarkably quick way to interrupt an emotional reaction and return to the present moment.
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