Havening Touch
Havening Techniques® are a healing modality that has been designed to help individuals overcome problems that are the consequence of traumatic encoding. The Havening Techniques® belong to a larger group of treatments called psychosensory therapies, which use sensory input to alter thought, mood and behaviour. The Havening Techniques® are a system comprised of protocols and methods that uses touch as a therapeutic tool which we call Havening Touch®.
There are three distinct applications,
The Havening Techniques® are powerful tools that can be used to treat the consequences of encoded traumatic or stressful memories. They can be used within a psycho-therapeutic setting with professional mental health care clinicians that have been fully trained and certified in The Havening Techniques®. In addition, The Havening Techniques® can be used by non-licensed practitioners as a protocol for coaching sessions, or as a tool in allied health care practice by individuals that have been fully trained and certified in The Havening Techniques®. The Havening Techniques® can also be used as a self-help technique and shared with family members and friends. *Please do not use the Havening Technique with yourself for a serious trauma or if you suffer from any psychological disorders. We advise that you seek the help of a professional mental health care provider who is certified in the Havening Technique if you have experienced severe trauma or suffer from a psychological disorder.
What Types Of Problems Do The Havening Techniques® Address?
The Havening Techniques® have been shown to help with both the physical and psychological consequences of traumatic encoding and stressful life events. Examples include:
Phobias
Chronic pain
Anger
Grief
Cravings
PTSD
Panic Attacks
Emotional eating
Abandonment
Distressing memories (broken relationships, shocking news, loss, embarrassment, etc.)
Distress caused by natural disasters (hurricanes, floods, etc.)
Distress caused by man-made events (war, fire, assault, home intrusion, etc.)
Difficulties learning (reading, new subjects, nervous, inability to focus)
And many other problems (please email me if you have a question). My personal view is that everyone can benefit from knowing about this process and self applying or having a session with a Havening Touch specialist.
The consequences of trauma and stressful life events are stored in the brain and are activated by conscious or inadvertent recall. Once this recall occurs, symptoms are generated. This activation also makes the pathway that generates these feelings subject to disruption.
The Havening Techniques® are designed to disrupt this pathway through a process called synaptic depotentiation. The essence of how Havening works is that stimulation of skin receptors in specific areas of the body (face, shoulders and upper arms and palms of hands in particular) increases neurochemicals in the brain such as serotonin and GABA resulting in an increase in slow, low frequency brain waves. These Delta waves can help depotentiate activated AMPA receptors in post-synaptic neurons in the amygdala through dephosphorylation of those receptors due to the action of the enzyme calcineurin. Essentially the apparatus for triggering fight, flight, freeze and rage responses, is delinked from the stored memory of the traumatic event.
This means that although the memory can be remembered, the person does not have the unhelpful responses any more when they think of that event or if they encounter previous triggers. Another way of explaining it, is that after the process is complete the subjective emotions related to the memory become objective and the person reports feeling calmer.
Contact Joanne Harvey to set up a consult or a session at (530) 598-6530 (Pacific Standard time) 8am-5pm
