What to expect in your Havening Session
You’ll see on the booking system that the appointments are up to 2 hours long. That seems like a really long time, especially if you are thinking of comparing it to something like a talking therapy session. The session can be as long as you like it, but sometimes when we are working through things together time will go quickly. I remember clock watching during my havening session because it was an hour long, I remember settling for ‘it’s good enough’ rather than being completely happy. I want to make sure that you feel like you’re not being rushed or the session is cut shorter than you’d like.
What’s the layout of the room?
The key for Havening is to make you feel like it’s a safe space, a haven, one where you can escape if you need to. It can be conscious or subconscious but when you’re feeling vulnerable or triggered it’s so important that you feel you are able to escape. So with that in mind, your chair will be in a place that you have a direct and uninterrupted pathway to the door. I will sit in front and facing you, and to the side away from the door.
What if I’ve never done havening before?
That’s completely okay. We will talk about your situation and the Havening Technique. We will talk about how to do the gentle calming touch to the outside of your shoulders and arms, face and hands.
What do I wear?
We will be working with touching the outside of the arms, hands and face. If you are comfortable to have your arms uncovered by wearing a short sleeve top or t-shirt then that would be perfect. If you’d rather not have them uncovered then please wear something thin over the top, preferably not a thick woolly jumper.
Do you start with the biggest thing that’s bothering me?
Not necessarily, we may start with a Plant Pot memory event which means that we wont necessarily start with the big stuff, but instead a smaller, contained and isolated memory. It will allow you to understand Havening and see and feel how it works.
You will be guided to close your eyes and recall the memory or thought and then assess what your SUD (subjective unit of distress) which will be between 0😁-10😫 is at. Through repeating the havening touch and distraction exercises we will work together to get your SUD down to a (lower) level that you’re happy with.
Distractions are usually conversations which you enjoy, for example the distractions I enjoy are: listing places, cities and countries in alphabetical order, listing dog breeds and names in alphabetical order, talking about my garden, talking about travelling, music. I don’t like distractions which are to do with maths, numbers, doing things backwards or anything which puts me on the spot.
We may also look at subjective units of positivity between 0🙂-10😁.
