March On Stress

New study shows positive results for the use of Havening

Added on the 6th January 2016

A new study has been published about the psychological intervention, Havening – with results showing that a single session of the therapy could reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Professor Neil Greenberg was one of the academics involved in the study by King’s College London.

Professor Greenberg explained: “Havening is a relatively new form of intervention used to treat depression, anxiety and stress. We found that there was a clear improvement in all mental health measures on the participants in this study after their Havening intervention. Reported symptoms fell from moderate clinical levels prior to the Havening session to non-clinical levels afterwards. Participants also reported sustained improvements up to two months afterwards.

“Due to the small number of participants I’d encourage further research to fully evaluate its effectiveness compared to longer-established treatments but the outcome of this study is encouraging.”

To access the full study, please click here.

For more on the study, as reported in the Daily Mail, please click here.

Havening Technique

1. Find an exact word or phrase that represents your current emotional difficulty and rate it on a scale of 1-10, based on how distressing it is, with 10 being the most distressing.

2. Clear your mind or to think about something nice, that doesn't cause anguish.

3. Use both your hands to tap on both your collarbones while opening and closing your eyes twice.

4. Continue tapping, keep your head still, and move your eyes fully to the left and to the right and then down to the left and down to the right and finally in a full circle clockwise and then anti-clockwise in front of their face, keeping your head still.

5. Place your arms across your chest and close your eyes; while your eyes are closed, imagine walking up a flight of stairs and count out loud from 1 to 20 with each step you take.

6. Gently rub the sides of your arms for the duration of the counting.

7. Re-scale the emotion 1-10. Steps 2-6 were repeated with the visual element and auditory element changed slightly; i.e. instead of climbing upstairs it was to visualise skipping over a rope and instead of counting 1-20 participants hummed Happy Birthday.

8. Allow your arms to drop and relax, move your eyes in circles and then close their eyes, while stroking your arms again, five times in total.

9. Repeat the process until the word registers between 1-3 on the anguish scale.

 

 

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