What Is Havening — and Can It Help With Anxiety and Grief?

Havening is a relatively new psychosensory healing technique, and I get asked about it constantly. People find me through Google or Instagram and their first question is always some version of: what even is it?

So let me explain — simply, warmly, and honestly.

Havening Techniques® were developed by Dr Ronald Ruden, a New York physician and neuroscientist, who spent years studying how the brain encodes trauma and how it can be helped to release it. The name comes from the word haven — a place of safety.

At its heart, Havening is a form of touch therapy. Gentle, rhythmic strokes applied to specific parts of the body — the arms, face, and palms — create delta waves in the brain. These are the same slow waves produced during deep sleep. And when delta waves are present at the same time as a distressing memory or feeling, something remarkable happens: the emotional charge attached to that memory begins to dissolve.

The science is called depotentiation — the weakening of a traumatic memory's grip on the nervous system. What was encoded during a moment of overwhelm is gently, safely re-processed. The memory doesn't disappear. But it no longer has the same power over you.

I came to Havening not through study, but through my own healing. After years of grief — babies lost, hospital rooms, the kind of pain that has no ceremony — I found my way to a healer in Bali who introduced me to Havening. Within a session, something shifted that 14 years of other work hadn't touched.

That is why I trained. That is why I use it.

What can Havening help with?

In my practice, I use Havening Techniques® with clients working through:

• Anxiety and chronic stress
• Grief and loss — including pregnancy loss, birth trauma, and anticipatory grief
• Phobias and fears
• Traumatic memories
• Emotional overwhelm
• Sleeplessness rooted in an activated nervous system

It is also beautiful simply as a self-soothing practice — which is why I teach self-Havening in sessions, and why I created a free guide to help you begin at home.

What does a session feel like?

Sessions are gentle, fully clothed, and led entirely at your pace. I will guide you through specific eye movements and self-touch while we move through the memory or feeling that's troubling you. Many clients describe a sense of lightness afterward — like something they've been carrying has been set down.

Some notice shifts within a single session. For deeper or more complex trauma, we build over time.

Is it right for me?

If you've tried talk therapy and feel like the words run out before the healing does — Havening might be worth exploring. It works at the body level, not just the mind. It meets you where you are.

If you'd like to learn more or book a session, I'd love to hear from you.