How to Use "Anchors" to Cope With Trauma-Related Triggers - Part 2

In Part 1 of this topic, I defined anchors and how they are used to cope with psychological triggers based on a history of trauma. 

If you haven't read Part 1, I suggest you read that article first to understand the current article.

How to Use Anchors to Cope With Triggers

In the current article, I'm providing examples of how anchors can be used for trauma-related triggers as well as other situations where you might feel anxious, emotionally overwhelmed or stressed.

Anchors can be used between therapy sessions to help you cope with disturbing thoughts, feelings or memories that might come up for you. 

Note: If you're in therapy, always speak to your therapist first before you try using anchors or any other type of resource or coping skill.

Examples of How to Use Anchors to Cope

As mentioned in my prior article, anchors can be used any time you're experiencing distress. Your experience doesn't need to be trauma related.

Here are two examples of how to use external and internal anchors (the cases presented below are composites of many cases with different names and all identifying information removed to protect confidentiality):

    Panic Attacks

Panic attacks bring intense fear and physical reactions, including symptoms of depersonalization (a condition where the person feels disconnected from their body, emotions and environment) where there is no real danger or apparent cause. Panic attacks are frightening. Some people feel they are losing control or even dying when they have a panic attack (see my article: Tips For Coping With Panic Attacks).

    Using An External Anchor

    John

John can usually sense when he's about to have a panic attack because he starts to feel disconnected from his body. 

His panic attacks have been much less frequent since he started working with an Experiential Therapist.  However, he still gets them from time to time, so his therapist recommended that he carry a small stone in his pocket which is meaningful to him because he found the stone when he was a child looking for an unusual stone with his grandfather. 

When he feels the onset of a panic attack, John holds the stone in his hand and it brings back happy memories of feeling safe and secure with his grandfather, and it helps to ground and calm him. 

Journaling Between Therapy Sessions

Once he is calm again, he writes about his experience in his journal to put words to his experience and to be able to discuss what happened at his next session with his psychotherapist (see my article: The Benefits of Journaling Between Therapy Sessions).

    Using an Internal Anchor

    Alice

Since she started EMDR Therapy, Alice rarely has panic attacks anymore. 

Prior to EMDR therapy, she would have a panic attack whenever she visited her parents. She would feel like she was a helpless and hopeless child again (see my article: Feeling Like a Helpless Child Again During Family Visits).

However, even though she is coping better with triggers involved with being around her parents, there are still times she feels like she regresses when her parents criticize her.

Her therapist taught her to use an internal anchor based on the Somatic Experiencing concept of pendulation, which is also called oscillation in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (see my article: Coping with Emotional Distress By Using the Somatic Experiencing Technique of Pendulation).

Pendulation is similar to Babette Rothschild's concept of Dual Awareness which she writes about in her book, The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment.

Similar to a swinging pendulum or watching a pendulum on a grandfather clock, pendulation involves shifting your awareness back and forth between a sense of safety in one part of your body to the emotional activation in another part of your body.

In Alice's case, she learned in therapy how to use her felt sense in her body to identify a place of safety. Most of the time, her place of safety is in her heart area.  She also learned to identify areas in her body of anxious activation which usually involves her stomach.

Pendulation For Coping

When she is on the verge of having a panic attack or she is actually having a panic attack, Alice senses into her place of safety, her heart, and she senses the feeling of safety. Her heart area is her internal anchor. 

Then she senses briefly into the area where she feels anxious, her stomach, and she shifts her awareness back to her chest, her place of safety. She continues to pendulate her awareness back and forth between her place of safety and her place of anxious activation until she is able to calm herself. 

Then she talks about what triggered her in her next therapy session so she and her therapist can work on this issue.

Other Examples of When to Use Anchors:

As previously mentioned, you can also use anchors for temporary relief when you feel 

• Anxious
• Stressed
• Emotionally overwhelmed or flooded 
• Other types of emotional distress

Internal Anchors vs External Anchors

The external anchors tend to be easier for most people to use because they are meaningful concrete objects that you can carry with you: a stone, a shell, a picture of a relaxing place, and so on.

The internal anchors take practice to learn. If you're adapt at sensing emotions in your body, you can learn to detect where you feel safe in your body and where you feel activated.  If not, you will need to practice sensing emotions and activation in your body with a therapist who works in an embodied/experiential way.

Sensing emotions and activation in your body is one of the skills Experiential Therapists help clients to develop. It's a very useful skill because you can use it on your own between sessions or whenever you need it. 

If you're trying this on your own, you might want to start with an external anchor, especially if you haven't yet developed the felt sense skill.

Getting Help in Therapy

If you have been struggling on your own, you could benefit from seeking help from an Experiential Therapist.

Experiential Therapy is an umbrella term for mind-body oriented therapy modalities like:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy
• AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)
• Somatic Experiencing
• Hypnotherapy
• Emotionally Focused Therapy, among others

Getting Help in Experiential Therapy

A skilled Experiential Therapist can help you overcome obstacles that keep you from living a  meaningful and more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City experiential psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, Emotionally Focused Therapist for couples, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

 

Coping With Emotional Distress By Using the Somatic Experiencing Technique of Pendulation to Calm Yourself

In my prior article, Global Pandemic Causes Significant Increase in Anxiety and Depression, according to the findings of the World Health Organization (WHO), there has been a 25% increase in pandemic-related anxiety and depression.  

WHO also indicates that this increase in anxiety and depression is probably just the tip of the iceberg.  

Given these circumstances, individuals who are struggling emotionally need a way to cope with these emotions, and one way to cope is using pendulation.

Using Pendulation to Cope With Emotional Distress

What is Pendulation and How Can It Help You to Cope With Emotional Distress?

Pendulation is a concept which is part of Somatic Experiencing (SE) (see my article: Mind-Body Oriented Therapy: Somatic Experiencing).

SE is a mind-body oriented therapy, developed by Dr. Peter Levine, which helps individuals to heal from trauma.

Pendulation is a useful technique to help individuals to cope with distressing emotions--like the pandemic-related emotions described in my previous article or any other type of distressing emotion, including emotions related to psychological trauma.

Similar to the pendulum on a clock, pendulation involves a shifting back and forth of emotions or body sensations.

Pendulation is Similar to the Movement of a Pendulum on a Clock

Specifically, you start by identifying the distressful emotion or bodily sensation you're experiencing and locate it in your body.  

After you notice the distressful emotion/sensation and where it's located in your body, you find a neutral or calm point in your body and you shift your awareness back and forth (or pendulate) between the distressful and calm experiences.

An Example of Pendulation

For instance, if you identified sadness as the distressful emotion and you locate the sadness as being in your throat where you feel a constriction (a welling up of tears), you sense into other parts of your body to find a calm or neutral point.  

Let's say you detect a sense of calmness in your chest.  You stay with that sense of calmness for a moment to give yourself a chance to experience it.

Then, move back to the sadness in your throat and stay with that for a moment before you go back to the calmness in your chest. 

As you keep going back and forth between the sadness and the calmness, you are pendulating between the two emotions.

As you continue to pendulate back and forth, notice what how the sadness changes.  There is usually a shift due to the integration of the two emotions.

If you have difficulty finding a calm or neutral place within yourself, you can find an external resource, like looking at a glass of water or looking out the window at a tree, and so on.

What If You're Unable to Identify the Distressful Emotion?

There are many individuals with a history of trauma who have difficulty identifying emotions, especially distressful ones.  

They might know they're struggling with a difficult emotion, but they don't know if it's anger, sadness or any other emotion.

If this sounds familiar to you, you can still use pendulation even if you can't identify the emotion.  

For instance, you might know you have a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, but you don't associate any particular emotion with that sensation.

Even without knowing the distressful emotion, you can still locate an area in your body where you don't feel that sinking feeling--where you feel neutral or calm.  Then, you can shift your awareness back and forth between those two areas.

If you're working with an SE therapist, over time, you can learn to identify your emotions.  This takes practice. 

Even before you learn to identify specific emotions, you can use pendulation as a self help technique between therapy sessions to calm yourself.

How Does Pendulation Facilitate Emotional Healing?

According to Dr. Levine, pendulation is a natural process that facilitates emotional healing within the nervous system.

As previously mentioned, the shifting back and forth allows for an integration of these emotions, which facilitates healing.  

Pendulation Facilitates Emotional Healing

Whereas before you might have felt stuck in your distress, after you learn pendulation, you feel more emotionally resourced.  

Over time, as you sense the integration of emotions, you gain confidence that you can cope with uncomfortable emotions and you won't get stuck in a distressed state.  

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

As a trauma therapist, I work with individual adults and couples (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.