But here is the list of Grounding Techniques.
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What Are Grounding Skills?

Grounding Skills are interventions that assist in keeping a person in the present. They help to reorient a person to reality and the immediate here-and-now. Grounding skills are useful in many ways. They are particularly helpful with symptoms of dissociation. They can help a person prevent dissociating. However, they can be used to help re-orient oneself when experiencing intense and overwhelming feelings and intense anxiety. They help to regain one's mental focus. These skills usually occur within two specific modalities:

Sensory Awareness

Cognitive Awareness

Sensory Awareness Grounding Skills

Keep your eyes open, look around the room, notice your surroundings, notice details.

Hold a pillow, stuffed animal or a bell.

Place a cool cloth on your face, or hold something cool such as a can of soda.

Listen to soothing music.

Put your feet firmly on the ground.

FOCUS on someone's voice or a neutral conversation.

Cognitive Grounding Skills
Reorient yourself in place and time by asking yourself some or all of these questions:

Where am I?
What is today?
What is the date?
What is the month?
What is the year?
How old am I?
What season is it?
Who is the President?

List as many Grounding skills as you can.

Practice several grounding skills every day.

Construct a list of those which are most helpful and effective.

Goals When Using Grounding Techniques

To keep myself safe and free from injury.

To reorient myself to reality and the here and now.

To identify what I attempted to do to prevent the dissociative experience.

To identify skills that I can use in the future to help myself remain grounded.

Goals Prior To Using Grounding Techniques
Learn as much as I can about dissociation, grounding techniques and triggers.

(What are the triggers that usually signal that I am about to dissociate?)

Practice, practice, practice, my grounding skills when I am in a stable, comfortable space so that I am prepared when I need them.

Make a list of the grounding techniques that work best for me and put it where I can easily refer to it when necessary.

Women's Treatment Network, McLean Hospital
M. Brody, L. Frey, psyD, Edelson 1994

An important part of effectively learning, practicing and utilizing grounding techniques successfully is learning to master the intrusive symptoms.

Mastering Intrusive Symptoms
Flashbacks and other intrusive symptoms are automatic reactions in which a survivor temporarily associates some trigger in the present with an aspect of their past abuse.

This results in dissociation from the comfort and security of the present and a re-experiencing of the past abuse.

The automatic reactions may be thoughts, feelings, or somatic sensations that disrupt current functioning.

Automatic reactions are extremely common, insidious and often operate below conscious awareness, making the survivor feel confused, upset and out of control.

Common emotional reactions are: fear, panic, terror, anger, sadness, shame, disgust, paranoia, anxiety, confusion, suspicion and emotional numbness.

Common physical sensations are: nausea, pain, headache, tight stomach, rapid heart beat, chest pain, adrenaline rush, sweat, chills, cold, genital pain, flushed, euphoric, inappropriate sexual excitement, spontaneous orgasm, sleepy, faint, or physical numbness.

Common intrusive thoughts include: abusive sexual fantasies, thinking partner is an offender, thinking the past is the present, thinking you are a child, thinking you are bad, thinking you are inadequate, thinking you are unworthy of being loved for yourself, wishing you were someplace else.

Some automatic reactions last for seconds, some for hours. Automatic reactions usually occur in a series, linked up so that one triggers another. A chain of automatic reactions can trigger compulsive sexual behavior.

Your triggers may be known to you, dormant for years or difficult to identify. Identifying and analyzing your triggers gives you power. The triggers lose their secrecy and mysteriousness once you understand them.

Reducing the number of triggers in your life may make it easier to deal with your automatic reactions. Also, eliminating stimulants may help. Counseling and support groups are essential.

Questions to ask yourself in discovering your triggers:

Where were you at the time of the abuse?
What were you like at the time?
What was the offender like?
What was your relationship to the offender like?
What touch and sexual experiences did you have during the abuse?
What was happening inside your body?
What were your emotional experiences?
Other sensations, feelings or thoughts you experienced at the time of the abuse.

The key to handling automatic reactions is to bring them into your awareness, understand them, and find ways to cope.

The following steps provide a format for you to analyze and master your intrusive symptoms:

Stop and become aware: Acknowledge what's happening. Say to yourself, "I'm having an automatic reaction." Assume you have hit a trigger.

Calm yourself: Tune into your body. What are you feeling? Tell yourself something reassuring. "I'm safe, no one can hurt me." Take slow, deep breaths. Relax your muscles. Go to your "safe place".

Identify past situation: When have you felt this way before? What situation were you in the last time you felt this way? Try to identify the trigger.

Identify similarities: In what ways are this current situation and your past situation similar?

For example, is the setting, time of year, or the sights, sounds, sensations in anyway similar to the past situation when you felt this way? If there is a person involved, how is she or he similar to a person from the past who elicited similar feelings?

Affirm your current reality: How is your current situation different from the situation in the past in which you felt similar feelings? What is different about you, your sensory experience, you current life circumstances and personal resources? What is different about the setting? If another person or persons is involved, how are they different from the person(s) in the past situation? Affirm your rights: "The abuse was then. This is now."

Choose a new response: What action, if any, do you want to take to feel better in the present? For example, a flashback may indicate that a person is once again in a situation that is in some way unsafe. If this is the case, self-protective actions should be taken to alter the current situation.

On the other hand, a flashback may simply mean that an old memory has been triggered by an inconsequential resemblance to the past such as a certain color or smell. In such cases, corrective messages of reassurance and comfort need to be given to the self to counteract the old traumatic memories.

Adapted from "Resolving Traumatic Memories" (p. 107) by Y.M. Dolan, 1991, New York: W.W. Norton and from Wendy Maltz's "The Sexual Healing Journey", Harper Collins Publishers, 1991, Chapter 5.

Copyright Michael J. Sturm 5/95

"Safe Place" Visualization for Containment and Grounding

Like other techniques for containment and grounding, "safe scene" visualization enables an individual to nurture and soothe him or herself and to practice effective control over their feelings and thoughts.

"Safe scene" work utilizes an individual's natural talent for dissociation. When doing "safe scene" work and individual chooses to experience internal stimuli which is safe, soothing and nurturing over internal stimuli which is unsafe, traumatic and re-victimizing. With practice an individual can soothe him or herself at will and exercise control over the spontaneous dissociation and flashbacks that survivors of trauma often experience.

To create an effective safe scene, it is important to incorporate all of the senses. The more senses involved, the more functional the scene will be.

Examples include:
Visual
seeing colors, distances, details, features of the safe place.

Hearing
soothing sounds with varying volumes.

Smell
a variety of pleasant scents.

Touch
a variety of safe and pleasant textures.

Kinesthetic
standing, walking, sitting, lying down.

Focusing inwards and internally visualizing a safe scene can help an individual to quickly relax. There are no limits to the creativity or imagination an individual may employ in the safe scene work. A safe place can be an actual place, an imaginary place, or a combination of the two. Safe scenes can be inside or outside, on this planet or another, and include beaches, islands, meadows, forests, or any other setting that an individual would find safe and soothing.

Safe scenes include items within which can contribute to an even greater feeling of safety and security, such as walls, moats, containment images, and safe animals. It is best to not include other real people in an individual's safe scene image because the security and soothing derived from the safe scene should not be dependent on others and should not reinforce a dependency for safety and soothing on others. Rather, safe scene work reinforces an individual's ability to take responsibility for their own soothing.

Once an individual has developed a safe scene, there are many things he or she can do to reinforce their safe scene and increase its effectiveness. The first step in this process is to write out a detailed description of the safe place, including the experience of all of the senses in the safe place as described earlier. This should then be shared and processed with others (i.e., therapist, or group therapy) in order to receive feedback, comments and suggestions. Then it is often helpful to make a picture which represents in some way the safe place. This, of course, is not to be an artist's rendering of the safe scene, but rather a representation of it through colors, images, etc. Most importantly, the safe scene should be practiced at least three times daily, when a person is in a calm and relaxed state. Safe scenes increase in their effectiveness the more they are practiced.

Ideas To Facilitate Grounding

Visualize internal safe place.
Visualize setting aside overwhelming memory/emotion/experience.
Change sensory experience/input:

Sight:
allow yourself to see through your eyes, look at a picture, read a book

Touch:
allow yourself to feel the chair you are sitting on, touch ice, hold a smooth stone

Sound:
talk to someone, listen to music, TV

Taste:
eat something

Smell:
perfume, favorite scent

Concentrate, become absorbed in activity.

Express something verbally -- go to an empty room and yell, if necessary.

Write in your journal.

Do safe anger work with your therapist.

Breathing exercises.

Relaxation exercises.

Self-hypnosis.

Connect with internal support/resources.

Visualize a "STOP" sign

Use positive affirmations.

Connect with the here and now.

Look into a mirror and talk to yourself.

Transfer your feeling/memory into a safe "container" either through visualization or by creating an actual box where you can write the feeling/memory on a piece of paper and slip it into the box leaving it to be dealt with together with your therapist.

Monitor self-talk, change negative to positive.

Identify cognitive distortions and replace with counter statements.

Dance.

Repeat a grounding phrase: "I'm here right now."

Give yourself permission to address one thing at a time ("Rome wasn't built in a day.")

Identify (in writing) all problems you're facing. Then divide them into two groups:

Those you have control over, and

Those you cannot control.

Concentrate on only one of those issues that can be controlled.

Decide what is important and what is not.

Keep It Simple.

Hold a safe object (smooth stone, stuffed animal, watch, ring, cup or mug, etc.).

Pray (e.g. Serenity Prayer).

Exercise.

Draw.

Find a safe person.

Listen to a tape of your therapist.

Listen to a tape of self-affirmations.

Most importantly - Identify the Trigger.

Grounding & Stabilizing Techniques After Flashbacks

Here are some techniques you can try when you are having flashbacks or a hard time with a memory. We hope these are useful and help you in some way.





The purpose of imagery is to help calm you when you feel out of control and to help you refocus your thoughts and emotions.

First, try to relax and clear your mind as much as possible. Close your eyes and take a few deep breathes. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.

Second, think of a place that is safe to you and imagine yourself in that safe place. Picture as much detail of that place as you can. The more details the more of a chance it has of relaxing you. You can also place safe people or objects there with you. The possibilities stretch as far as your own imagination. For Example: Let's use our safe place: the ocean. This is an idea of what you can picture. Imagine yourself walking along the shore of the ocean. You can feel the warm sand squishing between your toes. You can hear the waves crashing and the seagulls rushing past you. You walk towards the water, just as a wave crashes by your feet. You feel the cool water rushing over your feet and between your toes. The sun's rays glisten upon the ocean leaving a silky layer of glitter upon the water. Here you have no worries, no bothers, it's just you and the ocean. You are safe. Okay that is an example of imagery. Use your imagination. Only you know what feels safe to you.



The purpose of these techniques is to help you ground yourself and bring you back in touch with your body and surroundings.

First, take a deep breath in through your nose and hold it for 1 second. Then, slowly exhale through your mouth. Repeat this step each time adding a second until you reach 7 seconds. For example: Take a deep breath and hold for 2 seconds then release, then 3 seconds and so on.

Second, wiggle your toes and fingers to let yourself know that you are still "here" and are okay. You may also want to try to put ice on the back of your neck or on your wrists.

Third, take a look around the room and take in your surroundings. Focus on things around you that bring you comfort. You are in the "here and now" and are safe. Try to tell yourself that you are okay repeatedly.


The purpose of music therapy is to help relax, calm, and soothe you. It also helps refocus your thoughts and emotions to those that are peaceful and soothing.

First, if possible, go to a room in the house that is safe for you. Cuddle with anything that helps soothe you such as: certain stuffed animals, blankets/pillows, or any other object you find safe and soothing.

Then, choose a tape or cd that helps you refocus yourself and calm down. Perhaps a certain song you like, relaxation music, classical tunes, lullabies, or anything that you wish. Let it play continuously while you close your eyes, try to feel the music, and relax.

Here are some recommendations for soothing music:

*** Any nature tape or cd. (thunderstorms, ocean, celtic, mountains, lakes, forest, etc...)

*** "While The Eagle Sleeps" by: Alice Gomez with Madalyne Blanchett & Marilyne Rife (this is native american music)

*** "Songs For The Inner Child" by: Shaina Noll (this is a collection of songs & lullabies for inner children)


The purpose of this is to help get your thoughts and emotions out on paper. Once they are out of your system they have less power over you. When you experience a flashback or have a nightmare of a memory, write down everything you remember right away. Try to recall as much detail as possible.

Journal writing does not have to be edited. Write exactly what you feel and think. Leave nothing out no matter how "improper" or "negative" it may be. You can swear, rant, rave, write what you would like to do to your abuser, anything you wish. Try to put every emotion you may have on paper. You can learn a lot about yourself through journal writing.

How To Control Your Emotions When You Feel Out Of Control

"The technique, Cook's Hook-up, is part of an innovative and effective program called Educational Kinesthetics (Edu-K), which is being used successfully in schools throughout the country to help kids with learning disabilities. Edu-K uses exercises to alter programming in the brain, improve left brain-right brain functioning. The Cook's Hook-up technique is designed to balance the energy in your body. Strong emotions adversely affect the balance by increasing the energy above normal levels, and Cook's Hook-up stabilizes the energy and brings it back to normal. This is an extremely useful technique when you recover painful memories.



1. Sit comfortably in a chair or on a sofa with your feet on the floor in front of you.

2. Place your left leg on top of your right leg so that your left ankle is on top of your right knee.

3. Wrap your right hand around the top of your left ankle. Then grasp the toes of your left foot with your left hand. This is designed to make a complete circle of energy with your body.

4. Now place the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth, just behind your teeth. That is the position your tongue should be in when you breathe in. When you breathe out, your tongue should drop back into the bottom of your mouth and your mouth should be slightly open as you exhale through your mouth. So, you breathe in through your nose with the tip of your tongue at the roof of your mouth. Then drop your tongue to the bottom of your mouth and breathe out with your tongue relaxed and flat at the bottom of your mouth. Do this for thirty breaths.

5. Then let go of your ankle and foot and put both feet flat on the floor. Your legs should be uncrossed for this part. Spread the fingers of your hands and touch the tips of each of your fingers together (thumb to thumb and pinkie to pinkie, etc.). Rest your hands in your lap with the fingers touching. Again breathe as you did before, inhaling with your mouth closed and the tip of your tongue flat. Do this for another thirty breaths.

6. If you are really upset, you may need to do the steps for a slightly longer time. As the energy balances, you may notice a slight tingling in your hands and feet."

The forums at psych central about post traumatic stress ....
http://forums.psychcentral.com/forumdisplay.php?f=15

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