Visualizations

Calm space: The calm space visualization is often taught prior to starting #EMDR as a way to help you put the trauma you're processing "away" after a session, but it can be useful in a lot more ways than that. The goal of the visualization is to have a place you can briefly escape to in your mind when you find yourself overly stressed or angry or activated in some way. The mind is a powerful thing, and simply imaging being in a calming environment can impact your real world physiology by reducing #sympathetic nervous system activation and increasing #parasympathetic tone. This visualization gets more effective the more you use it - so occasionally practicing escaping to it during times of mild-to-moderate stress can be useful in making sure it’s available when you really need it.

• Think of a place (real or imaginary) where you feel completely at peace. Go there now in your mind, and when you come back, reflect on the following:

  • Sights: What can you see from your vantage point? 

  • Hear: What can you hear? Any background noises? (e.g., if you're on a beach, can you hear wind, seagulls, waves?)

  • Smells: Can you smell anything? Smell seems to have a particularly powerful way of transporting us.

  • Touch: Are you sitting? If so, what are you sitting on? How does it feel? What other sensations on your skin do you notice?

  • Writing or drawing about the place can help to solidify it further in your mind. Talking about it (e.g., with a therapist) can also really help to bring details alive.

Note, if you're someone who struggles with #dissociation make sure you also develop some #grounding strategies so you can pull yourself out of your calm space as needed. Here are some I like, but you can search the internet for many, many more.

Container: This visualization is also one popularized by EMDR, I believe, but it's way more versatile than that. It's meant to help temporarily set aside distressing thoughts, memories, or emotions so you can feel more regulated and present. The goal is not avoidance, but containment - creating a holding space for things that feel too overwhelming or inconvenient in that moment - so that you can deal with that shit in the future when you have more resources or support (e.g., in therapy, with a friend, or curled in a ball on the couch - whatever works for you).

• Imagine a container - any shape, size, or material - that feels secure enough to hold even the most distressing material without breaking or leaking. It should be a container that you can lock, and typically it's best for it to be opaque. 

  • What kind of container comes to mind? Make sure you picture it in detail, ideally outloud or in writing. (This is why doing this in therapy can be especially useful.)

  • Where would you like to keep this container? Often people imagine a corner of their mind, or the attic of the house they grew up in. Whatever you can imagine and seems a good place for securely storing things.

• As with the calm space visualization, practice really helps to make this more effective. This just involves taking a moment to identify something that's been bothering you - a thought that's gotten stuck on a loop, a memory or flashback that is unsettling, a fear or anxiety that you keep pushing down. Anything that's pulling you down or away from being present. Imagine placing that into your container. Watch yourself putting it away and securing it. Now take a deep breath. Remind yourself that you're not trying to get rid of it or avoid it, you're just safely storing it until you are in a better place to give it the attention it deserves.* Take a deep breath and change what you're doing (getting up and moving to signal a shift can help).

*Alas, unfortunately it does seem to only work if you're willing to address the things you stow away.

Imagery Rehearsal Technique: This is something to try if you find yourself tormented by repeat bogeymen in your dreams. It 's based on a #CBT technique and it involves consciously rewriting a nightmare while you're awake - changing the script so that the "bad guy" loses power or becomes absurd, or the dreamer gains control in some way. This is hard, especially if your brain likes to serve up new and creative ways for your tormentors to, well, torment you. It can be helpful to bounce ideas off a therapist, but then the real key is to rehearse the revised version daily, and especially before bed. Make it as vivid as you can in your brain to give it the best possible chance of entering your dreams, too.

• For example, if you're repeatedly being chased by your bad guy during nightmares, you might try to put him in clown shoes, or have his shoes tied together so he stumbles and falls when he tries to run after you. Or perhaps you can revise the script to get the upper hand on him (e.g., slashing his tires so he can't follow you like he does in the nightmare).

If you're a Harry Potter fan, you can think of image rehearsal as a bit like what you need to do to get rid of a Boggart (see below). Riddikulus indeed. It's also similar to an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy #ACT method of cognitive defusion, in which you use silly imagery to reduce the power of unhelpful thoughts. One of my clients likes to imagine her inner critic speaking in a particular politician's voice because it helps her to tell those thoughts to f*&$ off. Hey, whatever works!

There are other imagery techniques you can try, but doing so with a therapist is probably best so I'm not going to go into them here.

Last updated: 10/20/25.