Healing
Change
Wellbeing


  

GROUNDING
WELL BEING AND QUALITY OF LIFE
Support Activities Developed by:
Michael C. Irving, Ph.D. and Cheryl Irving, B.A., Psychotherapists

Psychotherapy & Clinical Work

Upcoming Workshops
- Eleven Heart Widsoms

- Heart/Body Drawings

- HeartPrints

- Coping Strategies
- Trauma/Healing Drawing
- Natalistic Art
- Survivors Group for Men
- Workshop List and Dates

Background Information
Michael C. Irving, Ph.D.
Psychotherapy
Curriculum Vitae
Workshops
Lectures
Cheryl Irving, B.A.
CV/Degrees
Professional Affiliations
Professional Supervision
Workshops and Trainings

 

Self Help Program
- Overview/Introduction

Coping Strategies
- Grounding
- Containment
- Self Nurture
- Personal Support
- Art as Healing

Creating Coping Lists
- Coping Lists
- Activities
- Boundaries
- Stress
- Crisis

Art in Healing

 

Survivor Monument Project
-Monument Home Page
-Meditation Gallery
-Information on Child Abuse
-Monument Story (Flash Movie)
-A Healing Monument
-Monument Poetry/Art Books

Visual Grounding
    • Make eye contact with external objects.
    • Look at things in the distance and up close.
    • Look at pictures or photographs which have a calming effect on you.
    • Draw a picture which represents safety.
    • Look at yourself in the mirror.
    • In the mirror notice your age now.
    • That you are not the same person as when you were abused.
    • Physical changes.
    • Verbalize what you see in yourself.

Grounding - Physical

    • While standing or sitting down feel the floor supporting your entire body.
    • Lay down and feel the surface of your back on the floor.
    • Try walking around the room, paying attention to how your feet make contact with the ground.
    • Stretch and roll your head and neck, stretch your whole body.
    • During a flashback, stamp feet while walking - keep head upright.
    • Make noise or sounds that ground you and give you energy and alertness.
    • Make physical contact with a safe person or object.
    • Give yourself a hug.
    • Sit with both feet on the floor - legs uncrossed.
    • Hold your posture upright.
    • Hold your own hand.
    • Hold onto a meaningful object.

Grounding - Cognitive

    • Tell yourself reassuring thoughts, such as: You are an adult now and you are safe. People care about you and do not abuse you now.
      This flashback is just a memory in your mind. You have strengths and resources that you can use.
    • Have your adult self reassure and protect your inner child.
    • Remind yourself where you are .
    • Notice what you are wearing.
    • Reality check: focus on objects in your surroundings, name them one at a time.
    • Write reassuring thoughts and affirmations on index cards and keep them handy.
    • Write your thoughts, focusing on how you would like to feel and what you can do to get yourself there.
    • Read a yearbook, letters, cards, certificates that point out your accomplishments or positive things that others have said about you
    • Read inspirational writing like “Chicken Soup For the Soul” or "Simple Abundance".
    • Create your own positive affirmations
    • Think about a time or incident in which you felt strong, empowered, victorious.
    • Organize a drawer, cupboard or closet: it can help organize your head.
    • Choose a coloured marker that represents safety, reassurance. Ask yourself what that colour is saying to you. Draw, write, or just carry it.
    • Have an amulet or important token. Ask yourself what the significance of that special item is to you.
    • When the flashback is over: Write or draw the flashback.
      Then do relaxation exercises.
      Then, go to a safe place in your mind, put the memories in a container, and close the container.

Grounding Through Breathing

    • For a moment focus only on your breath.
    • Pay attention to breathing in and out.
    • Breathe evenly and calmly, feeling your lungs expand with oxygen when you inhale and deflate when you exhale.
    • Place your hand on your abdominal area and feel your stomach expand outward when you inhale.
    • Imagine breathing the freshness of nature.
    • Each time you inhale say a calming statement to yourself such as:
      I am breathing in calm air.
      I am safe.
      I am inhaling calm air and I am exhaling anxiety, toxins, the pain.
    • Each time your exhale/breath out, say a number to yourself.
    • Count ten exhalations and so on, in groups of ten if needed.
    • Breathe in white light or use other imagery you find calming.
    • While breathing imagine or use pleasing aromas
GO TO: CONTAINMENT/BOUNDARIES

 

Michael C. Irving, Ph.D. and Cheryl Irving, B.A.
have a private practice serving
as psychotherapists with individuals and groups.

For more than 18 years their practice has encompased individual clients and psychotherapy workshops and trainings on - healing emotional trauma through regressive therapies, mind/body integration, dissociative disorders, ego state therapy, primal therapy, art therapy, prenatal parenting and, working with pre and prenatal issues through art.
TO BOOK an appointment CALL
(416) 469-4764 

michael@irvingstudios.com
cheryl@irvingstudios.com

*All Rights Reserved
copyright (1979-2003