[seeker33]

Have you tried visualisation of a safe place? My T suggested I should try t for my anxiety but I'm not sure, doesn't seem natural to me. In my mind it's in the same category as affirmations, and I hate affirmations I don't even know what place would I choose.
What are your experiences? What place do you visualise and is it helpful?

[MoxieDoxie]

Yeah we try to do that for EMDR. Safe place visualization. I suck. For me it is like meditation and that never works for me either. Neither does hypnotherapy. Just cant relax the mind, visualize and feel like I am there.

[maybeblue]

I have tried it. I recently developed a lot of anxiety about doctor appointments. So my therapist suggested the safe space thing. I pictured lying on my couch at home with my cat curled up on my chest purring. I think it kind of worked when my therapist hypnotized me. I was apparently hypnotized and was quite relaxed then. However, that's a fairly safe space for me anyway.

I tried using it in the exam room while I was waiting for the doctor to come in and it didn't work particularly well. It was too complicated and I couldn't get my mind to calm down enough to focus on it. It worked somewhat better to simply focus on slowing down my breathing. By "somewhat better" I mean my anxiety was a 9 and I got it down to maybe an 8, but I was far from calm.

[skeksi]

It was more helpful than I expected it to be. T introduced it combined with guided muscle relaxation and a bit of guided meditation so that now when I think of the safe place I also sort of reexperiemce that calmness.

I did not visualize a real safe space— it doesn’t exist for me. I like that mine is imaginary. It feels safer, like only I can get there because only I know it exists. That may sound hokey.

My therapist and I worked to establish a safe place visualization a couple of weeks ago. It was great in session, less so on my own. I suppose it was mildly effective when I did it independently. I figure I just need to practice it.

[seeker33]

I think meditation and visualization doesn't work for everyone especially people who suffer from dissociation and derealisation because we tend to escape into imagination or just out of reality. I need something to connect me to the real outside world.
However I may try this visualisation, just still don't know what place to choose and my senses aren't very good in reality and it's even more difficult to visualise... But I'll try and see.