Havening technique: definition and how it differs from EMDR

The Havening Technique is a self-soothing method that pairs gentle touch on the arms, palms, and face with mental distraction, developed by physician Ronald Ruden and his brother, dentist Steven Ruden, in the early 2000s. Its creators theorize the touch generates delta brainwaves that calm an overactive amygdala, though that specific mechanism hasn’t been independently confirmed.

Who created the Havening Technique?

Ronald A. Ruden, an internal medicine physician, and his brother Steven J. Ruden, a dentist and hypnotherapist, began collaborating in 2001 to explain the biology behind tapping-based methods like EFT and Thought Field Therapy. That work grew into Havening, which Ronald Ruden laid out fully in his 2010 book, When the Past Is Always Present.

How does the Havening Technique work?

A practitioner, or the person themselves in a version called Self-Havening, strokes the upper arms from shoulder to elbow, rubs the palms together, and strokes the forehead and cheeks, while thinking about something pleasant or counting aloud. Havening’s own materials describe this touch as generating slow delta brainwaves, the frequency seen in deep sleep, which they theorize triggers an enzyme that removes AMPA receptors from neurons in the amygdala, “depotentiating” a memory’s emotional charge.

That chain of events comes from the technique’s own creators and hasn’t been independently confirmed in humans. Melissa Hunt, a clinical psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, told TODAY in 2020 that “the claims about its mechanism have no evidence to support them.”

Is the Havening Technique backed by research?

Evidence is thin compared to EMDR’s decades of trials. The strongest study to date, a 2021 waitlist-controlled trial of 125 UK adults published in the Journal of Psychophysiology, found the treatment group reported less negative affect and social inhibition at 24 hours and one month than people still waiting for the intervention. A 2025 Frontiers in Global Women’s Health paper described four case studies using Havening during pregnancy and postpartum, though case studies alone can’t establish that a technique caused the improvement. No large independent randomized trial has replicated either finding yet.

How is the Havening Technique different from EMDR?

EMDR relies on bilateral stimulation: alternating left-right eye movements, taps, or tones, held in mind alongside a specific memory, an approach the American Psychological Association conditionally recommends for PTSD. Havening uses continuous touch on both sides at once instead of alternating stimulation, paired with distraction rather than a held memory. The crossed-arm position looks like the butterfly hug, but the butterfly hug’s alternating taps are bilateral stimulation; Havening’s simultaneous stroking is not.

If Havening’s self-soothing angle appeals to you but you’d rather use the mechanism with the deeper evidence base, EmEase, a self-guided EMDR app, offers guided visual and audio bilateral stimulation at app.emease.com. And if a specific memory, not everyday stress, is driving the distress, see can you do EMDR on yourself for where self-help reaches its limit.