Choose the right image
Select a place — real or imagined — where your body genuinely feels calm and safe, not just conceptually reassuring.
Why it works
The safe place works through imagery-mediated physiological regulation: a vivid mental image of safety activates the body’s orienting response toward calm rather than threat, modulating the amygdala-driven stress response. The key is a body-felt quality of calm — not a cognitively approved idea of where you should feel safe. An image that produces a felt sense of ease (even a small one) in the body is more effective than a rationally correct but emotionally flat one.
How to do it
- Let your mind wander to places — real or imagined — that carry a quality of ease, safety, or peace.
- Check each candidate with your body: does your breathing slow slightly? Is there a small physical softening?
- Pick the one with the strongest body response, even if it seems trivial (a corner of a library, a beach at a specific age).
- Avoid places associated with other people who could become complicated — the image should be stable.
Evidence
Imagery-based self-soothing has research support in the broader self-regulation and anxiety literature; the body-check criterion aligns with somatic marker research on the role of physical sensation in emotional processing. A randomized controlled trial found guided imagery meaningfully reduced anxiety in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, and Damasio’s somatic marker work grounds the body-felt selection criterion in how physical sensation guides emotional processing. (mechanistic)
The specific safe-place technique from EMDR has not been directly trialed against controls as a standalone tool; support comes from EMDR protocol research and the broader imagery literature.
Sources
- Charalambous, A., Giannakopoulou, M., Bozas, E., & Paikousis, L. (2015). A Randomized Controlled Trial for the Effectiveness of Progressive Muscle Relaxation and Guided Imagery as Anxiety Reducing Interventions in Breast and Prostate Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2015, 270876.
- Damasio, A. R. (1996). The somatic marker hypothesis and the possible functions of the prefrontal cortex. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 351(1346), 1413-1420.
Common mistake
Choosing a place that sounds calming in the abstract (the beach, a mountain) without checking whether your body actually responds with ease. A weak image will not hold under distress.
Practice this with IX Coach
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More practices for EMDR Safe Place, Made Practical
- Build the image with all five senses
Make the safe place vivid and multi-sensory so the brain processes it as a real environment, not an abstraction.
- Install the resource through repeated access
Strengthen the neural pathway to the safe place by accessing it regularly, not just when you need it.
- Use the safe place for in-the-moment regulation
When distress escalates, briefly access the image to interrupt the escalation cycle before deciding what to do.
- Adapt the image when it stops feeling safe
If the safe place loses its felt quality, investigate what changed and revise rather than abandoning the practice.
- Complement with the container exercise for unfinished material
Use an imagined container to temporarily hold distressing material, freeing capacity to access the safe place.
Related concepts
- Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness, Made Practical
Adapting mindfulness so it regulates rather than reactivates
- Internal Family Systems (IFS), Made Practical
The parts model, the mechanisms behind it, and an honest read on an emerging evidence base
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills, Made Practical
The four DBT skill sets, the mechanisms behind them, and an honest read on the evidence