Who would study psychology if they didn't have some kind of problem?

Chapter 473 [Grounding Technology], Returning to the Safe Present

As soon as he finished speaking, the visitor suddenly turned his head.

It felt like I was dodging something, or like I was taking an unseen punch to my head.

This was the reaction of Nan Zhuren and others.

He immediately said, "Let's stop for a moment."

It's time to use grounding technology.

In fact, the visitor had already stopped narrating without Nan Zhuren speaking.

He was clenching his fists, his jaw muscles on both sides of his face tightening and relaxing repeatedly, making a clenching motion.

At the same time, his right leg trembled incessantly, his toes touching the ground, his heel constantly rising and falling. Because his elbow was resting on his knee, this movement caused his entire upper body to twitch.

"Nan Zhihao?" the counselor thought for a moment and said softly.

The visitor did not respond, but instead inhaled deeply through his nose, the sound of his straining breath echoing throughout the consultation room.

“…Nan Zhihao!” The counselor suddenly raised her voice.

Nan Zhuren did not use any extra techniques, neither "soothing" nor "infecting," but simply used the most basic high volume to achieve the effect of awakening.

The sound was like a resounding bell ringing in the visitor's ear. He looked up abruptly, breathing heavily, and a bewildered expression on his face.

"Cough cough." The visitor suddenly pressed his hand to his chest and kept clearing his throat, as if something was stuck there.

"Let's stop for a moment," Nan Zhuren said softly.

No additional techniques were used; this part doesn't require any intervention. Nan Zhuren needed to allow the client's own emotional regulation abilities to come into play.

Can you describe how you feel right now?

Upon hearing the counselor's question, the client took a couple of breaths: "Cough cough. I feel... my heart is beating very fast, I'm starting to sweat, and then... cough cough, I feel a little nauseous."

He glanced down at his legs, as if only then realizing what was happening: "I'm shaking..."

Nan Zhuren softened his expression:
"You mentioned before that images would occasionally pop into your mind, and they just appeared again, right?"

“That’s right,” the visitor replied, then blinked hard, prying open his eyelids as if trying to see through something to Nan Zhuren. “It’s still there. That QR code, and the notification that popped up on the phone…”

"We don't need to recall these things for now."

Nan Zhuren raised his hand to stop the visitor's narration, thus halting part of the other person's thoughts.

“Your current state is the problem we need to solve most right now. Before you continue recounting your experiences, let’s address your current flashback.”

"Let's use the grounding technology I just mentioned."

……

Reducing the severity of a memory flashback by one level is called an intrusive memory.

The prefix "invasive" itself reveals the strength and ferocity of this memory's arrival.

Intrusive recall is often seen in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) related symptoms. It manifests as thoughts, images, or memory fragments that suddenly and uncontrollably intrude into one's consciousness.

When such memories appear in the form of images, individuals may feel as if a semi-transparent picture or animated GIF is appearing in front of their eyes, and this image is on the top layer.

Building upon this, the "Memory Flashback" feature adds a vivid and sensory-rich "re-experiencing" of the traumatic event.

This process is accompanied by a strong sense of dissociation, causing the individual to detach from the current environment and become unresponsive to real-world stimuli. It is commonly seen in post-traumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder, major anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and so on.

The main intervention approach for "flashbacks" is to draw the client's attention away from painful thoughts, memories, or feelings and back to the present reality, reconnecting them with their body and surrounding environment, thereby restoring their sense of security and control.

This means pulling visitors away from past traumatic memories or catastrophic anxieties about the future and back to the safe present.

This is the core principle of the grounding technology that Nan Zhuren will be using next.

The operation of this technology can be summarized as a "triple landing": physical landing, mental landing, and self-soothing landing.

……

Nan Zhuren glanced at the visitor's trembling legs.

"Okay, Zhihao." Nan Zhuren addressed the visitor by his name in a relatively friendly manner.

Before the consultation began, Nan Zhuren had prepared some extra props.

At this moment, he took out a small hourglass that he had put in his pocket. The hourglass was about the size of a little finger and could even be made into a pendant.

Nan Zhuren placed the hourglass next to the coffee that he had specially instructed Mo Kai to prepare, turned it upside down, and the sand inside slowly fell.

This attracted the attention of some visitors.

“Now, I need you to try to control your legs,” Nan Zhuren said.

"Don't try to 'not shake'." Because that's impossible. "Don't tense your leg muscles. I need you to move your muscles and do a pushing-off motion."

The visitor nodded and put his heel on the ground.

"Don't keep pushing. After you exert force once, relax."

"Feel the muscles working. Exert force, relax, exert force, relax." Nan Zhuren lowered his voice, making it sound deep and steady. "Make sure that every movement you make is under your 'control'."

"During this process, try to adjust your breathing."

"Exhale when you push off the ground, inhale when you relax. Exhale, inhale, exhale—inhale—"

"very good."

Seeing the visitor adjust their body in accordance with her guidance, Nan Zhuren continued, "Inhale—exhale—exhale—exhale—"

After the visitor's legs had entered a rhythmic movement, and even formed a brief muscle memory, Nan Zhuren continued:

"You can also put your hands on the sofa and feel the texture of it—"

He joked, "This sofa must be quite expensive, so it must feel really nice to the touch. You can rub your fingers against the armrests, tighten your fingers to grip them as you exhale, and relax them as you inhale."

"Let's continue. Inhale—exhale—exhale—exhale—"

"Inhale—exhale—exhale—exhale—"

Visibly, the visitor's trembling body gradually returned to stability.

At this moment, all the sand in the hourglass had fallen to the bottom.

The "body landing" of the "grounding technology" is complete.

"Ahem." The visitor cleared his throat again, his breathing still rapid.

Nan Zhuren forced a smile: "Very good, let's move on to the second step."

"There's a little trick to this step."

Nan Zhuren extended his five long, slender fingers with distinct knuckles, and then withdrew them one by one.

The mnemonic is: five, four, three, two, one.

The visitor looked puzzled and repeated, "Five, four, three, two... one?"

Nan Zhuren nodded: "I need you to describe five things you see with your eyes, four things you touch with your body, three things you hear with your ears, two things you smell with your nose, and finally, make a movement that you can control."

These correspond to the senses of sight, touch, hearing, smell, and movement, respectively.

This is the second landing of "grounding technology" - "spiritual landing".

(End of this chapter)