The Arc of a Healing Session: Opening, Clearing, SOund, Integration, and CLosing
People often see small clips from my sessions…moments of sound, movement, stillness, release, or unusual visual phenomena…but a full session is much more than a single moment. A session unfolds in phases. It had an arc, a rhythm, and a structure.
Healing sessions are not performances. They are processes. They move at the speed the nervous system can safely integrate.
Over time, I began to notice that sessions tend to move through a general sequence. Not rigidly, but rhythmically, like waves. Each phase builds on the one before it, and each phase has a purpose.
Below is a general map of how sessions often unfold.
Phase 1: Opening, Protection and Containment
The session begins by opening the space and setting the container for the work.
This phase may include:
Smudging with sage
Medicine Shield Moon Water
Setting the container with sound and movement, counterclockwise motion, utilizing 174hz and 639hz
Opening the session intentionally
Scanning the system
Beginning nervous system regulation
Establishing coherence in the field
Allowing the body to settle and feel safe
Before any deep work can happen, the nervous system has to feel enough to allow change. This phase can look quiet, but it is one of the most important parts is the session.
Phase 2: Clearing, Extraction, and Release
Once the system is more regulated and the container is established, the session often moves into clearing and release work.
This phase may include:
Clearing energy centers
Extraction work
Emotional release
Upgrades to the system
Physical release (changes in breathing, movement, heat, air, excrement, shaking, temperature changes, pressure etc.)
Old patterns or structures surfacing, releasing or collapsing
The system letting go of what it no longer needs to hold
Release does not always look peaceful. Sometimes the body moves. Sometimes emotions surface. Sometimes there is deep stillness. Release can look different for each person and each session.
Release is not the end of the session…it is what makes the next phase possible.
Phase 3: Sound Tuning, Consolidation, and Coherence
After clearing and release, the system often needs help reorganizing. This is where sound becomes very important because it brings the resonance that allows the coherence process to unfold.
When the system is exposed to steady, coherent sounds, it begins to organize itself arouns that coherence. Rhythm, tone, frequency and vibration give the body and nervous system a pattern to entrain to. Over time, the system begins to shift from chaos or fragmentation into a more coherent state.
In this phase I may use:
Crystal and Tibetan singing bowls
Tuning forks
Drum rhythms
Rattles
Voice or tone
Sound can help the nervous system reorganize and settle into a new pattern. It can support heart-brain coherence, help the body integrate the clearing work. and stabilize the system after release.
Sometimes additional clearing happens in this phase as well, but more gently. This phase is about consolidation, reorganization, and creating coherence in the system after things have moved.
Phase 4: Nourish, Replenish, and Integrate
After release and reorganization, the system is often very open and receptive. This phase focuses on nourishment and integration.
This phase may include:
Nourishing the system
Replenishing energy
Gentle grounding
Integration support
Individual chakra moon water application
Allowing the system to rest, absorb the work and bask in the energy
This phase tells the body and nervous system: you are safe, you are supported, you can keep the new pattern. This part of the session is very important because it helps prevent the system from returning immediately to old pattens after release.
Phase 5: Closing the Session and Closing the Container
Just as the session is opened intentionally, it is also closed intentionally.
This phase may include:
Closing the circle clockwise
Palo Santo and/or Medicine Shield moon water
Closing sounds using the same Tibetan bowls (174hz and 639hz)
Allowing the system to fully return to a grounded state
Intentionally ending the session and sealing the container
Closing the session helps the body understand that work is complete and it is safe to return to normal awareness and daily life.
Closing Thoughts
Most sessions move through a general arc:
Open→ Clear→ Reorganize→ Nourish→ Close
The relaease is not the end of the session. Integration and closure are just as important as the clearing itself.
Healing is not something that is done to a person. It is something the body and nervous system do when they are given the right conditions”
Safety
Support
Time
Coherence
The body knows how to move toward balance when it is given the right movements from different phases of this process. Longer sessions show the full arc from beginning to end.
Michelle Giguere, LMFT, EMDR
Licensed Marriage and Family
Therapist and EMDR practitioner
specializing in trauma-informed
and somatic approaches to
nervous system regulation.
