Already HerePractices for exploring experienceA little attention. Room to respond.INDEX · GLOSSARY
Plain-language definitions, further reading, and a guide to what the sources support.
GLOSSARY AND FURTHER READING
Definitions describe how words are used here. Some are clinical terms, some come from contemplative traditions, and some are our own metaphors.
Somatic means relating to the body. Already Here uses it for everyday exploration of sensation, contact, movement, attention, and imagery. It is an umbrella description, not a claim that all “somatic” methods share one mechanism or evidence base. See MedlinePlus: medical word parts and NCCIH: relaxation techniques.
This site is not a named somatic psychotherapy, a trauma-treatment protocol, or a certification course. To learn more, begin with the accessible resources below and distinguish a method’s claims from research on that specific method.
Acknowledging what is happening so you can respond. It does not require approval, forgiveness, or remaining in harm.
Explore on this site · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
The impulse to do something that accompanies a feeling, such as interrupting, avoiding, or reaching. An urge is not an instruction.
Explore on this site · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
What receives emphasis in your experience. Here, practicing attention includes noticing wandering and returning.
Processes that help regulate bodily functions without ongoing deliberate direction. Some functions, including breathing, also permit voluntary influence.
Explore on this site · NHLBI: how your body controls breathing
Your experienced or imagined model of your body. A change in this representation is not necessarily a change in the physical body.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
Either a physical or experienced edge, or a limit you communicate in a relationship. The Self and Emotions sections use these different senses.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
Separate observable events from assumptions, then ask whether the emotion and its intensity fit the situation.
Explore on this site · Behavioral Tech: emotion regulation in DBT, part 2
An orientation of care toward difficulty, including your own. It need not arrive as a warm feeling.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
On this site, a deliberately imagined representation: a shape, object, place, or body. It remains an idea or image, even when assigned a location.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
A strong wanting or urge. Here the goal is choice around it, with real needs such as food and rest still respected.
A structured psychotherapy developed by Marsha Linehan, combining acceptance and change. This site offers selected skills, not the full therapy.
Explore on this site · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
A DBT request-making reminder: Describe, Express, Assert, Reinforce; stay Mindful, Appear confident, Negotiate.
Explore on this site · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
Making room for apparently opposing truths: you can accept a present feeling and also change what you do next.
Explore on this site · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
Skills for getting through a difficult moment without making it worse. Solving the underlying problem may come later.
Explore on this site · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
Recognizing and responding to emotions, including changing conditions or actions. It does not mean eliminating emotion.
Explore on this site · Behavioral Tech: emotion regulation in DBT, part 2
Steady care amid changing experience. In this site’s exercises it means room to respond, rather than indifference.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
A DBT self-respect reminder: be Fair, avoid unnecessary Apologies, Stick to values, be Truthful. Appropriate apologies still matter.
Explore on this site · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
The pleasant, unpleasant, or neither quality of an experience. It is narrower than a full emotion such as anger or joy.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
Our accessible label for exploring body/form, feeling tone, recognition, intentions or formations, and conscious experience. Inspired by contemporary texts. These are not five literal substances.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
A DBT relationship reminder: be Gentle, act Interested, Validate, use an Easy manner. Validation does not require agreeing with every claim.
Explore on this site · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
Here, returning attention to familiar surroundings and physical support. A simple return, not a diagnosis or a guaranteed treatment.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
Using an imagined scene or sensation as an invitation. Vivid pictures are optional; words or a general idea may be more accessible.
Explore on this site · Cambridge University Hospitals: guided imagery
A clinical method of revisiting distressing imagery and imagining a changed response or sequence. Our mild-memory rehearsal is not the researched therapist-led treatment.
Explore on this site · Boterhoven de Haan and colleagues: imagery rescripting trial (2020)
An interpretation drawn from observations. “I noticed warmth” is an observation; “this proves the exercise works” adds an inference.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
Sensing and interpreting signals from inside the body, such as hunger or breathing sensations. Not every bodily process is consciously felt.
A quick sense or judgment that may arrive without a clear account of the reasoning. On this site, treat it as a possibility to check alongside facts.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
In these practices, briefly stopping an extra effort, argument, or pursuit. It does not mean abandoning care or responsibilities.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
An optional metaphor for an imagined place you can recall, revise, and leave. It offers no physical protection.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
Here this names contemporary internal body-imagery exercises, without claims of leaving or moving the physical body.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
Attending to present experience, including thoughts and feelings, with room to notice before reacting. It is not the absence of thoughts.
Allowing an experience without immediately adding an automatic action or argument. It does not require numbness or passivity.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
A DBT skill for changing an emotional action when the emotion does not fit the facts or the action would be ineffective. Safety and context come first.
Explore on this site · Behavioral Tech: emotion regulation in DBT, part 2
Considering how an event might look to another person. An imagined viewpoint is a hypothesis; ask them when safe and appropriate.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
Your sense of the position and movement of your body, such as knowing where an arm is without looking.
A DBT practice of acknowledging the reality of this moment, including difficult facts. Acceptance can coexist with action to change the situation.
Explore on this site · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
This site’s informal metaphor for rehearsing a present-day response to a mild memory. It is not a literal recording replacement, recovered-memory method, or established treatment schedule.
Explore on this site · Boterhoven de Haan and colleagues: imagery rescripting trial (2020)
Here, repeatedly going over the same concern without finding new information or a useful next step. Reflection can instead end with a choice or a pause.
Explore on this site · Site usage / editorial definition
Relating to the body. Here, somatic practice means exploring felt sensation, support, movement, attention, and imagery in ordinary life.
We use subconscious informally for processes outside immediate awareness. It is not a separate person receiving commands; different automatic processes have different mechanisms.
Explore on this site · NHLBI: how your body controls breathing
DBT skills involving Temperature, Intense exercise, and Paced breathing with paired muscle relaxation. Follow the individual page’s health cautions; not every option suits every person.
Explore on this site · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
Noticing an urge’s bodily sensations and changes while leaving room to choose your action. Success does not require the urge to vanish.
Acknowledging that a feeling or perspective can make sense in context. It does not certify every interpretation as fact.
Explore on this site · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
A DBT acceptance invitation using an open, relaxed hand position. It is optional and does not mean agreeing to another person’s demands.
Explore on this site · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
WHAT SUPPORTS WHAT?
Definitions explain terms. Teaching materials explain methods. Clinical studies test particular interventions in particular populations. Historical texts document traditions. Original invitations and metaphors remain proposals unless tested.
Some relaxation approaches may be useful, with benefits varying by method and setting. The named mini-practices here have not been individually validated.
Related page · NCCIH: relaxation techniques · NIH workshop: interoception
Breathing normally operates without conscious planning and can also be influenced voluntarily. Our “cooperation” language is an invitation, not a physiological control theory.
Research and educational sources support learning about present attention. They do not establish that setting worries down will always produce happiness, or that calm can be maintained at all times.
Related page · NCCIH: meditation and mindfulness · NHS: mindfulness
Physical signs can help a person notice rising anger. A sign is not uniquely diagnostic of anger, and anger need not conceal another emotion or memory.
Imagining a comfortable scene is a recognized relaxation approach. Individual responses vary; vividness is not evidence of an external event.
Related page · Cambridge University Hospitals: guided imagery · NCCIH: relaxation techniques
The skills are adapted from the named teaching sources. Evidence for a complete clinical program should not be read as proof that a single website exercise will produce the same result.
Related page · Linehan: DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets · Behavioral Tech: emotion regulation in DBT, part 2
Urge surfing teaches observing an urge without automatic action. It does not establish the permanent end of craving or replace care for addiction and withdrawal.
Research on therapist-delivered imagery rescripting is relevant background. We have not established evidence for this site’s particular self-guided routine, a schedule of several repetitions over months, or a guaranteed better day. Imagined alternatives do not verify another person’s viewpoint or change historical facts.
Related page · Boterhoven de Haan and colleagues: imagery rescripting trial (2020) · NIMH: psychotherapies
These are exploratory questions and comparisons, not validated tests of general ability. A subjective change is worth describing but does not alone establish accuracy, transfer of learning, or a mechanism.
Related page · Editorial exploration; no validating study claimed.
These are optional editorial metaphors for attention and reflection. No specific clinical effectiveness is claimed for these scripts. The same applies to the “tree grows” and “cooperating with the body” analogies.
Related page · Editorial exploration; no validating study claimed.
The links below are the basis and further reading for the site’s main factual and method claims. They do not prove every proposed effect. In particular, no cited source validates all of Already Here as one program.
Reviewed October 6, 2026. Links lead to the source publishers; some documents are PDFs or may require access. Summaries are our own, not quotations.
Definition
The roots somat-, somatico-, and somato- mean body or bodily. This supports the meaning of the word, not the effectiveness of a method bearing the name.
Evidence overview
Introduces imagery, muscle relaxation, and other approaches, with condition-specific research and its limitations. Findings about a studied intervention do not automatically apply to our short adaptations.
Evidence overview
Research on benefits, uncertainty, and possible adverse experiences. Mindfulness is not universally helpful and does not establish a promise of constant calm or happiness.
Physiology
Explains automatic breathing and its nervous-system and muscular control, alongside ways breathing can be voluntary. Automatic does not mean controlled by a separate inner person.
Scientific background · PDF
Describes sensing and interpreting internal bodily signals. Body awareness is information to consider, not a diagnostic test or a guarantee that an intuition is accurate.
Definition
The sense of body position and movement. Useful vocabulary for the Body and Space experiments; it does not validate the experiments as a training program.
Patient education
A practical introduction to imagining a comfortable scene. It supports the general method, not claims of remote perception or physical influence.
Primary skills manual · PDF
Publisher-provided materials for mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Our wording is an adaptation; a skills page is not comprehensive DBT treatment.
Clinical teaching
Explains checking facts and using opposite action when appropriate. This is not advice to override justified fear, tolerate harm, or use the same action for every emotion.
Patient education
Teaches noticing bodily urges and their changes without automatically acting. The aim is a different relationship with an urge, not guaranteed disappearance or treatment of withdrawal.
Patient education
Describes early physical signs and creating time before reacting, plus when to get support. It does not establish that anger always hides another emotion.
Beginner reading
Introduces attention to current thoughts, feelings, and surroundings. Our Happiness exercises invite a possibility; this source does not promise happiness when concerns are set down.
Primary clinical research
A randomized comparison of therapist-delivered imagery rescripting and EMDR for adults with childhood-trauma-related PTSD. It studied structured treatment, not this website’s mild-memory exercise or its proposed repetition over months.
Care and further learning
Explains psychotherapy and choosing professional help. Useful when distress persists, everyday functioning suffers, or self-guided exercises are not enough.
Notice what is already here.
Include a little more.
Listen for what changes.
And return when you choose.