CFT Creating a Safe Place Worksheet (Build Internal Security)

Designing an Internal Sanctuary: The Safe Place Imagery Protocol

The Creating a Safe Place Worksheet is a foundational sensory tool used in Compassion-Focused Therapy to establish psychological safeness. While the “Compassionate Image” focuses on a supportive figure, the “Safe Place” focuses on an environment where the client feels completely at ease. For clients living in chronic states of hyper-vigilance, this worksheet provides a repeatable clinical method for “dialing down” the threat system and resting the mind in a state of calm.

A Multi-Sensory Approach to Security

To move beyond a simple daydream and into a biological shift, this worksheet guides the client through a rigorous sensory grounding process:

• Visual Anchoring: Clients begin by populating their mental landscape with specific details, creating a consistent visual “anchor” for their focus.
• Tactile and Auditory Immersion: By focusing on the “feel” (temperature, texture) and “sound” (ambient noise), the client engages the parietal and temporal lobes, making the imagery more neurologically “real.”
• The Olfactory Connection: Smell is more directly linked to the emotional centers of the brain (the limbic system) than any other sense. Identifying a specific scent helps lock in the emotional feeling of safety.
• Physiological Feedback: Step 5 uses facial feedback loops—like a soft smile—to reinforce the internal feeling of happiness and signal the nervous system to relax.
• Relational Safeness: Unique to CFT, the final step asks the client to imagine that the place itself takes joy in their presence. This targets the “affiliation system,” helping clients feel welcomed and wanted.

Clinical Application

Therapists use this worksheet as a “re-regulation” tool. It is particularly effective for clients dealing with trauma or high anxiety, providing them with a mental retreat they can visit between sessions to manage emotional “flooding.”

References

• Gilbert, P. (2010). Compassion Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features. Routledge. (Outlining the clinical use of ‘Safe Place’ imagery to stimulate the soothing-affiliation system and reduce threat-system dominance).
• Irons, C., & Beaumont, E. (2017). The Compassionate Mind Workbook. Robinson. (Providing a step-by-step guide for creating a ‘Compassionate Safe Place’ as a core skill in Compassionate Mind Training).
• Arntz, A. (2012). Imagery Rescripting as a Therapeutic Technique. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice. (Research supporting the use of imagery-based techniques for improving emotional regulation and reducing distress).
• Kolts, R. L. (2016). CFT Made Simple. New Harbinger Publications. (Detailing how clinicians can help clients use sensory detail to strengthen safe-place imagery and emotional grounding).
• Rockliff, H., et al. (2008). A pilot exploration of heart rate variability and salivary cortisol responses to compassion-focused imagery. Clinical Neuropsychiatry. (Evidence that compassion-focused imagery can improve heart rate variability and reduce physiological stress markers).