Abstract. Identifying the associations between health and personality has been a focus for psychophysiological research. Type D personality is associated with predisposition to physical and psychological ill-health. This statistician-blind parallel-group controlled trial (intervention group vs. waiting list control group) examined the impact of Havening Techniques on the Type D constituents of negative affect (NA) and social inhibition (SI). One hundred twenty-five adult (18+ years) participants in the United Kingdom (72 females, 53 males) completed the Type D Scale-14 (DS14) measure of Type D personality at baseline (T1), 24-hours (T2), and at 1-month (T3). Forty participants in the treatment group received additional stress biomarker assessment of heart rate, blood pressure, and salivary cortisol. Type D caseness remained stable in the waiting list participants ( n = 57). In the treatment group ( n = 68); NA, SI, and total scores decreased from T1 to T2 ( p < .001, p < .001, and p < .001, respectively), and from T2 to T3 ( p = .004, p < .001, and p < .001, respectively), significantly transmuting to non-caseness ( p < .001 for T1 to T2; p = .025 for T2 to T3). Between T1 and T2, decreases in cortisol ( p < .001), diastolic blood pressure ( p < .001), and systolic blood pressure ( p < .001) were demonstrated. Heart rate fell nonsignificantly between T1 and T2 ( p = .063), but significantly from T1 to T3 ( p = .048). The findings of this study indicate the potential mutability of the psychophysiological illness-prone characteristics of Type D personality.

Conceptually, resilience is broadly defined as the ability to adapt positively to trauma. Havening Techniques (HT) use psychosensory input to alter responses to stress, potentially offering an innovative treatment intervention for posttraumatic dysregulation. The objective of this study was to implement a capacity-building approach to examine the efficacy of HT intervention in augmenting resilience post-trauma. This statistician-blind, parallel-group controlled trial of treatment versus waiting list groups examined the efficacy of the intervention in 125 trauma-exposed participants. Resilience was assessed psychometrically using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD–RISC) completed by participants prior to the intervention (Timepoint 1), 24 hours post-intervention (Timepoint 2) and one month later (Timepoint 3). CD-RISC scores were comparable at T1 in both groups. Scores remained stable between timepoints in the waiting list group. However, they significantly increased in the treatment group: 36.7 (SD 20.0) vs 70.3 (SD 10.9) vs 73.9 (SD 10.9), (p &lt; .001 for the difference between treatment and waiting list groups at both T2 and T3; effect sizes 2.60 and 2.79 respectively), indicating that HT was efficacious at augmenting resilience acutely and this was maintained at one month. This study acknowledges the benefits of resilience-focused approaches to evaluate interventions targeted at traumatic stress.