Participants found places valuable when the sensations they were experiencing had a sense of
coherence and clarity. This either came from isolating one sense, or where different senses created a
clear setting or mood. One participant was overwhelmed when visiting Fargate during the early stages
of recovery: ‘Your brain… doesn’t filter anything out…. just exhausting... the trams and the noise... it
was just too much’ (Participant 5). Natural spaces were found to offer more coherence for the senses,
and were felt to be less overwhelming. Participant 4 identified the sensory pleasures of spending
time on his allotment, particularly ‘the smell of freshly turned earth and stuff, getting my fingers dirty’.