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To help you make the emotional and relationship changes you want, I’d
like you to know about a psychotherapy procedure I will guide you in
from time to time as needed. It is called Focusing Oriented
Psychotherapy ¾ Focusing for
short. Focusing was developed by Dr. Eugene Gendlin based on his
pioneering work with Dr. Carl Rogers.
Focusing is a gentle process of self-exploration and self-discovery that
lets you tap into what’s stirring inside you, beneath your conscious awareness,
beyond intellect and logical thinking, letting you get to know that “deeper you”
so you can make positive changes in your life. Focusing is a body-oriented
process of inner self awareness and emotional change. Focusing enables you to deal with
your emotions instead of your emotions dealing with you. It requires my being
fully present for and empathically listening to your moment by moment experience
— emphasizing respect for the “person in there” and
any steps of positive, forward movement. Focusing, a psychological process for
emotional intelligence and growth, involves the sense that you
inherently know what you need to change and grow.
Many therapy approaches emphasize getting in touch with what's going on
inside you. Focusing can show you how to do it -- productively!
Much of our psychological dysfunction comes from our
defenses against emotional distress having worked all too well and outliving
their usefulness. To defend against our hurts, especially as vulnerable
children, we learned how to interfere with our bodily felt experiencing. This
cuts us off from one source of self knowing, knowing from our emotions, so we
rely too much on knowing from erroneous beliefs we have been taught about
ourselves. Focusing enables us to reprocess our warded off emotional pain and
shows us how to restore a healthy balance between feeling and thinking.
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Sessions of Focusing Oriented Psychotherapy
are usually the full 60 minute hour.
I would guide you in steps for processing your
emotions so you can arrive at new meanings and directions for your living.
Specific steps I may guide you in include:
-
thought quieting;
-
closing your eyes and
bringing your attention inside your body, where
you feel things, becoming aware of your present bodily felt sense of an issue
which troubles you;
-
getting a “handle” for the
felt sense by identifying where it is
bodily felt and describing the quality of the feeling, for example, a
tightness in your chest, a choking in your throat, an emptiness in your
centre, a queasiness in your stomach;
-
instead
of trying to get rid of it, accepting the felt sense, adopting a caring,
compassionate, interested attitude
in listening to what stirs in you at a bodily felt level;
-
letting words or images
come from your bodily felt experiencing, listening to your
feeling, letting it now speak to you;
-
noticing any shift or
change or release accompanying your own fresh words and images;
-
showing yourself what this
felt sense reminds you of, when you first felt this way as a boy or girl;
-
completing unfinished
business by imaginary dialoguing with significant people associated with your
emotional distress in your growing up;
-
accessing internal
resources for relating to yourself in new
ways -- self-nurturing to fulfill unmet affectional and self-regard needs
instead of oppressing yourself as you may have learned to do;
-
and
steps for closing, surfacing, soothing remaining distress; and reflecting on
this visit inside yourself.
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While there are no guarantees, benefits of this work can include:
-
getting
in touch with your reactions and emotions, and good ways of expressing your
emotions to others;
-
unlike methods that simply stress "getting in touch
with your feelings," there is a built-in test: each focusing step, when done
correctly, is marked by a physical relief, a profound release of tension;
-
"AFTER finding how you have been mislabeling a certain pain, (with Focusing)
you may THEN find that the origin is very clear"; " 'Focusing' gives
the guidance to holistically find the source of fears, anxiety, and
negativity. It guides the (person) to a place where he/she can sit and
listen to the body speak of the source of a problem's manifestation";
-
becoming less blocked, more open;
-
"a very effective method for clearing and releasing negative emotions";
-
"It teaches you how to get in touch with your body/mind--the part of you
that feels and knows without using logic, morality, guilt, or blame. Once
you get in touch with whatever your body/mind is experiencing in the
present, you focus on that "felt sense." Keeping your conscious awareness
tuned to that feeling causes a movement in the energy, and ultimately a
shift occurs, which you can physically feel as a release of a blockage or a
point of tension. This technique works very well for those problems and
issues that you thought you had worked through, but keep returning over and
over again";
-
feeling more "centered";
-
changing your relationship with yourself to a gentle and compassionate one;
-
"Living in the present moment with more kindness and acceptance";
-
"the essence of Focusing is your relationship with yourself. That is, living
the Focusing attitudes by being gentle and compassionate with yourself. This
is a perfect fit with my experience, both personal and professional ....
Living in the present moment with kindness and acceptance is perhaps the
greatest benefit that I, and consequently those around me, have derived from
Focusing";
-
clarifying your thoughts and feelings;
-
"a *fast* way of developing new insight and articulating what you really
think and feel. And it feels good and may help you stay more aware of what
matters to you during your day";
-
receiving information
from your unpleasant emotions about what’s really wrong for you;
"healing emotional wounds that our bodies hold";
-
thus
gaining guiding wisdom about how you can better conduct your life, meeting
your own needs in healthier ways, acting in ways that are more likely to
create the life you want;
-
developing a comfortable
relationship with strong feelings, learning to acknowledge them and listen
to them, instead of being drowned by them;
-
shifting the way you
treat yourself, from talking at yourself to listening attentively to
yourself, increasing acceptance of and compassion for yourself;
-
talking
things out instead of acting things out in your relationships;
-
healing the wounds of a
past you cannot change.
Focusing Oriented Therapy often leads to a significant reduction in feelings of
distress, better relationships, and resolution of specific problems. Research
has shown that clients who engage in higher levels of experiencing during
psychotherapy tend to get better results.
Therapy also has potential emotional risks.
Approaching feelings or thoughts that you have tried not to think about for a
long time may be painful. You are likely to experience uncomfortable feelings
such as sadness, guilt, anxiety, anger and frustration, loneliness and
helplessness. Psychotherapy often requires discussing unpleasant aspects of your
life. Distressing, unresolved, even forgotten memories might surface before you
get relief. You may experience reactions during the treatment sessions that you
did not expect, including a high level of emotion or physical sensation. I will
certainly try to ensure that you do not leave a session in a distraught state by
guiding you in emotional soothing procedures. After a treatment session, the
processing of material may continue and other memories, dreams, flashbacks, or
feelings might surface. Making changes in your beliefs or behaviors can be
scary, and sometimes disruptive to the relationships you already have. You may
find your relationship with me to be a source of strong feelings. It is
important that you consider carefully whether these risks are worth the benefits
to you of changing. Most people who take these risks find that therapy is
helpful.
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Books
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Please click on book cover image for larger
view.
- "Focusing" by Dr. Eugene Gendlin. Published by Bantam, 1981.
The original breakthrough book that made Focusing available to the public. It
guides
Focusing in six steps of self change and has many examples.
- “The Power of Focusing: A practical Guide to Emotional Self-Healing”
by Dr. Ann Weiser Cornell. Published by New Harbinger Publications, 1996.
Presents a way of Focusing that many people find clear and accessible, easy to understand and
follow, with many helpful examples, sections on typical problems and questions.
This book "gets to the heart of how you can really make Focusing work for
you."
Describes the use of focusing in psychotherapy in great detail and is
helpful for both therapists and clients. Provides a thorough analysis of
client-therapist interaction to show ways in which the therapist can enable
client experiencing.
On the Web
Click below to link to helpful focusing related sites:
The major website on Focusing, The Focusing Institute's web site has a lot
of information, including: a general introduction to Focusing; a listing of
Certified Focusing Trainers which includes me; an online bookstore
with numerous publications, audiotapes and videotapes for direct purchase; a
review of Focusing Oriented Therapy outcome studies which includes
citations of two of my own research reports. The Focusing Institute has
major centers in over 17 countries with publications in six languages and its
own professional journal “The Folio: A Journal for Experiential Therapy”.
Additional helpful web sites include:
Audio Tape of Ralph Guiding Focusing
Please click on image for larger view
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Toronto Psychologist
