Can you enhance the benefits you get from therapy or even get these benefits without going to therapy at all? How can ‘focusing’ help you heal.
Gene Gendlin and other researchers recorded therapy sessions to try and see what conditions helped people gain the most benefit. They were surprised that the various types of therapy people experienced differed little in terms of impact. Nor did what the patient spoke about make a significant difference. However, how patients spoke helped them easily pick out in advance which patients would get the most out of therapy. Patients who reported the most benefit brought an inherent skill to therapy. Gendlin and his colleagues found the skill could be taught to patients and practised to hone it.
Most therapists don’t teach it, and you don’t have to go to therapy to get its benefits. You can simply use it alone or with a peer and still achieve growth and healing. So what is it?
Focusing
Gendlin named this skill ‘focusing’. It’s an experiential, embodied, evidence-based process of self-reflection in which you turn your attention to the visceral ‘felt’ sense inside your body.
You start by paying attention to what biologists call ‘interoception’. Push past the more clearly identified emotions, such as anger or sadness, and then look for what feels more “vague and murky.” A felt sense is not a mental experience but a physical one and isn’t easy to describe in words.
You can hear Gendlin describe focusing in the video.
How do you do ‘focusing’?
Gendlin identified six simple steps that may be used, but it is clear that there are different ways to achieve a state of focusing. He recommends that you:
- Clear a space—be silent. Ask yourself the question, “How is my life going right now?” or some other broad question, and then turn your attention inside your body to notice your reaction. Often, we notice the felt sense most strongly in the stomach or chest. Listen in to your body in a compassionate and sympathetic way. Approach your problem in an optimistic way as you’re seeking change.
- Notice the felt sense—push aside the obvious emotions and notice where you feel a lack of clarity, something more vague and murky – something that feels like a problem, somewhere where there is discomfort. Don’t allow yourself to become immersed in it. Ask yourself, “What else do I feel?”. Often, you will notice several feelings. Allow yourself the space to do this before deciding which feels most important to focus on.
- Identify the quality of the felt sense—how can you describe the discomfort? Does it feel tight, stuck, scary? Or maybe you get a phrase or an image that works as a metaphor?
- Ensure they resonate—go back and forth between the felt sense and the word/image/phrase you have chosen. Do they fit? Continue until you find one that does. Notice if there’s a little bodily signal that tells you they fit.
- Understand the connection—ask the question, “What is it about this situation that creates this quality?” Be with the felt sense until you get a shift. If you get an answer without a shift in the felt sense, let that answer go by.
- Be open to change—“Receive what comes with the shift in a friendly way”. Stay with it for a little while. You will notice others. When you decide to stop, you can always come back to this place tomorrow. If you feel there is more, you can always do another round.
How does focusing differ from other problem-solving approaches?
If you lack the skill of focusing, you will rely more on other, less successful problem-solving approaches:
- Dismissing the problem – you try to convince yourself that your issue is insignificant
- Pushing through – you grit your teeth and try to get on with things, but it comes at a cost
- Analysing – you try to use your intellect to figure things out. But, often, things that feel problematic do so because there’s a mismatch between how you think and how you feel
- Lecturing yourself – you berate yourself, tell yourself to “stop being an idiot.”
- Drowning in the feeling – you sink into the emotion and then get overwhelmed. You don’t notice the different aspects and dimensions of your experience.
Focusing represents a different approach to solving problems. It’s a key part of sensorimotor psychotherapy and other somatic therapies, but you can easily get the benefits yourself without having to go to therapy.
Find out more
You can read more about it in Gendlin’s classic book “Focusing”. It’s a simple, accessible read.
Learn more about the practice or find a practice partner.
Or have a go with this short free course created by Peter Gill, Author of “The Way of Curiosity.”
If you’re interested in therapy that deliberately cultivates the skill of focusing, feel free to contact me for a complimentary consultation.
