Focusing
Find the vague, bodily feel of a problem, give it a word that fits, and wait for what it tells you.
Key takeaways
- In Eugene Gendlin's research, the people who got better in therapy kept pausing to check their words against a vague, bodily feel of the problem.
- He called that feel the felt sense. When you find a word that fits it, there is often a small release, and something new comes with it.
- Stay with the feeling with friendly curiosity. When you catch yourself explaining it, come back to how it feels.
What the successful clients did
In the 1950s and 60s, at the University of Chicago, the philosopher Eugene Gendlin worked alongside Carl Rogers, who had built a new kind of therapy around listening closely and accepting people as they are. Gendlin and his colleagues listened to recordings of therapy sessions to find out why some clients got better and others didn't.
The difference wasn't the therapist's technique. It was something the clients did, and it often showed in the first couple of sessions. The ones who improved would slow down mid-sentence and check their words against something they could feel but not yet say: "It's sort of... no, not angry exactly... it's more like being left out." The ones who didn't improve kept analyzing, or retelling what had happened.
Gendlin turned what the successful clients did into a practice anyone could learn, and called it Focusing. It rests on an idea Rogers put like this:
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
The felt sense
A felt sense is the vague, whole feel of a situation in your body, before it turns into words. It isn't a named emotion like "sad". It's fuzzier and more particular than that: the heavy, knotted something in your middle when you think about your sister.
Thinking about a problem tends to go round in circles. Checking your words against the felt sense moves. When the right word lands, there's often a small easing, which Gendlin called a felt shift, and with it something you didn't know a moment ago: "Oh. It's not that I'm angry with her. I'm scared she's pulling away."
Question 1 of 2
Someone is focusing on what's bothering them about work. Which of these are them in touch with the felt sense, and which are them thinking about it?
- "There's something tight and jumpy in my chest when I picture Monday."
- "I'm anxious because the project is behind and my manager has been short with me."
- "It's sort of heavy. Like a wet coat. Not sadness exactly."
- "I should talk to her, but conflict has always been hard for me."
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How to focus
About ten minutes
- Clear a space
Sit quietly and ask, "How am I, right now? What's between me and feeling fine?" Let a few things come up, and pick one.
- Find the felt sense
Don't go into the story. Ask how the whole of it feels in your body, in your chest, throat or stomach, and wait. It takes a little while to form.
- Find a handle
Let a word, phrase or image come that matches its quality: "jumpy", "a weight", "stuck", "a wet coat".
- Check it
Go back and forth between the word and the feeling. Does it fit? If not, let a better one come. When it fits, there's often a small easing.
- Ask it
"What is it about all this that makes it so jumpy?" or "What does it need?" Then wait, and let the answer come from the feeling, not your head.
- Receive it
Welcome whatever came, even if it's small. You can stop there.
The attitude matters more than the steps: friendly curiosity, as if you were sitting with someone who was upset. You aren't trying to fix the feeling or explain it. This is where Rogers comes in. You can't hear a feeling you're busy arguing with.
Focusing is for ordinary troubles. If something overwhelming comes up, step back, and take it to a therapist rather than working through it alone.
Priya's ten minutes
Priya feels off after her best friend's engagement party. She sits down to focus:
"Okay. How does all of this feel? ... There's a kind of hollow, sinking thing in my stomach. Right, well, that's obviously because I'm thirty-four and single and everyone's moving on without me, which has been the pattern ever since university, when..."
Question 2 of 2
Sources and further reading
- Gendlin, E. T. (1978). Focusing. New York: Everest House.
- Gendlin, E. T., Beebe, J., Cassens, J., Klein, M., & Oberlander, M. (1968). Focusing ability in psychotherapy, personality, and creativity. In J. M. Shlien (Ed.), Research in Psychotherapy (Vol. 3, pp. 217-241). American Psychological Association.
- Rogers, C. R. (1961). On Becoming a Person. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Finish the lesson
0 of 2 questions done. Answer the rest to finish.