Learning targets section 7.

Experiential approach:
body-orientedness and intrapersonal conditions of
growth
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Learning targets section 7. Experiential approach: body-

orientedness and intrapersonal conditions of growth

 Developing Awareness of Pre-verbal Senses and Body Expressions.

 Developing attitudes and interventions to facilitate intrapersonal conditions of growth.

 Integrating Focusing subskills in therapy.

 Being aware of commonest problems during Focusing such as feeling “nothing”, feeling
overwhelmed, one part which is victimizing or attacking another.

 Using Focusing as self-care. 

 Focusing with non-verbal expressions and with dreams.

“There is more wisdom in your body

Than in your deepest philosophy.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Your body is talking to you. Chris Van de Veire 

“Your body is talking to you. Is there anybody there to listen?” These words were
spoken by the trainer on a Focusing Course where I was a participant. That moment
had such a deep impact on me that I see it as an important turning point on my focusing
path.

What exactly happened in that Focusing course that made me so enthusiastic that I
became a focusing teacher myself? What did I learn about Focusing with the help of a
focusing teacher? And what did I learn as a professional from my personal experience
of focusing? 

On a personal and a professional level I see an important shift and I discovered good
reasons to learn and to practice Focusing. 

In this paper I explain my discoveries and I offer an exercise.  

A Map of Body-oriented Interventions. Mia Leijssen  
The primary focus of this article is on how counselors can improve their verbal approach
by adding a bodily perspective to their existing ways of working. 

In an experiential map of body-oriented interventions different approaches can be

situated on a continuum from verbal to nonverbal: on one side therapy that works with
mostly verbal communication and on the other side therapy where words are hardly
used and attention goes to body work and bodily expression. The richness of the bodily
source can be used in a more conscious way by paying attention to different aspects of
bodily information. 

In therapy, body-oriented interventions can be directed to different aspects of the body.

The body as sensed from inside, or the experiencing body, is one source of
information. 

This is different from working with the body as perceived from outside and paying
attention to nonverbal communication. 

In a next stage, major methods are working with the body in action, in movement, and
other nonverbal expressions. 

At the end of the continuum attention goes to the body in physical contact with another
body, usually by touch. 

The different ways of validating the body are illustrated with clinical vignettes. 

The effects of body-oriented interventions on the client’s process are many and
multifaceted: greater awareness, engagement in the present, deepening of experience,
opening the body memory, cathartic release, resolving blocks, exploring new
possibilities.

Experiencing: ‘a Profound Discovery’.  Judy Moore.

This piece is written from the perspective of a counselor who was originally trained in
the ‘Classical’ tradition of Client-Centered Counseling.  After nearly two decades of
believing that Focusing was a ‘technique’ and therefore incompatible with non-directive
counseling, she finally discovered the richness of Gendlin’s early writings. Gendlin’s
emphasis on giving attention to the stream of inner experiencing - the original meaning
of ‘focusing’- and his process view of the person are shown to have made a vital
contribution to the development of our understanding of the person and the therapeutic
process.

This paper considers the collaboration in the 1950s and early 60s between Eugene
Gendlin and Carl Rogers.
Addressing the Experiential. Mia Leijssen
Rogers' store of ideas has been rephrased and further developed by Gendlin. It is partly
thanks to his contribution that the "art" of therapy and counseling became a process
which can be taught to therapists and clients alike.  Gendlin discovered that successful
clients - defined in terms of change on independent pre- and post-therapy psychometric
measures - are different from unsuccessful ones because they instinctively seem to
pause sometimes and are searching for the right words or expressions to come from an
inner felt reference. Without guidance of the therapist, these clients consult a resource
inside themselves that knows and remembers more about situations than they are
explicitly aware of or can express immediately.

This internal point of reference is further described by Gendlin, at first as "experiencing":

"The process of concrete, bodily feeling, which constitutes the basic matter of
psychological and personality phenomena". Later Gendlin named this bodily felt
experience the "felt sense": "The edge of awareness; a sense of more than one says
and knows, an unclear, fuzzy, murky sense of a whole situation, that comes in the
middle of the body”. One can understand the felt sense  as “a story in the body waiting
to be told”.

Experiential therapy is restoring contact with the meaning-feeling body in which

existence manifests itself, a process in which the arrested experience is touched upon
again, so that it can once more start moving and reveal, further unfold, and complete its
meaning.

The Rogerian basic attitudes are further specified in the experiential approach.  Gendlin
has described the required attitudes to interact with the felt sense very evocatively by
calling the felt sense 'the client's client'. The client's 'inner therapist' gives friendly
attention and silent waiting time, refrains from interpretations, receives and resonates
whatever comes from a felt sense and lets it be at least for a while.  

This experiential attitude emerges spontaneously in some people in a safe milieu. In

others, this way of being occupied inwardly, is not spontaneously used but something
which they can nevertheless discover in contact with for example the book Focusing or
a Focusing teacher or an Experiential therapist. 

However, many clients offer resistance because they experience this inner occupation
as threatening. Only gradually, in a corrective therapeutic milieu and in interaction with
someone who embodies this attitude, will something of this "new" attitude become
possible.

In an experiential response the counselor 'listens' to every bit of communication, verbal

and non-verbal, and acknowledges each expression that leads to the bodily felt
knowing. 
 Also the way the counselor is present as an experiencing person has an inescapable
influence on the interaction and thus also on the client's experiencing process.

In order to teach this experiential way of inner relating Gendlin described Focusing
which involves six process-steps: 1) clearing a space; 2) getting a felt sense; 3) finding
a handle; 4) resonating handle and felt sense; 5) asking; 6) receiving.  Many therapists
use that model in order to guide clients through a successful experiential process. When
teaching Focusing, Gendlin considered it essential to pay due attention to each step
separately.

However during therapy we do not “teach” Focusing. We integrate small bits of focusing
or different focusing subskills, called “experiential responses”.  

The paper shows the transition from Rogers’ approach into Gendlin’s approach.

Making Peace with our Bodies. Katherine M. Kehoe

Eugene Gendlin has pointed out that while the felt sense may not always arise in the
physical body, the physical body is where we start to pay attention. As Focusers, we
recognize the body as a source of wisdom. Yet in Focusing sessions, we often discover
feelings of distrust, anger or frustration toward our bodies. We may notice a tendency to
withdraw from our body as a source of pain or shame.

How do we hold this paradox? How do we turn toward our bodies in a friendly way,
while also being present with the feeling “my body is not my friend”?

Intrigued by journal reports of people using Focusing with serious physical conditions, I
wondered how everyday Focusers like myself, my clients and my students
could communicate more successfully with our bodies. 

That led me to develop a Focusing class called “Making Peace With Our Bodies” as an
accessible way to address this question. In the class, we explore approaches that allow
us to sense the body and its issues freshly. This friendly and curious approach, applied
in specific exercises and invitations, has been getting some exciting results, and I’m
pleased to share some of it here.

I practice Inner Relationship Focusing (IRF) as developed by Ann Weiser Cornell

and Barbara McGavin. 

The article describes BASIC PRINCIPLES:

1. I am not my body: I am more than my body.

2. I can be completely fine, even if my body is uncomfortable or suffering.

3. My body is not my enemy.

4. My body stores old emotional pain. It may also moderate or conceal uncomfortable emotions.

5. My body is sentient and able to communicate with me.

6. My body has its own language and its own communication style.

7. Any physical sensation that comes during a Focusing session is relevant and always carries the
potential for a life forward shift.

8. Even chronic conditions can shift when approached with new awareness: the power of sensing
freshly.

Further this article describes SOME SPECIFIC APPROACHES, and develops on

Working with pain and other physical challenges.

A Journey with Experiential Therapy and Focusing. Joan Klagsbrun

How did I find Focusing? I sat in the front row as Gendlin led us through an intriguing
process of paying inward attention to the center of the body. I intuitively understood that
Gendlin was asking us to sense into the “lived body”- a personal repository of
experience and memory - more than the actual physical body. The objective was, as he
explained it, to get a sense of what we were “invisibly carrying.” He explained that there
were specific physical resonances that we experienced when we thought about a
situation, and these palpably felt feelings could lead us to new understandings. He
guided us in dialoguing with a kind of inner felt sense so that small new steps of change
could emerge. These steps released the tension inside, and opened doorways to
pursue new behaviors. Most importantly for me, the process brought a welcome sense
of calm, relief, and clarity.

In this paper I give some examples from my personal journey in experiential therapy
with Gendlin and I tell a brief history of Focusing.

Further I describe client experiences with Focusing in the context of Experiential

therapy. 

The first step of Focusing called “Clearing a Space” is an important experiential subskill.
The paper gives examples from clinical practice and illustrates how clearing a space
enables to deal with fear.

Focusing is an experiential method of working with personal problems, but it can also be
a catalyst for increasing joy, appreciation, gratitude, happiness, love, and well-being. 

This paper will help you to explore the different realms of experiences of yourself and your clients.
Questions

Can you identify a situation where you have felt a direct connection between experience and
embodiment? How would you describe your “bodily felt experience”?

Take one idea or an example from a paper in this section that touched you particularly strongly. What
was it about this idea or example that makes it important to you? How did that resonate in your body?

I remember one of our formation program was to be attune to our bodily experience. It was an exercise
to be familiar with our body, may it be internal and external, expression and movement. In the activity, I
was able to pinpoint my bodies that was over use and need of attention. I was able to write it in my
journal and express it through drawings. I realized, some parts of me entails emotional attachment and
past baggage-s that keeps me weak and felt insecure at some point. Through meditation and silencing, I
was able to reconcile my body as if I am talking sense with my own skin and bone; at that point, I was
able to reconcile myself.

“My body stores old emotional pain. It may also moderate or conceal uncomfortable emotions.” this
struck me the most; it is true that the body of mine, is a storage of emotional pain which somehow
resonates and triggering some impulsive and expulsive emotions. For me, it is important to relate this
because once we have this physical trauma, which of course brings back old emotions, what is very
important that I am aware of this and able to balance it out as much as possible.