Focusing in Clinical Practice: The Essence of Change
by Ann Weiser Cornell

This book was a great deeper dive in focusing after having read the Gene Gendlin’s book “Focusing”. This was illustrative and provided much detail to the process and the application. The central concept of focusing and as described in the book “the essence of change” is the felt sense. It is a fresh, immediate here and now experience that is characterized by the organism forming the next step. The felt sense is the experience of that formation process. It is something bodily experienced in the present moment that will appear hard to describe as words might seem insufficient. It will often require metaphorical language for expression. In the research by Gendlin and Hendricks it was found that the clients that attended directly to this process of experiencing were to be significantly more successful in therapy than those that did not.

The formation of felt sense itself is already a shift and it might be the most crucial one. If one is able to notice that process and be with it what happens is the making of “it”, which implies that the relationship with the situational phenomenon has already shifted. There is an “it” that I can relate to rather than this unknown something that I am had by. That enables the client to be curious and compassionate towards their inner experience. Which in turn enables the client to gain a new perspective of the past event. The event does not change, but the way one experiences it can. Getting a felt sense of the whole situation is the first step that can be sufficient in itself for facilitating that shift.  The way the practitioner is relating to the client can mirror and support the client’s inner relationship of openness, curiosity and sensing.  And that again has an enabling effect for the client to experience the change in a self-generative and corrective manner.

Shifts are like steps of change. While measurable changes can take a while to be noticed, shifts can happen in short amount of time. Cognitively the client might not notice that anything is different, however, over time a number of small shifts can add up to a substantial change. Shifts can be felt and observed, however, insight or change in behavior might come later. There are observable indicators that characterize a shift such as deeper breathing, sigh, shoulders dropping etc. In coaching I feel like the major moments to watch for shifts happening are when making distinctions and dealing with breakdowns. Being sensitive to these shifts occurring enables the coach to be attuned with the client and respond appropriately.

Implying forward is another useful concept. It refers to the “implied” next step of the process. Being sensitive to the implying forward is like listening to what’s next. If someone performs a jump what is implied is the landing and your body knows it, it makes the predictions for it and if that does not happen, there is a sense of discomfort – something not being right. When what is implied happens, that is called “carrying forward”.  In coaching we want to listen to what is implied and breakdowns often might happen when that does not happen. To resolve a breakdown, we want to make distinctions and find ways to enable carrying forward.

The subtle body or where do we feel the felt sense and how to talk about it? In focusing and also often in coaching we understand body not merely as a physiological and non-conscious, but as the interactive process of being alive, experienced from the inside. The body is not separate from the mind. The Centaur how Wilber would describe it in the “No Boundary” book. The way Levine has put this across here is “The way we know we’re alive is rooted in our capacity to feel, to our depths, the physical reality of aliveness embedded within our bodily sensations – through direct experience. This, in short, is embodiment.” Clients often might have a different concept of body and introducing this new way of thinking about it could be useful at times, however, in some cases getting to felt sense without ever mentioning body can be the better way to go. As the word “body” can be misunderstood and also touch on trauma that in turn can enable protective mechanisms to block access to any further exploration.  For inviting felt sense without using the word “body” the following phrases can be helpful: “notice how that feels right now”, “notice what comes about that”, “take some time to notice the whole way this sits in you now”, “take some time to get the whole feel of that”.

What to do if the client reports feeling nothing? No-one really feels nothing. What might be happening is that they are feeling something, but not counting it in. There might be a feeling of numbness or blankness, maybe a sense of absence of something expected. However, all of these are somethings.  Sometimes we can have a certain feeling for a long time and become so accustomed to it that we do not recognize it as a body feeling. Another way in is to ask if the stomach feels “relaxed” or “peaceful”. If it does – that is an experience. If it does not – that too is something to be explored. Those experiences might not be felt senses, however, they will provide the access to the body feeling dimension which in turn will enable getting a felt sense.