Focusing on change

FIONA PARR explains what focusing is, how it works and how it might help you

‘I HAVE a pain in my right knee – it stretches up into my thigh, and goes round the back of my leg. There seem to be pins and needles going down my leg into my foot.’

My friend is Focusing, and I am listening. She is silent for some time. Then she says:

‘The pain is intensifying. It’s okay because there seems to be a distance between it and me.’

My friend is describing it well, finding the ‘right distance’ between her and the pain. More silence while she stays with it, keeping it company.

‘As I get closer to the pain, something is happening in my stomach. It’s, um… like a tension is happening.’

Silence again. Now she is being with both places in her; the pain, and the part of her that cannot bear the pain. She can acknowledge that and be with both.

‘I’m with the pain and it’s intensifying again. No, it’s um… becoming bigger somehow, expanding out… I’m asking it what it needs… It’s softer now, and the colour pink is round it.’

How did that happen? The Focuser didn’t ‘do’ anything to the pain to make it feel better. She was not visualising, or imagining the pain going away. She kept it company, stayed with it, just as it is; listening to it, rather than trying to make it feel better. She described very precisely what the pain felt like in the body – its location, intensity, texture. She kept her awareness in the body, but didn’t get drawn into it. She sensed for the ‘right distance’; not too far away, and also not too close that it set up other stresses in the body.

She was non-judgemental, accepting, and patient with the pain. She didn’t try to fix or change it in any way. She simply kept it company in an open, friendly way.

As she did this, there was an easing of the pain. It loosened somehow, expanded out, and became softer. The body made a ‘felt shift’ in a direction all its own, towards more life. It took a small but unmistakable step towards its own healing.

Focusing can often be like that. Any kind of pain, problem or emotional issue can take steps towards its own healing. Each step affects the whole way we have that issue; we change. This is real, fundamental change, as it is felt in the body, and experienced in life. Small, incremental shifts develop into real healing.

What is the origin of Focusing?

Focusing was discovered when Professor Eugene Gendlin of the University of Chicago worked with Carl Rogers researching the question: ‘Why is psychotherapy helpful for some people, and not others?’

He and his colleagues studied tapes of hundreds of therapy sessions and made an important discovery - that successful clients had a vague, hard to describe inner- awareness; a bodily felt sense about their problems. Paying attention to the felt sense in specific ways proved to be the key component of successful psychological change. Gendlin discovered how to teach this skill, which he called ‘Focusing’.

Focusing is a step-by-step process of paying attention to a bodily sense of a situation, problem, or creative project. Access to an at first unclear ‘bodily-sense-of’ can be taught, but is not yet widely known. It is more physical than feelings, and not merely body sensations, but the juncture where meanings are bodily felt. Creative change arises at this directly sensed edge of awareness, whether in thinking, psychotherapy, self-growth, art, or healing.

Dr. Gendlin says: "What the edge needs to change is only some kind of unintrusive contact or company.

"If you will go there with your awareness and stay there or return there, that is all it needs; it will do all the rest for you."

This is remarkable, and turns our usual ways of dealing with things on its head. Most people think we have to do something to ourselves to make us feel better. Or we ignore things, hoping they will go away.

I am really grateful to have found Focusing. I have been working with the process for 11 years, and the more I work with it, the more it gives me. It opens up into ever-wider horizons.

I use it for problem solving, emotional upsets and daily issues, as well as for healing deeply held patterns and beliefs. It supports my spiritual practice, and enhances my well-being, and creativity. I am committed to taking Focusing out into the world, as it is not yet widely known, and I am convinced of its benefits.



FIONA teaches Focusing in small groups and to individuals, at her house in Sticklepath, Devon, and other places. She is running introductory courses in Exeter, Exmouth and Totnes, and the complete self-development with Focusing course in Crediton, starting in September. Call Fiona on 01837 840165.