Focusing is a natural, but often forgotten, way for us to listen to the body and the wisdom that arises from within. It can be a fruitful practice alone or with a partner. Focusing can also be an important ingredient in therapy – knowing it can be enriching both as a client and as a therapist. Here, I will open up a few aspects of what Focusing can bring to therapy.
First, briefly, what Focusing is about. It involves being present at the level of bodily felt senses through which the body is communicating something related to our life. Familiar examples might be butterflies in the stomach or the feeling of a heavy burden on the shoulders. What is essential is an accepting and curious presence, in which the inner world is met and something more may unfold from these felt senses. Instead of trying to push something away or to change something, Focusing creates space for things to move forward without forcing. For example, from the felt sense of a burden on the shoulders, there may gradually emerge a clearer sense of what feels heavy. Relief may come simply from having the matter seen, or perhaps some direction for lightening the burden gradually arises from within.
Psychotherapist and philosopher Eugene Gendlin discovered Focusing when researching with colleagues what predicts whether someone benefits from therapy. What was essential was the person’s way of being with their experience. For therapy to be fruitful, it was important to stay connected with what was happening in the experience in that moment – even while the client, for example, was speaking about past events in their life. It was also essential that the client took time to sense into their experience so that something new could emerge in that moment. This sensing might have sounded like this: “Mmm… I don’t quite know… somehow there’s a tight feeling… tense… or maybe that’s not quite right… ah, that’s it… it feels like I’m a spring that has been compressed too tightly…”
Making space for what is not yet clear
The school system easily teaches us that when we are asked something, we should have an answer ready. Even in therapy, one can get lost in thinking that one should immediately know how to answer the therapist’s questions. Or perhaps it is the therapist who quickly jumps to the next question if the client does not immediately know what to say. In this way, the conversation can easily revolve mainly around what the person has already thought about before.
From the perspective of Focusing, it is important to give space precisely to what is unclear or to what does not have an immediate answer. Bodily felt senses that carry meaning are often vague at first and only gradually become clearer. When one takes space to sense into these, one remains open to something new to emerge into awareness. When the client is in touch with something that is not yet clear, an essential part of the therapist’s professional skill can be to stay out of the way: either remaining silent or lightly supporting the sensing process, but not rushing off in other directions.
Familiarity with Focusing also brings trust that various flashes, images, and felt senses can be meaningful. If, for some reason, an image, feeling, or memory suddenly flashes into the mind, a lot can open up when one dares to put it into words instead of dismissing it as irrelevant. It may be essential to verbalize something like “a cold metallic ball in the stomach,” but we are not used to thinking of such felt senses as important. We easily brush them aside unless we are encouraged to turn toward them.
Trust in the process
Our orientation in life often involves trying to do something about things in a planned, intentional way. The same attitude is often present in therapy as well. In my experience, the effort to do, achieve, and change things easily becomes an obstacle, getting in the way of moving forward. First, we may not actually know how real change could occur or what path it might take. The wisdom for this is more easily found when change is allowed to arise from within, in its own way and at its own pace.
Second, the effort to change something usually involves the fact that there is something within us we cannot meet with acceptance. We want to push something away; we criticize it. This kind of inner struggle usually only gets things more stuck. Often, change can begin to unfold precisely when we discover the possibility of meeting everything with warmth and curiosity.
In therapy, this also means giving both the client and the therapist permission not to know. It is not necessary to know what everything is about or what methods should be used. One can trust that the process arising from within will bring things to the surface, into visibility, and that directions and shifts will also be found there. Experience with Focusing brings trust that there is a natural direction forward within us, as long as we give it space. Of course, the therapist can also suggest and try out various things, but what is essential is always that the client senses inwardly whether the therapist’s suggestion resonates or helps. The client’s bodily felt senses are allowed to guide the way.
Presence with different parts
In therapy, the therapist’s presence is of great significance, but it is also important to support the client’s ability to be present with their own inner world. Within us, there are often many things we would like to push away or change, things we may fear or feel ashamed of, for example. Inside, there may be much that has never truly been met. It may be important for these parts to be seen by another, but it can also be a radical opportunity—perhaps supported by another’s presence—to finally meet something within ourselves without pushing it away.
Often, a warm, accepting, and curious presence is not immediately possible, and what may be essential is to pause with what comes in the way of that presence. Focusing brings an important perspective here: there can be many different voices or parts within us. Anger may arise, and at the same time, something else may try to push that anger away. It can be helpful to pause and be present with the part that is pushing the anger away, listening to what might be going on, what is important for that part. Gradually, something may begin to shift, and there may be space to meet with warmth and curiosity not only the need to push the anger away but also the anger itself.
In practice, there are often many different aspects present within us. At times, there may be an attitude of “I can handle things on my own, thank you very much,” while at other times, we are like vulnerable children. It can feel as if we are slightly different people at different moments. Or, at the same time, there may be a part of us that wants to complete an overdue task and another part that resists the entire thing. When we are able to meet all the different parts of our inner world, situations that feel stuck may begin to open up.
The Focusing approach has much in common with IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy, which also views the inner world in terms of parts and offers many tools for working with them. In my own therapy work as well, we often spend time with inner parts. Gendlin, the developer of Focusing, especially emphasized that through Focusing, parts appear as fluid and changing. It may not be necessary or meaningful to label certain parts of our inner world as fixed entities; instead, we can be present with whatever is emerging in the moment. It may be that when we are present with a part, allowing it to be heard, it transforms significantly and may not appear in the same form again. The experience of having fixed—and perhaps “conflicting”—parts may come more from the inner flow becoming stuck, frozen in certain patterns. By meeting these different parts, things can begin to move again.
The best way to dive into Focusing is by participating in a course. Focusing is also an essential part of my own therapy work.
For more on Focusing in therapy: Gendlin, Eugene T. (1996). Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method. New York: The Guilford Press.