The question that therapists don’t like to ask, and every person who uses therapy, needs to know, is why some people succeed in therapy, when others do not?
How do I define ‘success’ ? Well one way of defining it, is that when therapy is successful you begin to feel better about yourself,also feel empowered to make constructive changes to your life.
When you the client succeed in therapy, the counsellor or psychotherapists will often privately believe that it was their own skills that did it, or perhaps their model of counselling. But therapists are less willing to talk about people who do not succeed in therapy;
Back in the 1950’s, Kirtner and Cartwright, two researchers at the University of Chicago counselling centre, tried to find out answer as to what makes successful counselling. They listened to hundreds of tape recordings of therapy sessions.
The started out with the assumption that therapists who could offer a therapeutic relationship based on empathy, unconditional acceptance, and being genuine, would have more successful clients, than therapists who did not offer these qualities. There was some evidence consistent with that view, but something did not fit. Such therapists still had clients who did not benefit from therapy, while other therapists, who did not embody these qualities, nevertheless had successful clients.
Kirtner and Cartwright, decided to explore how the clients used therapy. They made a startling discovery. They could predict the successful ( and unsuccessful) clients within the first two sessions. The question surfaces, what is the difference between how successful and unsuccessful clients used therapy?
Unsuccessful clients often talked about their issues in any or all of the following ways.
– Some people had a very clear intellectual understanding of their issues, They could pinpoint with some accuracy how their problems arose in their life history, for example a childhood experience, but nothing ever felt different or shifted for them
– Other people told stories without any emotional depth. They could talk about traumatic incidents in the same way as they might describe going to the shops or what they had for dinner. Again nothing shifted for them
– Some people by contrast experienced their emotions with full force. They could experience their anger depression and hurt again and again, but these feelings never changed.
How did successful people work on their issues ? Successful people would at times talk in the same as the people described above.. But they also had a special way of talking, that could be spotted in the first two sessions, once it had been identified.
Successful clients:
– Talked about their issues, but frequently slowed down their talking ., became less fluent,
– They paused what they were saying, and checked out whether their words accurately reflected what they were experiencing.
– They would sense into their issues, and change their language to fit their experience.
– The issue would unfold, change and feel different in their body, and such clients would often feel a release of tension in their bodies
The following is a fictionalised example of this process and the ellipses show the client pausing,
Client ‘well I was really angry with her ( pause hesitates) well ( sensing in to issue, sensing a murky edge to this) – no – not quite angry – ( pause) well sort of — maybe
Yeah – when she walked off with my best mate, I felt betrayed, ( now sensing, does the word betrayed really symbolise that felt sense ) yeah there is more —– ( sensing in) oh yeah that’s it, I just felt so alone. Oh thats funny, that tension has gone, like it feels better somehow !
Now although the content of what happens is horrible, nevertheless the clients would often feel a release of tension in their body at the end of the process, as if the issue had somehow changed or been processed. By being aware of their issue, and sensing into the issue, without being overwhelmed by it, somehow the issue had changed, felt better in their body.
Clients who characteristically had these ‘moments’ in their therapy, also began to feel better about themselves, and also tended to make constrictive changes to their lives.
The question surfaced, can unsuccessful therapy clients learn to do what the successful clients were doing naturally? Dr Eugene Gendlin carried forward this research.
Dr Gendlin closely observed what successful clients were doing, and then broke this down into a series of teachable steps that potentially unsuccessful clients could learn. He called this process ‘focusing’.
Those steps have changed over the years, but commonly include:
– Sensing into the body, getting a felt sense of the issue
– Slowing down language, just sensing , ‘ is this anger or is there something else there’? just checking the language accurately symbolises and carries forward the bodily experience of the issue
– Sensing something that starts intellectually vague, but concretely experienced, and seems to be at the edge of awareness
– The edge of awareness feeling, then comes into focus. And becomes clearer as the process continues.
– Often the issue infolds and changes as the client checks language against the felt sense, and there is often a release of tension in the body.
Dr Gendlin set up the Focusing Institute, to promote focusing, and developed courses for people to learn focusing outside of therapy. He also developed focusing courses for therapists.
Dr Gendlin discovered that people could use the focusing tool for all sorts of purposes, and not just therapy. For example
– People could use focusing for finding out how they really felt at any given time
– Could use it to help them make better and more informed decisions
– Could be used to interpret dreams
– Help with therapy when it has become stuck
– Remove writers block
– Help with artwork, creative projects,
– and there is even a group of focusers who use focusing to help with buying and selling shares.
More about focusing Oriented Therapy
In Denmark focusing oriented therapists will often ask potential counselling and psychotherapy clients to learn some focusing from a fellow practitioner, before they commence therapy.
In the UK there are less focusing oriented therapists, and such therapists will often incorporate focusing suggestions into their standard therapy. Examples may include:’ you talked about being angry, can you just slow down and sense into that,’ or ‘can you sense where you feel that in your body’. Some people will immediately know what the therapist is talking about although not all. Some focusing therapists, will also offer ‘guided focusing sessions’ as part of the therapy. I have seen people literally transform after learning focusing in this way.
Focusing outside of therapy.
You can learn focusing outside of therapy. I offer a 6 hour individual focusing course that you can learn focusing skills without being in therapy, or along side your own therapy if you are in therapy with a different therapist.
You can find out more about focusing oriented therapy and focusing courses that are run in the UK from the Focusing Institute Website. See my links page for further information.