CEWE: Chapter 6: Focusing on Bodily Feelings

Question 1

What are the two legs on which working with emotion stands?

Answer 1

1. Empathic attunement to affect
2. Focusing on bodily felt sense

Question 2

What does the intervention Focusing do?

Answer 2

It helps clients access their deeper “felt” sense of what they are talking about by guiding them to pause and stay with what they are feeling, pay attention to their bodily felt sense, and ask how “all that” feels in their bodies

Question 3

What are 2 classic markers for using a focusing intervention?

Answer 3

1. When a client refers to a vague or unclear felt sense
2. When a client seems to be on the surface of somethign important but is unable to sink down into it

Question 4

What is Focusing? What is it not?

Answer 4

Focusing is giving attention to the feel of the situation as a whole (a bodily felt sense of the situation)

It involves moving between the felt sense and words symbolizing it

it is not getting in touch with the feelings nor doing a rational analysis

Question 5

What is a bodily felt sense?

Answer 5

the feel of the situation as a whole (a bodily felt sense of the situation

Often people will initially put a basic emotion word to it at first like “sadness” or “anger”, but usually it is not a simple emotion but a complex felt meaning

Question 6

Describe how a focusing intervention might unfold

Answer 6

1. Clear a space in the mind: ask the client to clear a space in their mind and focus their attention inwardly and see what comes up when asking “what is the main thing for me right now” THEN tell them to push that aside and put a personal issue into that space
2. Focus on the felt sense: instruct client to get a sensory felt sense of what the problem feels like (starting vague terms like dark or tight)
3. Describe in words: describe the felt sense in words, maybe first focusing on describing any images that come up
4. Check: instruct them to check that the words fit and to go back and forth between their felt sense and the words
5. Ask: instruct client to ask themselves what it is about the problem that makes it feel that way, then to see if there is a shift in the felt sense in the body
6. Recieve and welcome whatever comes (remind the client we will stay here for a few moments, but this is just a step and more steps will come, no bad feeling is the last feeling.

See page 149 for full explanation
+ ask marc for example in supervision
also see pages 184-185 in EFT for depression book
+ see if I can find video examples

Question 7

How is emotional arousal and expression different from focusing?

Answer 7

In focusing: Words bring out feelings not yet felt
In expression: Felt feelings lead to words that create meaning

In focusing the client is guided to focus on the bodily felt sense to create new felt meaning, in expression/arousal, the emotion is evoked and the client is guided to unrestricted expression