Felt sense

Eugene Gendlin, a philosopher and psychologist, came up with the term “felt sense” to describe a sense of something that was being experienced by the body. It wasn’t an emotion and it wasn’t something that could easily be described by words, so most people will have ignored its messages. However, by spending time focusing on the body, it was possible to determine and identify whatever was going on internally by finding the words to match the sensation. Once this happened there was often a sense of a shift or an unblocking, as whatever it was that had been identified became unstuck and could now be released.

Gendlin wrote the self-help book Focusing (1978) to encourage people to explore this side of them, either by themselves or with a partner or a practitioner. It is refreshingly easy to read.

There are 6 stages to the process of focusing.

1. Clearing a space to be silent and attuned to your own body. At this stage you might want to ask yourself an open question such as “How am I doing?” As and when you get some response, maintain a healthy distance from the response and treat it as a neutral happening. (Avoid the urge to analyse.)
2. If you received multiple messages from your body, focus on one area and one area alone. ‘Stand back from it.’ Aim to get a sense, a felt sense, of what is going on. It is likely to be vague and pretty hazy at this point.
3. Try to find a word (or words) to describe what you are experiencing, such as ‘tight, sticky, stuck, heavy, jumpy’. Otherwise aim to find an image. Stay with the experience until you get a handle on it.
4. Oscillate back and forth from the felt sense and the word/words/image/images you have formed. See how they resonate together. If the felt sense changes in any way find new words or images to match the new sensation, the new experience.
5. Ask the felt sense questions. Gently probe it. For example, “What is in this sense?” At this stage you are looking for a shift, a release in some way.
6. Once you experience a shift within your body, stay neutral and openly receive what is happening, however short or long the moment might be.

Gendlin urges people not to be put off if they do not initially experience a shift or a sense of something happening. This may take time, or it may be happening without us being fully aware of it.

Once you get into the swing of this exercise, it’s likely that the six stages become automatic and fluent, and some of the stages can be repeated within the same session to get the most out of the experience.

Below are some examples of how focusing may be useful.
 You feel bad about yourself.
 You often get agitated.
 You suffer from aches and pains, anxiety or depression.
 You have an inkling that your body is trying to communicate something through a sensation.
 You are holding onto a burden.
 You have an outburst over something minor, which suggests there’s more going on inside you that is worth exploring.
 Something is not right but you don’t know quite what it is.