The Story of Focusing

In the 1950s and 1960s, Eugene Gendlin worked with Carl Rogers and other researchers to explore the question: Why does therapy help some people make meaningful changes in their lives, while others seem to make little progress?

As part of this research, they recorded hundreds of therapy sessions and then studied the recordings, looking to see what might explain the differences in outcomes.

What they discovered was unexpected. The significant factor wasn't the type of therapy or even the particular approach of the therapist, but something the clients themselves were doing.

Those who went on to benefit from therapy were doing something the other clients weren't.

As these clients discussed their concerns or situations, they would often pause, almost as if listening. Then they would search for words, trying to find a way to describe what it was they were sensing and feeling. Rather than simply retelling their story, or analyzing themselves and their situations, these clients would turn their attention inward, noticing what was happening within them.

They might, for instance, pause while talking about a relationship and notice a tightness in their chest. As they explored that feeling of tightness, staying with it and being curious about it, they often got in touch with feelings they hadn't been aware of, or understood things from a new perspective that changed how they related to the situation.

Once Gendlin saw the effectiveness of people engaging with their inner experience in this way, and how they went on to make positive changes in their lives, he wondered if what they were naturally doing — this pausing and tuning inward — could be learned and taught to others. From this developed Focusing: the practice of tuning into and attending to this inner felt sense.

Eugene Gendlin

What is a Felt Sense?

The felt sense is, by its very nature, difficult to put into words. It is an inner sensing, a knowing, that we can gradually begin to describe through words and metaphors as we explore it. Initially, though, there may be only a vague sense that something is there, without our knowing exactly what it is or what it means.

It's a bit like knowing we've forgotten something but not knowing what it is.

Or like the experience of a word being on the tip of our tongue. We sense it. We know it's there and is meaningful, and that it is only by staying with this sense that it arises.

To become aware of our felt sense, we often start by bringing our awareness into our bodies and noticing our sensations. While the felt sense may include sensations, it is something more. Similarly, the felt sense may have an emotional component, sometimes strongly so. But it is more than the emotion itself. It can be thought of as the feeling behind the feeling — the larger, more encompassing sense of what is happening.

The felt sense is a sense of something as a whole — a situation, a relationship, a decision, or a concern — that we can feel before we can fully explain it.

We are all familiar with this kind of knowing, even if we might not have thought much about it.

Imagine meeting someone for the first time. You have a sense of who they are, or what it feels like to be around them, without being able to identify exactly what gave you that impression, or put it into words. You have a sense of the person that is more than any single observation or thought.

Or imagine a painter working on a picture. At some point, they may stop and look at the painting, waiting to sense what needs to happen next. They might not be able to explain why a particular colour, shape, or change feels right. They simply have a sense of what the painting needs, and that understanding guides their next move.

Our felt sense is a way of knowing.

Sometimes it makes use of imagery or metaphor.

When thinking about a difficult relationship, for example, we might get an image of a wall between ourselves and the other person. Exploring that image may help us understand something about the distance we feel, or what is keeping us apart.

In each case, there is a kind of knowing that hasn't yet been fully expressed in words.

Our culture places a great deal of importance on thinking, reasoning, and explaining things logically. These are valuable capacities, but our experience is richer than what we can readily put into words. We know more than we can express, and much of our knowing is not mediated by language. We have a more direct and immediate sense of situations and relationships.

From a psychological and neuroscience viewpoint, much of our processing happens beneath the level of conscious awareness. The felt sense gives us a way of connecting with some of this less conscious processing. It allows us to bring our attention to something we may already know or sense, but haven't yet been able to recognize or put into words.

Focusing in Practice

In her book The Power of Focusing, Ann Weiser Cornell describes working with a woman who had recently left her job to attend graduate school. One of her close friends applied for the job she had just left, and the woman noticed that she had a surprisingly strong reaction.

She didn't understand why. She wasn't planning to return to the job. There was no apparent reason for her reaction, but still, there was a niggling uncomfortable feeling about the situation.

She decided to work with the issue in a Focusing session.

Bringing the situation to mind, at first she simply noticed an indistinct sensation in her chest. Just a sense that something was there. Staying with the sensation, being curious about it, she felt a sadness.

This surprised her.

She hadn't been aware of feeling sad, nor did she understand what about her friend applying for the job was evoking that feeling.

As she continued to focus, being with her sadness, the idea came to her that she felt invalidated. As this was reflected back to her, she realized that being invalidated wasn't exactly right. It pointed in the right direction but didn't quite fit the felt sense she was experiencing. As she stayed with her felt sense, something more precise emerged: she hadn't been believed.

As this idea presented itself, memories came to her of how, over the years, she had confided in this friend about how difficult her job was and how controlling and toxic her boss had been. She realized that for her friend to apply for the same job meant that they hadn't believed her about what it was like.

This was a new understanding.

The woman hadn't expected to discover this, and she hadn't reasoned her way toward it. It emerged as she paid attention to her felt experience.

And when this understanding came, something shifted.

She experienced a sense of relief and softening. The situation hadn't changed, but her relationship to it had.

This kind of discovery is central to Focusing.

We begin with something we feel but don't fully understand. We approach it with curiosity, allowing our understanding to develop rather than deciding in advance what it means.

Sometimes we find a new perspective. Sometimes an inner conflict begins to resolve. Sometimes we simply feel clearer about something that had been confusing or difficult to bear.

In Focusing, we call a noticeable change in the felt experience a felt shift. It might be experienced as a softening, a release of tension, a deeper breath, or a sense that something has settled into place.

These changes don't always happen immediately, and Focusing doesn't guarantee a particular outcome. But when we give our experience the space and attention it needs, something new can become possible.

Our Bodies and Minds want to Heal

When we cut ourselves, the body immediately begins a process of repair, working to stop the bleeding and grow new tissue. A doctor can clean a wound and perhaps use stitches, but it is our body itself that does the work of repairing the tissue.

In a similar way, our minds and emotions have a natural movement toward healing. When we create the right conditions, we allow that movement to take place.

An important part of this is the way we approach ourselves.

Rather than judging our feelings, pushing them away, or immediately trying to fix them, we learn to meet our experience with curiosity and compassion.

We make room for what is there, even when it is confusing or uncomfortable.

We listen without demanding an immediate answer.

We allow ourselves to discover what we may not have recognized before.

This doesn't mean that every difficulty will resolve simply by paying attention to it.

Some experiences take time, and some may call for additional support.

But listening to ourselves in this way can help us develop a different relationship with our difficulties, discover resources we hadn't recognized, and find that a situation which once felt overwhelming has become more manageable.

Focusing creates space for our unfolding.