Frontiers Friday #100. Emotions & Focusing on the Felt Sense (Part VI)) ⭕
FF100: Emotions and Focusing on the Felt Sense (Part VI)
This is the 100th Frontiers Friday! The first blog post was in 2014 (It's called Therapy Learnings: A Memorable Practice), but the , a weekly series of Five tips per week, only started in 2020.
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Once again, in case you missed the last 5 on the topic of Emotions, here it is:
This week, we are at the final instalment on the topic of Emotions (Part VI)
⭕️ Resource: Focusing.org
After talking about Emotion-Focused Therapy in the previous missive, it would be remiss not to mention the work on the late Eugene Gendlin. EFT and the like share the roots of Gendlin's work on Focusing.
To me, focusing is way of bodily awareness to guide our decision-making and healing endeavor. This implicit knowledge, or what Gendlin calls a "felt sense," has informed much of my work.
Sidenote: Gendlin studied under Carl Rogers, but it seems that Rogers was also influenced by Gendlin's philosophy.
Clinicians who are familiar with somatic work (e.g., Pat Ogden, Peter Levine), will find similar roots in Gendlin's contribution to our field.
This particular website focusing.org, is a treasure trove of information.
I highly recommend you take the time to walk thorugh the steps by listening to a guided audio, or watching a live demonstration.
Here's some specific links beyond the above website that might be worth checking out:
i. Keynote :"In Having More Than One Shape, the Truth is More, But It Isn't a Shape." (both audio and transcript available)
ii. Ripped Out: A Focusing-Oriented Therapy Video Demonstration
iii. Between Holding On And Letting Go" Video Demonstration
🎥 Watch: Best of Enemies (Netflix)
It is possible to bring together people when the emotion underpinning is hate and fear? Can a civil rights activist develop a friendship with the leader of Ku Klux Klan?
I watched this recently during my travels. It's going down as one of my Top 10 movies of the year.
Of particular interest is the use of the Charrette Process to faciliate feedback loops of discussion.
🎧 Listen: Invisiibilia on Emotions
This is a two-part series from NPR Invisibilia. Well-produced, entertaining and intriguing. Listen to Part II how difference languages shape our emotional world.
(Hat tip to Jonobie Ford).
🎥 Watch: A Cure for Fear Documentary
This documentary is based on the work of psychologist Merel Kindt in Amsterdam. I was really intrigued about the use of Propranolol (beta-blocker) after an intense episode of exposure to targeted phobias, and how in several of the clinical examples, their fears when resolved within 24hrs. As to be expected with any treatment, not everyone benefited from this particular protocol.
Though not explicitly mentioned in this documentary, besides the use of propranolol at a critical phrase, the theories of memory reconsolidation seems to be at play, particularly the step-wise sequence of activating the felt emotions without dissociating and avoiding from the fear itself. If this documentary roused your curiosity, the work of Bruce Ecker and colleagues might be relevant here.
⏸ Words Worth Contemplating:
"For years mental health professionals taught people that they could be psychologically healthy without social support, that 'unless you love yourself, no one else will love you.'
... The truth is, you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved and are loved. The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation."
~ Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D., "The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog"
Reflection:
Emotion regulation is the buzzword in our professional parlance.
There can be no self-regulation, if there is no co-regulation.
Before asking your client to self-regulate, help them co-regulate with you.
The word Proprio-phobia is “fear of one’s own felt sense.” Help your clients develop a friendship to those difficult emotions moment-by-moment, with you by their side.
Help them feel it, not avoid it.
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