A Short Guide for the Focusing 'Coach' - How to Coach Focusing

Written by Ilan Shalif, Ph.D.

When the felt sensation is hard to focus on, when it is fussy or when the concentration powers of the trainee are too weak, try introducing the tactic of bringing the palms together gently. If you have already introduced this, persuade him to do it at that time without too many explanations.

However, on its first implementation, full explanations are needed, i.e. that this is a very old measure for the diversion of attentional resources to internal processes; that it was discovered by ancient cultures; that though it feels at first stupid or superstitious, it is worth the effort needed to overcome these feelings.

If "joining the palms" is insufficient when applied alone, the enlisting of the whole "triumvirate" of "joining the palms", "opening the nape of the neck" and the "parting the lips" always does the trick.

Feelings of "unbearable easiness of existence" have been experienced by many focusers. Usually it starts to happen during the third month of training, or even earlier. It occurs rather often till the trainee get used to the easiness of existence. It results from fast shifts achieved during focusing on felt sensations related to unpleasant feelings and sensations.

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These uneasy feelings are especially strong when shifts occur to chronic or semi-chronic felt sensations. Even with longer and more arduous projects, the huge gains are out of all proportion when compared with the effort invested... These experiences and feelings tend to arouse the suspicion of many people, as the benefits derived from focusing, very often seem to be too good, too fast, too easy to achieve, to be true and permanent.

This is especially true for two kinds of trainees:

1. Those who have never systematically tackled their emotional problems, who were used to being flooded by almost any strong feeling which rendered them each time helpless.
2. Those who were in psychotherapy and had gained only a little for a huge investment.

For both it is very difficult to believe in one's experience of fast victories. It is even harder for this kind of new trainee to believe that those successes are his own doing. Thus, it is hard for him to get into the habit of focusing.

People who are used to being in touch with their emotions - and are proud of it - are sometimes the hardest to convince and to initiate into the focusing habit. They are used to attending for very short periods to their felt sensations, and then to switching to the verbal processing mode of thinking. Usually, after paying brief attention to their felt sensation, very quickly they start applying their higher cognitive processes in order to contemplate, analyze, reflect, etc. upon their problems.

It is often startling for them to understand that they are trying too hard and in the wrong direction. It is more startling for them to learn that all that is needed is to pay attention to the felt sensation rather than knock their head against the brick wall of the problem, i.e. let the semiautomatic and quasi-effortless processes of the subconscious do the job.

"The case of the hesitant focuser": the first experiences of focusing on the felt sensations and achieving the first few shifts (in their quality or location) are very easy to obtain. However, it is not so easy to get the trainees into the habit of focusing regularly. Only very few are really convinced that the focusing is "it" before they start training. A few more are true optimists or fast thinkers who, after the first few experiences of shift in the felt sensation and the problem involved (achieved during focusing), understand that they have hit the jackpot.

The majority are at first too skeptical to accept the results because it is against their deep conviction that suffering is a real and serious part of life. However, most of them are convinced and get into the habit of focusing in the course of the first few weeks, (or quit after one or two sessions).

Some people are very hard to convince and tax the coach's patience immensely. Usually, though they benefit from the training (sometimes even considerably), they go on with the training only half-heartily and keep on harassing the coach for a long time. Nevertheless, in most cases, their skepticism does not prevent them from having a weekly coaching session nor from focusing regularly between sessions. At the end of a prolonged ordeal, they do get into the habit of focusing whole-heartily, but only after weeks and months of internal conflicts and hesitation.

The case of the reluctant focuser: some trainees never really get to like focusing on their felt sensations or the setting of training. Even while using it, they do it only as if they are taking a bitter medicine. Upon the successful completion of the regular training sessions, they still have reservations about the technique and remain skeptical about its feasibility. Afterwards, they use the focusing technique only when in deep trouble, and even then, not every time.

The case of the reluctant skeptic: sometimes, the most skeptical apply, reluctantly, to be helped through this technique only as a remedy for intense suffering or a specific "symptom" he may have (such as blinding headaches). With these people it is usually hard for the coach to establish warm interpersonal relations or a feeling of teamwork or even good rapport.

The best way of treating them is to restrict the training of focusing to the subjectively felt sensation which is at the core of their trouble. Though not very often, some of them, after experiencing the first few shifts, and the alleviation of their suffering, become enthusiastic focusers. It does not really matter if they do it at first only because the alleviation of their specific suffering has convinced them, or they continue with it because they dread the return of the symptoms. They gained from your training what they really wanted in the first place, and who has the right to judge them as being wrong!?

There are people who do not take emotions seriously. For those who do not regard the emotional phenomena in general, and the felt sensations specifically, as highly important, there is an urgent need to do each act of focusing for a special reason. For them, the needed motivation is best drawn, not from the wish to escape or terminate each single unpleasant felt sensation, but from long-term targets of personal change or problem solving.

The focusing "game": besides the motivation supplied by the intense unpleasant sensations, the cessation of which is a great boon, the best factor to motivate people to focus is the satisfaction derived from the basic emotion of "playfulness". The tendency to playfulness is inherent in all of us (based on a basic emotion which regulates this activity) and can be recruited in the service of sensate focusing.

Though it seems astonishing at first, to serious people and to those who are in deep trouble, the playful approach to focusing on the felt sensations seems to be the most promising one. The ease of "calling for a felt sense" by imagery or self-talk, and the ease of achieving its shift by casual focusing (or rubbing the palms of the hands when sensations are too intense) is a never-ending source of amusement.

The first steps in the long focusing voyage are like those of the toddler. There is a lot of uneasiness, embarrassment, perplexity, and indecisiveness rather than the matter of fact resolution of the later stages. During this period, it is important to make the new focuser highly aware of the dramatic changes experienced during the focusing sessions. Thus, the habit becomes easier to acquire - morale and motivation gain from this too.

next: The Emotions