A Short Guide for the Focusing 'Coach' - Steps for Focusing Coaching

Written by Ilan Shalif, Ph.D.

The first step of the first stage (chapter 5 section II)

After the first few introductory sentences, the time is now ripe for the first focusing. The aim of this step is to introduce gradually the habit of allocating a prolonged and concentrated attention to the spontaneous mild or weak felt sensations. The usual question is: "where do you feel now?".

The most common problem is that the trainee answers a different question or he finds it hard to believe that you really want the answer to this question and not other information. Once you are over this stage, warn him that sometimes focusing on a felt sensation can increase its intensity for a while. Then tell him to focus for a few seconds on a felt sensation of his choice. Then, suggest to him to begin the first step of chapter 5.

There are a few common problems at this point, which you can, and have to, surmount before further steps can be taken:

The most discouraging problem, encountered frequently at the beginning, but also in later stages, is that the trainee says he does not feel anything at all, not even a tiny bit of sensation in his body. The most probable factors responsible for this - each by itself or in combination with the others are:

• The new trainee is a regular "leveler" or does not discern any sensation or a diffuse feeling because of the circumstances.
• The trainee does not have any intense sensation and does not believe that you really want him to focus on the mild sensation he has at the margin of awareness.
• The combination of the weakness of sensations, the habit of ignoring them and the difficulty encountered by the untrained while trying to focus on them, results in his saying "I cannot focus on any sensation".
• The trainee had not included in the reasons for his application a complaint about physical or emotional unpleasant feelings, nor were they the reasons for his contacting you, he does not suffer from one at the session, and finds it hard to grasp the relation between his "psychological problems" and his body.

With trainees of this kind, it takes a more intense sensation than the pressure of their bottom on the furniture to convince them that they always have, on the margin of awareness, a potential felt sensation. Usually many hesitate even to try to search in their body for a felt sensation. If the prolonged concentrated attention allocated to the bodily sensations, and the short journey through the body listed in the first step does not work, you have a problem.

The following means can be applied in various combinations in order to solve this problem. It is recommended that you try to introduce them during the first session even if the trainee does not have any problem, at that time, to attend to sensations:

• The easiest way to demonstrate a sensation is to ask the trainee to make a fist and then to relax it while attending to the sensations involved. Then direct his attention to sensations of the body related to his seat and combine it with the explanation about the incessant input of the sensorium of the body which is always there, even while one is not attending.
• "Opening the nape of the neck" is the second best remedy for this problem. So, ask the trainee to lean his head slightly backward, against a wall or any other suitable object. Afterwards, for a few minutes continue with the conversation and give the trainee a general explanation about the opening of the nape and its expected effects.

  Then, ask the trainee again about any felt sensation he can discern. If even this is not enough, suggest he enlarge gradually the opening of the nape up to the maximum. In this position, no-one ever missed having at least a mild sensation of itching somewhere or uneasiness at the nape of the neck.

• Even at this preliminary stage, the recitation of self-provocations can be introduced. However, it is not recommended to use it without due explanation. At this early stage, the paradoxical approach embedded in the instruction to the trainee to say "I do not feel any sensation in my body" or any other mild sentence will surely bring him a felt sensation. But, it might also give him the feeling or suspicion that he is being manipulated by hypnotic suggestions.

  Only if the mild ones like the above or "nothing bothers me" and "every thing is all right" bring only faint sensations that are difficult to focus on, try gradually to introduce more juicy ones.

  In the explanations about this tactic it is worth dwelling on the decentralization of the subsystems of the brain and the emotional system.

  Include the distinction between the "infantile" emotional system of the right half of the brain and the more "mature" verbal, analytical and logical subsystems of the left half. Even on the first use of the provocation, it is essential to stress the difference between the multi-repetition of a nasty declaration which harms a lot, and the one time recitation followed by a switch to focusing, that is like a "homeopathic" treatment.