AGORA - tidsskrift for forskning, udvikling og idéudveksling i ...

AGORA - tidsskrift for forskning,
udvikling og idéudveksling i professioner
felt sense change, if it does, and also the word or picture, until they feel just right in capturing the quality
of the felt sense” (p. 44). By resonating, the individual obtains a clearer picture and understanding of a
situation, an event or a person, which was the aim of this procedure.
The following structure, based on Gendlin (1981), can be suggested as a frame for both a coachingoriented
and therapeutically oriented dialogue/interview, which is based on bodily experiences in the
process of becoming symbolized:
• The interviewer/coach and dialogue partner choose a concrete situation which is relevant for the
interviewee (It can be a challenging situation, a conflict, a relationship to another person, etc.).
• The interviewer/coach helps the dialogue partner to “clear the space” by, for example, asking the
interviewee to close his eyes, breathe, and relax, and by asking him/her to see and imagine him-/
herself in the chosen situation.
• The focusing person is trying to obtain a felt sense of the situation. It is very important not to go inside
the situation by judging or finding reasons for his/her behaviour. The focusing person should simply
obtain a vague “internal aura” or “taste” of the situation, e.g., a sensation of jumpiness.
• The focusing person is trying to find a “handle” for the situation by letting a word, a phrase, or an
image come up from the felt sense itself. In our example, it could be “jumpy”. The handle would be
the expression of the meaning that the person experiences in regard to the situation, event, etc. The felt
meaning becomes explicit through the handle.
• The interviewer and focusing person try to find out how the word, phrase or image resonates with
the felt sense and try to develop a clearer picture of the situation. Cox and Theilgaard (1987) suggest
that the client can resonate about a metaphor presented by the therapist. The metaphor has a mutative
effect, if it fits the current situation of the client.
• In a dialogue in a pedagogical setting, the intensive work with metaphors, images, words or thoughts
would be continued by relating the handle to the task or the situation of the given context, e.g. “How
is the word, phrase or image – the handle – relevant for your task?”, or: “With this handle in mind,
how would you change your attitude to the situation or the task?”
• In a therapeutic dialogue, the handle can be used differently, depending on the therapeutic approach
and theoretical foundation of the therapist. It is important to underline that focusing has never been
considered as a specific therapeutic school in itself. Gendlin (1996) actually tries to relate focusing to
different therapeutic schools and traditions. Following a narrative approach, the resonating about the
bodily felt sense might lead to the following questions which might be the basis for a change of plot in
the narrative of the client:
- What does this experience tell you about your life, about your relation to [a specific person], about
...?
- What is the issue or title of your story?
- What kind of personal values, attitudes and convictions lie behind this?
- What would your mother, friend [other important persons] say about that?
- Imagine that things looked like … [suggest a word, phrase, metaphor etc. here], how would you
then feel?
In the process of asking questions it is valuable – from time to time – to return to the resonating about the
felt sense and notice whether a bodily shift can be observed. It is this shift that indicates a change in the
attitude towards the topic. Here, it is important to wait and be patient – the bodily felt sense needs time to
grow.
Attention training
Attention training is a method where the individual learns to focus on the present moment, on the
immediate experience of the situation, on embodied action in the here and now – all prior to any reflection
and judgment. In many movement situations, the sports person is too preoccupied with an ideal picture
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