Making Space for the Inner Guide

Abstract

The therapeutic relationship is described as a curative factor in its own right as well as facilitative for other tasks. Experiential tasks that facilitate working on the intrapsychic, interpersonal, and existential domains are distinguished. Focusing is an intrapsychic task of paying attention to one's bodily felt experience. Clearing space helps clients finding a right distance for exploring their experience when they are too close or too distanced from their emotions. Interpersonal work takes the lead when maladaptive interactional patterns are hindering the relational life of the client. Metacommunicative feedback and interpersonal experiences in the therapeutic encounter act as an invitation to develop new ways of communicating. Existential processes are challenged when the client struggles with the givens of life. Finally, the "inner guide" found in accessing experiencing may involve an awareness of a transcendent dimension that leads one to spiritual growth. Vignettes from short term psychotherapy illustrate how this approach is established in practice.

Struggling with meaninglessness: a case study from an experiential–existential perspective

“…As Greenberg and Pascual-Léone (2001) describe, shifts on an experiential level can influence meaning on a more conceptual level. Leijssen (2007) states that a repeated contacting of one's bodily felt experience broadens one's receptivity for the existential dimension. It is important to remember that therapy is not a matter of searching for meaning on these three levels separately, like checking a list.…”

“…By repeatedly working on this felt sense level, the client learns how to contact and how to be open to his existence (Leijssen, 2007). He also develops a vast I-I relationship.…”

Sensing: The elephant in the room of management learning

“…In addition to adapting to analytical thinkers' reasoning style, it may be useful to help them cultivate sensory awareness or felt sense (Gendlin, 1962). Analytically-minded learners may struggle not just with making meaning of the sensory input they receive, but on a more basic level, with recognizing the fact that they received sensory input (Krycka, 2014;Leijssen, 2007).…”

Focusing-oriented–experiential psychotherapy: From research to practice.

“…This procedure is not unusual in the treatment of anxiety, in which it is important to find, first, an emotionally safe place from which to work on the issues or concerns. Leijssen (2007) discussed her use of CAS in helping clients develop a healthy intrapsychic relationship by connecting with ongoing bodily experiencing. The case studies presented demonstrated the importance of finding just the right relationship with one's experiencing through what Leijssen called the inner guide.…”