Interest groups

The Psychotherapy and Touch Interest Group (Mathias Dekeyser)

We gathered daily (3 times) during the MAE event. Most participants identified as psychotherapists, a few as body workers; all participants identified as focusers.

In the first meeting, we compared levels of experience in using touch in psychotherapy/counselling, toyed around with indications and contra–indications for touch, bringing to the foreground differences between therapeutic orientations. The first meeting left participants unsatisfied, and a few participants hesitated to stay in this group. Two participants simply decided to leave.
In the next meeting our group made a turn towards our felt senses. We made room for feelings of hesitance to use touch in psychotherapy, as well as a longing to get more at ease with it. We recognized our interaction in the first meeting as the typical kind of discussion you get when you put a few psychotherapists together to talk freely about touch in psychotherapy. For some of us touch had been forbidden explicitly or implicitly, during training or at work. The idea of being “allowed to touch” brought up strong feelings. The group then decided to experiment freely with touch in pairs or triads and to report to the group afterwards. Basically, after these experiments, everyone felt satisfied, safe, and supported in their ability to use touch in therapy. The value of clients touching themselves was also recognized. The energy in the group was so strong, that all participants of this second meeting (only) were invited by the Irish participants to come to Ireland in 2008. There they would devote a weekend to do more free experimenting with the use of touch in focusing/counseling/psychotherapy.
In a final meeting — where all of the initial participants re–united, we discussed the process of our group, and recognized that there are many colleagues who hesitate to use touch or even to talk about it. On the other hand, some bodyworkers feel uneasy about releasing strong emotions in their clients. Some participants took upon themselves the task of trying to soften the taboo of touch, and to help colleagues in using touch or in talking about touch in psychotherapy. We also wondered how we could join efforts in this “mission”. The issue was left open for discussion in Ireland, and/or on the next occasion of MAE.

During the closing ceremony we made a statement about our ability to work with our bodies, and our ability to go against ruling norms. We just piled up some chairs in the middle of the room, and together we physically expressed the crux of our experiences in this workgroup.

By Mathias Dekeyser http://mathias.dekeyser.googlepages.com/

The Inner Voicing Interest Group (Larry Hurst)

The idea for this embryonic group grew out of earlier experiments in vocal toning carried out by the Bodywork and Movement Special Interest section of the Focusing Institute at two international focusing conferences.

In 3 meetings over the 3 days, our group stabilized at a total of 8 participants. We each experimented with the effect of granting ourselves permission, while self–focusing, to allow sounds – whatever their form – to emerge spontaneously from the inner depth of our felt senses. Physical movement and touch were neither ruled in nor out. Our aim was to find out how far we could benefit from the experience and whether there was anything we could convey to the MAE gathering as a whole. Read more

Bodywork Interest Group (Jack Blackburn and plenary notes)

Overview: There were about 16 persons in our group, representing quite a variety of bodywork modalities: massage, Feldenkrais, energy work including Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, Massage, Trager, Shiatsu, Craniosacral, Esalen, Somatics, and others. A number of those participating are bodywork teachers as well as Focusing Trainers. We presented our modalities to one another including some exchanges. This is one of the first gatherings where teachers of different modalities presented what they do with clients and why. We also talked about how we combine our work with Focusing. Many of us also presented our own workshops. We were all interested in how we individually combined the principles of Focusing in our sessions with bodywork clients.

What We Explored, Learned and Discovered about Bodywork Focusing

Focuser (the one receiving) is in charge of the session.
In a Focusing Partnership plus bodywork we found some challenges with staying with the Focusing process
How do Focusing and bodywork work with inexperienced clients:
- How aware one is with their body affects the work
- Can persons without Focusing experience or body awareness still lead themselves into process?
- Less focusing experience makes it more difficult to work
- Agenda of client: when client tells you what to do, with their own agenda – makes it difficult:
- On–going questioning about bolstering, warmth, comfort, etc., may help keep the client become somatically aware, even before learning to Focus:
Verify the contract in the beginning; what is the goal?
It is challenging to the practitioner when the client comes only for pain relief and comfort– not wanting words:
Combining Focusing and bodywork is new and a partnership setting, instead of a client setting makes this easier to see both functioning:
We are having to work with a new paradigm — a team approach between practitioner and client.
Only the client knows (can have access to) the client’s full (subjective) story — this is what makes them equal to the practitioner. The practitioner only sees the symptoms:
We bring the person into their whole process.
The work begins before the client comes to you; by choosing the right words you create an openness to change:
Practitioner and client must be on the same page in terms of motivation
Focusing as a tool may sometimes not be appropriate — eg. Client uses the time for safe touch
Touch can be non–verbal focusing.

Principles for Bodywork Focusing

Using touch in a Focusing way
Using Touch to reflect
Using Touch to listen
Using Touch to meet
Metaphor — different techniques; also to use through reflected words and also in the physical body
Power of touch creates touch
Tool for combining bodywork with Focusing
Different metaphors create different body effects
We are always tuning and refining for the process
We are always refining–not leading with our reflecting words. We may be in a pre–verbal space here.
The body reveals the process.