Do We Need to Give External Expression to Emotions?
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Jason asks, "Do you think it is necessary to give external expression to emotions? In Focusing, mainly, we just sense it within, but in some other therapies, they emphasize acting it out."
Dear Jason,
Great question! You're pointing to a difference in the assumptions underlying our work with Focusing vs other modalities… but those differences don't always play out the way one would expect.
The key distinction is whether one welcomes emotional expression, but doesn't push for it… or whether one is convinced that emotional expression is "necessary," and therefore tries to favor it or even evoke it.
Let's start with what Gene Gendlin has to say about this. He writes: "To be sure, it is valuable to feel and express long-blocked emotions. Many people repress some of their emotions and cannot feel them–they live without knowing how they feel. Turning toward emotions and letting them be felt is a great relief." (from Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy, p. 62)
Right? So we like the expression of emotions… if that's what need to happen, if if that's what brings an inner sense of relief. However, Gendlin goes on to say this:
"But once an emotion has been completely felt and expressed, no change in the person will come from repeating that emotion. … There is an erroneous theory that emotions can be 'emptied out'. Actually, emotions are generated each time catharsis occurs. They do not lie waiting as if they were finished things that could be gotten rid of, thrown out, or pushed out."
So we would disagree with the idea that there is something so good about expressing emotion that one should do so over and over again, about the same issue, around the same trauma or pain.
How Does It Want to Be Expressed?
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The key difference here is to sense, from inside, how it itself would like to be expressed. No assuming, for example, that as soon as I feel anger I ought to pound a pillow. We don't know. Let's sense the place that's angry… sense what the "angry" feels like… and if expression is what IT would like, let it show us exactly what that expression is.
My friend Glenn Fleisch has been doing amazing work with movement and gesture, and often this shades into the area of emotional expression. The key is to become aware of the expression that's already happening, often through gesture, and then invite awareness to that.
To sum it all up: In Focusing we welcome emotional expression. We sense if it wants to happen, and notice when it's happening already. But we don't assume that when an emotion is there, expression is what it needs above all. We won't know until we sense further.