March 20 2007 – #103

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Using Focusing with Bodywork Clients
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Kate writes: "I'm a bodyworker (massage and
reflexology) and would be interested to hear
your suggestions of using Focusing techniques
with my clients while I am working with them."

Dear Kate,
Like all applications of Focusing to working
with clients, the first move is toward
yourself. In silence, as you are preparing to
put your hands on your client, you are
bringing awareness to your own body,
attending to your own groundedness (eg feeling
your feet), and acknowledging any of your own
feelings.

Although my own work with clients is with
voice, not with touch, I follow this same
practice as I prepare for a session, and also
during the session. Notice that Presence for
a practitioner doesn't mean having no
feelings, but acknowledging (silently)
one's own feelings.

I'm sure you do something like this
already... and it bears repeating, because it
is the ground for whatever you can offer to
the other person.

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Receiving and Keeping Company
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As for how to be with the client in a
Focusing way, this is especially relevant
when your client speaks to you, during the
session. You'll want a way to speak back that
is supportive and facilitative.

(My friend Jack Blackburn calls this "table
talk"--and teaches workshops in it for
bodyworkers. You can read more about him here.)

I feel that the greatest thing to remember is
how much in us can heal through
acknowledgment and company. To
say hello to what's there... to be with
what's there... It really all comes down to
those two moves.

When your client says he or she can feel a
painful place inside, when an emotion wells
up, a simple reflection in a gentle, slow
tone of voice is first.

"There's a heavy
tightness in your chest, yes."

You could add, "If it feels right, I'm going
to put my hand there... and when I do, maybe
you could also just say hello to that place...."

Since the person didn't come to you for a
Focusing session, there are many Focusing
invitations that would probably not be
appropriate, or only rarely. That would
depend on so many factors about the person,
about you, and so on.

But it seems like it would often be fitting
to offer this one: "Maybe you could just
gently be with that place, with your
awareness. Just keeping it company."

Acknowledgment and company, it's all about
that, isn't it?