Focusing, Chapter 2: The Missing Element Of Traversal

I’m re-reading Chapter 2: Change of the book Focusing. All the quotes are from this chapter.

In this chapter Gendlin gives four summarized transcripts of Focusing sessions. Two are guided by him and two are done by someone on their own, or with a silent Focusing partner. All four are beautiful accounts of transformation that illustrate the power of the method well. There’s lots to be learned from these example of what Focusing looks like when it works. And Gendlin does a great job pointing out the various important qualities of the process. (If you're not reading the book, go read the book instead of this post.)

What he doesn’t talk about, and what stands out to me, are the parts of the process I would call traversal, the bits where a question is used to evoke a felt sense to inquire into, the bits where the focus shifts from one felt sense to another.

Traversal is what connects the Focusing bit to the actual change, the actual transformative effects. And I think it’s the part that’s under-explained in the method overall.

There’s a question of why Focusing doesn’t catch on more naturally and why even people who can clearly do the Focusing steps don’t all transform in the way Gendlin seems to observe with his students. I know a whole bunch of people who Focus well and who still feel very stuck in their lives. Maybe the answer is that there are parts of the process that Gendlin taught implicitly, that people around him were learning but that no attention was put on. The question of traversal gets at this. 

Maybe the prevailing therapy Zeitgeist was so strongly driven by the conviction that the therapist was doing all the work that Gendlin overcorrected to believing that client does all the work. He says the following:

“She knew what to do. She had focused before. If you ask why, in that case, she needed me on the phone at all—why she hadn’t simply sat down and focused herself—the answer is simply that it can help to have another person present, even if that other person is only a friendly voice on the phone. This is particularly true if, as in her case, you are caught in a trap of emotions and can’t seem to get out. Often, when that happens, all that is needed is a friend’s voice saying, “All right, let’s just sit and be quiet for a while. . . .” A friend can interrupt an emotional spiral when you feel powerless to interrupt it yourself.”

But in that same session, according to his own description of it, he does way more than just lending a friendly ear. He guides the traversal. First he asks her to focus on “What feels so bad”. This is him picking out a felt sense to focus on.

After he guides her through clearing a space he asks her which problem feels worst, and then he asks her to evoke the felt sense of what’s worst about it. (This is a move I see him make a bunch.)

As she inquires he focuses her attention on the felt sense of anger, “what the anger is about”.

Then, as the session progresses and a different felt sense naturally arises, he encourages her to stay with it. All of this is traversal. 

In my experience, sometimes people can get in a natural flow with focusing and a traversal pattern suggests itself. Sometimes they need skillful guiding. And sometimes they need a different intervention altogether, something that shifts the attention to the focuser, the self that is focusing, and the intention it holds towards the subject matter. 

Whether things can be approached in a way that induces shifts (and effectual shifts) depends on what place the person is coming from, the intention they have for inquiring in the first place. Are they trying to fix something, with a conception of fixing that doesn’t leave enough space for looking? Are they ready to pounce on what they find with a harsh inner critic? Is there a strong sense of urgency, needing something to change? Or a strongly held self-image that gets in the way? 

When answers and shifts aren’t coming naturally, the next move needs to be to shift attention towards what the relationship is between the self that is focusing and the object of focusing. We ask “How do you feel about it?” “How are you relating to it?” “What are you trying to do?”

I think it is the combination of the two things, the focusing process and the ability to shift attention to the focuser at the right times that is the minimal tool kit needed to do this kind of work without a skillful guide.