Focusing-oriented therapy is an an experiential, somatic approach to counselling and psychotherapy. It prioritises a person’s own life-experience. While both client-experience and psychological theory are always part of a session, whenever a conflict arises between the two, it is the theoretical knowledge that must give way. To help a client access their often deeply buried experiences, the Focusing-oriented therapist will gently guide the client in accessing sensations/memories held in their body. This bodily or somatically held material is what is required when we wish to make long-lasting changes in our lives and relationships.
Suppose your partner and you are having difficulties serious enough to threaten your relationship. Over the years, you’ve both tried your best to sort it out but have failed. Now, you both feel stuck and powerless to move ahead. The Focusing-oriented counsellor will help you, instead of shying away from unpleasant feelings, to spend time with them. He/she will assist you in finding a comfortable place within yourself to quietly do that. As you come to befriend and learn where your feelings come from, they will start to feel less overwhelming. Learning to understand the story of our own emotions will after a while start to happen easily and naturally. Doing this at home alone or co-operatively with your partner will invite greater security within yourself and deeper bonding between you.
The Focusing approach to counselling, that is non-judgmentally interested in all that a person has in them, has been described as a kind of midwifery. It welcomes the clients’ capacities already within him or her and works to create conditions for new ones to be born. How the Focusing-Oriented therapy actually works in practice, please see the Musings (blogs)