Professional Documents
Culture Documents
RICE WEBER, Vicki - Ph.D. - 2016
RICE WEBER, Vicki - Ph.D. - 2016
health assessment and treatment has its basis in symptom classification and
of personal agency as their own experiential sense of self, the potentially fluid,
negated. I would like to create and research a treatment model from a different
into the embodied totality of the client’s experience and sense of self, drawing
from Gendlin’s Focusing model of experiencing and defining the self from
within, and on Vajrayana Buddhist practices. Therefore the aims of the study
were:-
“Can you describe any moments you have had in therapy in which you
change your sense of self...you may want to use your own words for
this ... but any experience in therapy which energised you and led to a
shift in your sense of who you are. If so, can we begin by describing this
The interviews took place a minimum of two months after participants had
freedom and possibility into one’s life 5) pathways to lightness and aliveness.
outcomes for my clients, I argue that this study also makes an innovative
contribution to the cultural integration of Western and Eastern models of
Contents
Chapter 1:-
Literature review:-
Chapter 2:-
Chapter 3:-
Methodology………………………………………………page 89
Chapter 4:-
Method……………………………………………………..page 124
Findings………………………………………………….page 152
Chapter 6 :-
Discussion and Analysis of Findings……………….page 219
References………………………………………………..page 262
This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who
consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its
author and due acknowledgement must always be made of the use of any
material contained in, or derived from, this thesis.
2
resulted in part from attending a talk by his Holiness the Dalai Lama in London
anyone who said that they wanted to commit suicide, he replied that he would
tell them that they had a ‘limitless’ heart and a ‘limitless’ mind in which to take
refuge. These concepts intrigued me. I had spent three years in Oxford
and heart were viewed not as essential biological organs, but as places of
Even if only existing on a symbolic level, these words ‘limitless’ heart, ‘limitless’
need to control and subdue the body to attain spiritual mastery and with the
How might it effect an individual’s sense of their own value if they really did
that experience impact upon the Western malaise of low self-esteem and
depressive illness? I had been practising meditation for ten years and
personally knew its transformational power but had not found a means by which
Theravadan Buddhist base and also studied Mindfulness practices and their
impact on depression but these studies had not given me a vehicle which could
I realised that I had found the spiritual ideology which I had sought: an
ideology which directly addressed the embodied self-concept and which could
be adapted for use in psychotherapy. I had also found a discourse in which both
“A madness of the left, full of ecstasy and terror and of bewildering encounters
with spiritual and demonic powers in the psyche, and a madness of the right,
hallowed out in bland impoverishment and narrowness, in which the
conventions and rigidity of the mundane are taken for self-evident reality.”
(2001, p.8).
Foucault (1961) has described his sense that the mentally ill and those
the conventional social order. From this perspective, the visions and polarities
understandable rejection of the mundane and the limited, and represent the
status, and a hope that pleasure in the physical can lead to a delight in the
spiritual, that we can access within us all we could wish for. It was this
emphasis on the ‘limitless’ nature of human potential, the two thousand year
explored this research territory either without the dedicated support and
gratitude.
5
6
Chapter One
The purpose of this introduction is to provide a rationale for the focus of my study
'aliveness' and 'lightness' within a particular kind of therapy, one which attempts to
integrate Western and Eastern forms of practices. The complexity of the rationale
Transpersonal therapy has been identified as the fourth major movement within the
Humanism. Significant precedents in this field are explored in later chapters and
psychologies of all traditions. Another central figure to this movement is Carl Jung,
1987, Trungpa 2002) has resulted in attempts to integrate Buddhism with Western
Enlightenment distrust of the use of religious imagery and techniques and its
7
upon the work of contemporary Western Buddhist writers (Wilber 2006, Welwood
2002, Preece 2006, Loizzo 2000) and has also evolved from a growing sense within
my own psychotherapy practice that more could be offered to clients than presented
Before detailing my own practice, I will move to the rationale for what is the central
and professional reasons. Personally, the words 'lighter' and 'more alive' describe
the shift in feeling I experience when meditating. Professionally, they are evocative
clients can relate. Academically, and from a cross-cultural perspective, they elicit
responses from both personal and transpersonal experiencing, and are therefore
well suited to investigating 'what matters' experientially, both in the form of the
study is not to prove the efficacy of Vajrayana-orientated therapy, but to illustrate the
For several years I have been developing an interest in creating a form of therapy
Eastern cultural context into the more scientific cultural context of secular
within this concern. These challenges are explored in my description of the adapted
study; the focus of study is clients’ experiences of the phenomenon of 'lightness' and
3. To answer the following three research questions that are enabled by pursuing the
above two aims:
study can make is to present some of the refinements and specifics of researching
transpersonal experiencing. While there has been much written about transpersonal
significantly less academic literature about its praxis. By integrating Focusing, cross-
The rest of this chapter involves a literature review exploring four areas relevant to
my study: the current status of psychological research, and the research evidence
for Focusing, for Mindfulness and for Vajrayana-influenced practices.. These areas
have been included in my literature review because they form important background
bodies of knowledge for my thesis, in relation both to its focus upon the experiential
different kinds of research there have been. This section also illustrates the need to
illustrates a very popular secular attempt to import what was initially a religious
and the client's experience has been a central integrating component of my thesis. It
10
My focus in this literature review upon the research into Vajrayana-based practices is
to show what has already been done in this field, thereby providing a stepping stone
to my own study. This section also exposes Vajrayana practices as more complex
All these four areas which I have chosen to examine in my literature review are
therefore highly relevant discourses for this study. They contribute both in relation to
understandings have developed and moved forward in recent years and ends with
psychotherapy.
which identify change as experiential phenomena defined by the client, the following
review research studies into Mindfulness. This includes a critique of the research
evidence for the integration of Mindfulness into Western therapies, identifying the
Mindfulness excludes many areas of Eastern practices which have the potential to
The purpose of the literature review is, firstly, to illustrate that there is a need to
Literature Review
Review of recent research into psychotherapy
Psychotherapy as a profession has devoted considerable energy, imagination and
debate to the establishment of a robust and diverse research basis. Within the near
later in this chapter. Recent developments in neuroscience have further widened the
opportunities for establishing validity in this field. This chapter will review recent
an effect size of .80 when compared with a no treatment group, a score comparable
with the influenza vaccine and cataract surgery. Studies in real world situations also
indicate its effectiveness. Within a UK primary care setting Stiles et al. (2008) found
that fifty-eight percent of clients achieved reliable clinical improvement with an effect
size from pre- to post-therapy of 1.3. Cooper (2006), reports that meta analyses of
13
the past thirty years give psychotherapy an effect size of 0.75 and 0.85. Drawing
from a significantly different research base, Seligman (1995) used the Consumer
that patients benefited very substantially from therapy, that long term treatment did
better than short term treatment, that psychotherapy on its own was as effective as
psychotherapy did any better than any other for any particular disorder.
psychotherapy has seen movement away from arguments for the superiority of any
specific particular therapeutic model over another and towards an identification of the
impact successful outcomes (Castonguay and Beutler 2006). Miller, Wampold and
Varhely (2008) meta-analysed studies which compared two or more of the most
conduct disorder and attention deficit disorder and found only small differences
between treatments and that these could be completely accounted for by allegiance
and outcome studies are often more nuanced and idiosyncratic than the language of
the specific models might suggest. There is some evidence that some types of
14
people are able to work more effectively with particular types of clients, that resistant
(Beutler et al. 2002). Beutler et al. (2006) also reviewed nine empirical studies and
found that when working with depressed clients, benefit increases when the
when therapists give feedback to clients and are caring, warm and acceptant and
disorders, Alvarez et al. (2006) found that the effective treatment of personality
disorder tends to rely on therapists being relatively active, providing a clear structure
therapists had benign self-concepts, were perceived as friendly by their clients and
practice in 2006. This new definition was one in which evidence-based practice was
seen as an integration of the best available research and clinical expertise combined
increasingly imperative. Many of the answers to research enquiries into what clients
Timulak 2007).
15
success of therapy (Baldwin et al. 2007). Baldwin et al. found that differences in
alliance. Clients need to believe in the therapist and the explanation which the
therapist gives them for their difficulties in order to engage with therapy. Client
Bruce 2006). Lutz et al. (2007) further endorsed the critical role of the therapist in
this process. Several meta-analyses have shown that the therapeutic relationship
The possibility that a favourable view of the therapist may simply be a consequence
of early improvement was disproved by Zuroff and Platt (2006). Bohart and Wade
(2013) reviewed the client’s role in the therapeutic relationship and identified that
presence' was defined by Geller and Greenberg (2002) as the therapist being
engagement with the whole of the self. This was correlated with successful
outcome.
Miller et al. argue that the research evidence for the determining contribution of the
“If the outcome of psychotherapy is in the hands of the person who delivers
it, then attempts to reach accord regarding the essential nature, qualities or
characteristics of the enterprise are less important than knowing how best to
accomplish what they do […] Looking to the future, the application of
16
that:-
ideology
Wampold (2007) cites Frank (1961) to explain the significance of the therapeutic
relationship and the 'dodo effect' (the similar outcomes of different therapeutic
models). Frank identified four features shared by all effective therapies. These
explanation for the client’s symptoms and which prescribes a ritual or procedure for
resolving the presenting difficulties. Research indicates that both client and therapist
need to believe in this process. Wampold (2007) believes that if mental disorder
disrupted early experience in a safe setting. Wampold et al. (2007) found that the
important factor is that the myth is acceptable to the client and leads to an effective
change. Wampold argues that the common factors be viewed as a contextual model.
He writes:-
“The contextual model emphasizes that the explanation given for the
patient’s distress and the therapy actions must be acceptable to the patient.
Acceptance is partly a function of consistency of the treatment with the
patient’s beliefs about the nature of mental illness and how to cope with the
effects of the illness. This suggests that evidence-based treatments that are
culturally adapted will be more effective for members of the cultural group for
which the adapted treatment is designed. There are many ways to adapt
treatments, including those involving language, cultural congruence of
therapist and patient, cultural rituals, and explanations adapted to the 'myth'
of the group […] All therapies with structure, given by empathic and caring
therapists, and which facilitate the patient’s engagement in behaviours which
are salubrious, will have approximately equal effects.” (2015, p. 277).
a factor analysis which resulted in the common factors being identified as a four
which they work is fluid, interdependent and dynamic and several believe that
change who value their own contributions to the therapeutic process and attribute
results to their own input. Evidence of the client’s power to instigate change with a
al. (2007) meta-analysed studies of depression and anxiety and found that therapy
with a professional therapist was more effective than self-help, even if only by
degree, and concluded that instead of technical knowledge the therapist helps by
developing the clients’ self-change efforts. Gassman and Grawe (2006) found that
strengths. Implications for practice are that therapists need to create an environment
which supports personal agency and in which the client feels perceived as a well-
functioning person. Martin (2008) found an atmosphere which reduced stigma and
Wade (2013) conclude that the most significant implication from their research
The agency of the client in the therapeutic process is further supported by Tang et
al.'s (2007) research into sudden gains which found that forty percent of clients have
more than half of their total symptom improvement in the time between their first and
second sessions. Calhoun and Tedeschi (2006) found that forty to sixty percent of
people who experience trauma get better on their own or describe personal growth
following the incident. Changes they noted were improvements in positive self-
themselves create considerable change in the body and account for many of the
positive results of medical procedures. Placebo effects can be seen as evidence that
change than the treatment being provided. Kirsch (2008) undertook a wide ranging
review of all studies involving selective serotonin inhibitors and found comparable
capacities. Wampold (2005b) argues that the advantage psychotherapy has over
placebos in randomised control trials could be accounted for by the therapists’ lack
of belief in the treatment model and the absence of any cogent ideology underlying
Frank and Frank’s (1991) research demonstrating that a therapist who is convinced
by the strength of their own personal experience of the validity of a specific method
may have an advantage in powerfully communicating to clients that they are also
likely to benefit.
Research into what the client finds helpful in therapy has included valuing self-
insight; Werbart and Johasson ( 2009) found that clients believed an increase in
self-knowledge to be a positive change. Clients also placed value upon being able to
access, accept, understand and express painful feelings. Clients who experienced
their therapist as personable, caring and competent tended to have more favourable
outcomes.
Qualitative research studies of client processing within therapy are arguably best
experiencing. Williams and Levitt (2010) believe that clients’ sense of the therapeutic
currently in use, believing that these measurements have been based on the
conceptual and theoretical models of researchers. Events and factors which clients
describe as being helpful are events which involve reflexive self-understanding and a
20
meta-analysis of seven studies of significant events and found that clients valued
more than other factors. Clients also valued behavioural change and finding
contact.
client defined pivotal moments in therapy. In this study, a pivotal moment is an event
within the therapeutic process which leads to a lasting change, and which is
constituents of pivotal moments, found that for all clients, pivotal moments arose as
(unique to each client) in which one change made other changes possible but not
inevitable.
Hodgetts and Wright (2007) in their review of qualitative studies found that client
factors represented forty percent of therapeutic outcome and argue that the biggest
pure quantitative research. Arguments which have been used to challenge the
validity of the client’s experience of therapy have assumed that clients cannot make
21
accurate judgements due to poor recall, clients’ deference (Rennie 1994) or distorted
experiences resulting from the activation of their own unconscious material. In the
post-modern era it is more difficult to discount the authority of the individual voice
owning the truth of its experience. User views are also given increasing significance
expectation in therapy suggests more attention and validity be given to the client’s
voice. In Llewelyn’s (1988) study, using the helpful aspects of therapy questionnaire,
contact as most significant while the therapists thought cognitive and affective insight
make sudden gains between sessions. Their study indicated that clients who at
onset describe emotional events in a state of global distress (i.e highly aroused
distress with low levels of idiosyncratic meaning making) need to work through
towards greater well-being. They moved from experiencing global distress, then to
fear and shame, to rejecting anger, negative evaluation, needing to experience hurt
and grief then to assertive anger, self-soothing and ultimately to acceptance and
states or higher variability in the number and degree of experienced emotions. This
study, utilising video recordings of sessions and client interviews, established good
22
in-session events as those which reduced distress and increased meaning making.
resources. Hayes et al. (2007) describes this in terms of repeated processing of old
This research supports the importance of meaning making in therapy. Poor in-
session events were identified as those which did not lead to new meaning making
also highlights the importance of identifying clients’ proximal development zone (the
clients degree of readiness for specific therapeutic intervention), and indicates the
Qualitative research has also facilitated exploration into subtle elements of the
grounded theory investigation into the impact of eminent therapists’ values within
psychotherapy. Clients’ values have been seen to shift towards therapists’ values
during the course of therapy (Tjeltvieit et al.1997) and therapists’ personal and
religious values have been found to influence clients even when if therapists intend
to be value free. This study identified four components which function across therapy
orientations and established that therapists focus on one of these at any given time.
These involved stimulating the clients’ curiosity about their own experience to assist
23
positions of moral relativity to holding clients’ values, and back again, using empirical
science to support their sense of what was in the clients’ best interests. It was also
apparent that therapists’ failure to understand the client can reduce the safety
needed to create change. The therapists involved found the information it revealed
helpful as it increased their capacity for reflexivity and facilitated a deeper analysis of
conscious intention.
epistemology in the field. This may seem appropriate for a science which has the
multifaceted and ever changing human subject in the roles of object of study,
researcher and therapist. Arguments for the need for diversity in psychotherapy
which have explored the intransient nature of human variance. Conway (1992)
reviewed psychological epistemology from the past ninety years and the evidence of
as the oppositional polarities which accounted for most of the variance between
studies, finding that personality traits were similarly correlated across this divide. He
argued that individual temperament and life history will determine which theory a
24
person veers towards at any given life stage. Arthur (2006) in his study of how
education, genetics, mother-infant bonding and family relationships and are not
inclined to sudden change. His research suggested that the different cognitive-
epistemological styles of these groups make dialogue extremely difficult between the
two. Arthur cites Lyddon (1989) who concluded that deep philosophical differences
were not resolvable at the level of competing facts and theories. Lyddon
found that when there is dissonance between the client and the cognitive-
experience, understand and process knowledge differently, and advocates the use of
(Cooper 2006) and researcher allegiance effects are well known and have been
identified as accounting for more than two thirds of the variance in outcome (Cooper
2006). It is likely that the lifelong developmental patterns of clients equally incline
them to choose therapists and therapeutic models which accord with their own
particular preferences. At present time, however, the National Institute for Health and
The randomised controlled trial involves assigning patients to treatment and control
conditions, and will include a group of patients who receive no treatment at all as
manualised, with detailed scripts given to the therapists, and these are then checked
by assessors using videotaped sessions to ensure that scripts are applied. Target
outcomes are well operationalised and often relate to the Diagnostic and Statistical
be seen for a fixed number of sessions, and the raters are unaware of which groups
Seligman (1995) has stated that discovering if a treatment works better than another
from understanding what works in the field. He names long term dynamic treatment,
randomised controlled trials and, as a consequence, these do not appear on the list
empirically validating psychotherapy as it fails to take into account too many of the
crucial elements of what is done in the field. Clients seeking psychotherapy in the
field often have multiple problems, actively seek therapists and modalities of their
26
own choosing and frequently opt for long term therapy as opposed to a fixed number
of sessions.
Randomised controlled trials also suit some therapeutic modalities better than
others. Bohart and House (2008) and Loewenthal (2011) believe that behaviourist
with randomised controlled trials and suggest this may be the reason why cognitive
behavioural therapies have had the degree of success they have had with this
within the clients’ experience and that procedures work by enhancing the therapeutic
relationship.
than a drug (Guy et al. 2011). Elkins describes the medical model as a “descriptive
schema borrowed from the practice of medicine and superimposed on the practice of
which has nothing to do with medicine.” (Guy et al. 2011, pp. 67-71). Bentall (2004)
argues that a large number of psychotherapists, researchers and doctors do not find
diagnoses of mental health conditions to be either helpful or relevant and that there
are many diverse pathways to the identification of a clinical condition like depression,
none of which are clarified by the creation of a singular definition. It is also likely to
be the case that the individual differences experienced in any clinical condition
language when distanced from the client’s direct experience. My own reflection upon
this body of research and literature regarding the state of current research into
psychotherapy is that it presents a case for more research studies which use the
century where the mainstream of positivist, empirical ideology meets strong post-
modern tributaries. The emerging confluence of ideas and policies will have major
diagnosis and treatment impact upon identity formation at both individual and
societal levels.
enquiry, a process methodology which aims to access the essence of the client’s
practices on the client’s sense of 'aliveness' and 'lightness', and their sense of self. In
Experiential Focusing to help clients access and differentiate solid and subtle levels
Both Focusing and Mindfulness share some common features with Vajrayana
recent research into both these techniques before exploring the literature and
28
Both Focusing and Mindfulness share some similarities with Vajrayana practices, as
well as having essential areas of difference. In this section I will review recent
study of the human subject. Rogers’ view of human development posited people as
inhibited by an individual’s early life) but, given specific therapeutic conditions, it was
their own inner experiencing, having as its basis the belief that the unconscious
resides within the body and can be accessed by giving attention to embodied
“spending time with an at first unclear body sense of a problem so that new steps
Gendlin believes that common to many different forms of scientific enquiry is the
assumption that structured patterns exist without any sense of their having been
epistemological transformation of how things are seen and understood in which both
unit and process understandings will be acknowledged and able to inform each
extends beyond our field of attention and works with an intricate and ever-expanding
precision. Recent research studies which have identified memory and emotions as
the province of the body as much as of the mind, as well as the identification of
neural pathways in which the body communicates with the mind, are supportive of
background of his experiencing where they became part of his own implicit
understandings (Gendlin 2012). Gendlin believes all new concepts are explicated
from this backdrop and sees the world of logical concepts and of implicit
domain of concepts is perceived as being one of fixed units and that of the implicit as
one of environmentally engaged and forward moving processes. Both have their
specific function and Gendlin acknowledges that structures are extremely useful, but
30
places emphasis upon the fact that the illnesses which the body experiences do not
“Any structured pattern that stays reliably the 'same' for a while is precious
and invaluable but the medically classified illnesses are not separate entities
in the body. That kind of concept cannot include how anything implicitly is.”
(2012, p.6).
Gendlin’s original therapeutic hypothesis was that clients who benefit most in therapy
will demonstrate a growing capacity to directly express bodily felt experiences. In his
were listened to until sufficient data was accumulated to enable Gendlin to design
and The Experiencing Scale (Klein 1969; 1986). Results of this research showed
that clients who began therapy with low experiencing – unable to speak and share
from this implicit embodied level – tended to remain in low experiencing states
throughout the duration of therapy, counter to Gendlin’s original idea that as therapy
experiencing. Instead, it was clients who began therapy with a high degree of
attunement to their own processing that tended to have more positive outcomes. The
six steps of Focusing were designed as a method of accessing this inner dimension
(2002) and more recently by Katonah (2012) in her review of thirty studies into the
analysis applied either Gendlin’s original Experiencing Scale or The Focusing Scale,
31
using judges who were trained separately using standardised materials (Hendricks
2002). The scale measured a continuum from statements about external events
Hendricks cites Lambert and Hill who described The Experiencing Scale as: -
“Perhaps the most widely used and best researched observer rated measure
of client involvement in the therapeutic process”. (1994, p. 94).
Sachse and Newmann (1983) later created a Focusing Rating Scale. This validated
against The Experiencing Scale with a correlation of ninety plus. Hendrick’s meta-
between Experiencing Level and psychotherapy outcome. Analysis was also made
Focusing and psychotherapy outcome and whether Focusing could be taught to low
experiencing clients.
(1996) reviewed seven of the early studies, concluding that initial high levels of
experiencing were more likely to lead to successful outcome. Warwar (1996) took
one high experiencing and one low experiencing session from each of fourteen
depressed clients and found that higher experiencing sessions were positively
correlated with successful outcome. Kubota and Ikemi (1991) also discovered that
sessions rated as successful by clients were the ones with higher ratings of
experiencing.
Experiencing Scale were correlated with a positive outcome. Leijssen (1996) found
32
that seventy-five percent of positive sessions contained Focusing and only thirty-
three percent of negative sessions did. In a second analysis, four clients appeared to
client-centred therapy had significantly better outcomes than clients who received
in the first session was once again found predictive of outcome. Sachse (1990) used
objective personality tests and therapist estimates of success and found that 'depth'
of client experiencing in the middle phase of therapy was also linked with successful
outcome.
The therapists of successful clients were also found to have made significantly more
questionnaires to ask clients what had happened in each session that was
particularly helpful. The resulting Content Analysis identified Focusing related factors
from the least effective sessions. Therapy that was Focusing-orientated has been
(1990) did a fine grained analysis which evidenced that therapist processing
Leone’s (2009) research into client processing which identified an increasing range
Space, the first of Gendlin’s six stages of Focusing. This first stage involves bringing
attention inside the body to notice which particular issues make individuals feel
tense. In this process, clients first acknowledge issues and then metaphorically place
these issues outside, and at some distance away from themselves. When this is
complete, the resulting open space is explored. The underpinning premise behind
Clearing A Space is that for the same period of time that the body carries
Several studies have reviewed the potential of Clearing A Space with people who
have health concerns. Klagsbrun and colleagues (2012) applied this first step of
Focusing to seventeen breast cancer survivors. Quantitative results, using the Fact B
quality of life measure showed there to be a significant improvement in both pre- and
concerns, increased emotional regulation, calm mood and mental clarity. An earlier
study by Klagsbrun et al. (2005) investigating the impact on quality of life of a two
day treatment which integrated Clearing A Space with expressive art therapy, found
significant increases in quality of life. Klagsbrun’s study involved a six month follow
depression and an improvement in body attitudes for the treatment group compared
34
to the control group. Qualitative results also revealed that an increase in self-care
Antrobus (2008) utilised a combined treatment of Clearing A Space and yoga over a
period of six weeks. Qualitative results from this study also indicated that during the
own self-care. All four participants stated that they had found new ways of handling
stress. The impact of Clearing A Space upon chronic pain was investigated by
Ferraro (2010) with a sample of four chronic pain patients. Results indicated a
analysis of transcripts demonstrated that patients had been able to find an area in
their lives which was free of pain, and had been able to challenge a previously
help clients find and explore their own spirituality. More recently, Lou (2014) has
(Lou uses the gap between speech marks in the manner established by Gendlin to
words). While Lou is here exploring spiritual applications of Focusing within the
Christian tradition, her comments are equally applicable to other religions and
perhaps particularly to those which directly use bodily practices to enhance spiritual
35
image can help a strong felt sense to live on, and that embodied enquiry into
imagery also enhances the potency and idiosyncratic value of the image. He has
also identified that spontaneously arising images tend to remain until the body
While the studies described above suggest a profusion of supportive research for
Focusing, they must be viewed within the context of also having significant
limitations. Many of these studies lack peer reviews and control conditions and are
unable to control for such complex variables as how some of the processes involved
in Clearing a Space and the six steps of Focusing (receiving instructions from and
the shared journeying with a therapist) may in themselves positively impact upon the
therapeutic relationship rather than Focusing being the most significant factor in
further limitation of these studies is that the majority of them have been undertaken
resulting in inevitable allegiance effects. Many of these studies also have a very
human processing and healing. To prove its efficacy in the current mental health
system, Focusing will need larger samples and more rigorous scrutiny and review. In
into Focusing are often presented in ways suggestive of emerging possibilities rather
skills developed by the Focusing process, of moving attention and noticing subtle
Focusers are well placed to describe how externally observed brain changes are felt
from the inside, thereby capturing the essential specificity of experiencing. The depth
clients in Focusing processing are likely to yield deeper levels of individual truths and
ones less susceptible to external influences . In this study, Focusing has provided an
accessible bridge from traditional therapy into a more experiential domain in which
professionally.
practice which has become integrated into Western psychological therapies. This
next section defines and describes Mindfulness and its research base, and ends with
Research into the effectiveness of meditation and its potential impact upon
prevalent for the past forty years. Early studies often had significant methodological
flaws (Cahn and Polich 2006). However, the body of evidence accumulated over four
decades indicates that different meditative disciplines, arising from different cultural
contexts, do impact upon all three of these domains and do so in distinctive ways.
The most common, and rigorously reviewed form of meditative practice, as well as
The term Mindfulness itself derives from the Pali word sati (Bodhi 2002) and is
both in the Pali canon and the Abhidharma, where it is listed as one of the seven
attention to bodily sensations, emotions, thoughts and the environment and thus has
The current proliferation of research into the effects of Mindfulness practices, applied
to a diverse range of clinical and non-clinical populations, has seen the term
al. 2005). The essential components of Mindfulness meditation in the West, and
ones which pervade all practices, are non-judgemental acceptance in present time,
38
and embodied awareness (Davis and Haye 2011). The origin of Mindfulness in
involved an eight week course which combined Mindfulness based meditation with
hatha yoga. Teasdale (1988) later explored the possibility of Mindfulness practices
applied as a treatment for depression, MBSR is now widely used as a treatment for a
wide range of conditions and client groups, and as a stress preventative used by
employers.
Of specific relevance to this study are research investigations which identify the
therefore support its incorporation into psychotherapy. I will begin this section by
practices help to develop affect regulation in the brain (Siegal 2009). Chambers and
a cognitive process often associated with depressive thinking. Cocoron et al. (2010)
argue that its effectiveness in doing so results from the improvement of the brain’s
Williams (2010) has demonstrated that even eight weeks of Mindfulness meditation
practice can make significant impact on the regulation and processing of emotions
anxiety and depression. The majority of studies reviewed consisted of the application
therapy. Their meta-analysis concluded that many affective and cognitive processes,
impacting upon multiple clinical issues, benefit from Mindfulness practices. In Farb et
al.’s study (2010), participants randomly assigned to an eight week MBSR training
less anxiety, depression and somatic distress than the control group. Magnetic
Findings suggest that the emotions which meditators do have are differently
processed in the brain. Erisman and Roemer (2010) also researched the effects of
and positive film clips. They concluded that the meditating group had some
Jha et al. (2010) recruited a different research population from a real world setting,
group who had participated in an eight week Mindfulness training. Both military
memory improved within the military group in proportion to the actual amount of
working memory. The civilian population remained stable. This study also found that
the meditating group experienced self-reported positive affect and a reduction in self-
reported negative affect. Grant (2010) researched the impact of meditation upon the
neural processing of pain and found reduced activation in executive, evaluative and
experienced the meditator, the more dramatic the decrease of activation in these
emotion related brain regions. Mason et al. (2007) found that participants in an eight
reductions in activity in the neural circuit associated with narrative focus and
increased activation in the circuit associated with experiential focus. This suggests
that these two different kinds of self-referencing, which usually occur simultaneously,
can be uncoupled. These results affirm that Mindfulness can be used to weaken the
grip of self-limiting narratives. Farb (2010) exploring a similar theme, found that non-
meditators who experienced a temporary sad mood activated the narrative focus
the brain area concerned with how sadness is experienced in the body. Learning to
approach to the habitual cycles of mental strategizing which are a common element
Segal et al. (2009) tested eighty-four patients with a diagnosis of major depressive
disorder who were in remission and found MBSR to have similar efficacy to
medication in relapse prevention. Goldin and Gross (2010) found that MBSR led to
emotional experience and decreased activation of the amygdala during the breath
focused task. Bowen at al. (2010) applied MBSR to clients with substance disorders
Stress Reduction activates the frontal and prefrontal areas of the brain. Davidson
(2000) has also shown that, as a consequence of the functional plasticity of the
central nervous system, long term and consistent meditative practice enables state-
people to become less reactive (Godwin and Gross 2010) and to have greater
cognitive flexibility. Meditation activates parts of the brain associated with more
adaptive responding to stressful life situations and negative affect, which in turn
empirical support.
reduced attentional blink. Lutz (2009) found that three months of intensive practice
locking between cortical rhythms and the external stimulus to which they were
anxiety disorders and chronic pain reflects its general health benefits rather than a
individual self-healing practices allow the analytic hemisphere to recruit the entire
learning encoding, without the automatic defensive appraisals that maintain cognitive
perceptual allostatic load (Loizzo 2010). Vega et al. (2014) explored the impact of
Methodological challenges
the National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine criticised scientific
advocated more rigorous design, execution and analysis of studies. Many studies
compare experimental conditions to a wait list control group which then fails to
control for elements of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction which are not unique to
the program itself, but which could contribute to positive outcome, such as group
process, the enthusiasm of the instructor and the belief that the intervention will
She also identified that many studies omitted to describe the procedures used to
train therapists and to review the clinical significance of their findings. Cahn and
Polich (2006) in their review of research into meditation have also criticised the lack
Davidson and Kaszniak (2015) explore the unique conceptual and methodological
challenges involved when researching Mindfulness and highlight the need for richer
descriptions of interventions, and for more specific information about how and by
whom they are being taught. Problems they identified within previous studies related
and the inadequacy of using only one physiological measure when researching such
a highly complex construct. They conclude that double blind placebo controlled trials
comparison conditions such as dual blind designs in which participants are unaware
of which intervention is the focus of the research and examiners collecting the data
do not know to which group each participant has been assigned. Davidson and
Kaszniak emphasise the positive contribution of recent research designs to this field
of study:-
“Although there is much excitement about this area, there are still very few
methodologically rigorous studies that demonstrate the efficacy of
Mindfulness based interventions in either the treatment of specific diseases
or in the promotion of well- being…With the incorporation of some of the
conceptual and methodological desiderata we show case here we anticipate
a vibrant and productive period for scientific research on meditation in the
future” (2015, p.590).
44
My own reflection on the value and limitations of this body of research and literature
on Mindfulness is that it illustrates the need for both more clearly defined research
and for Eastern and Western integration. Compassion and intention are the central
psychological treatment
Mindfulness into Western therapies. Harrington and Dunne (2015, p.621) summarise
They believe such criticisms result from the multiple meanings of mindfulness in the
misinterpretation.
in the process of linking Mindfulness with stress reduction, had some unanticipated
consequences. In Western culture, stress is associated with every aspect of the life-
world. The implications of this association are the widespread use of Mindfulness
concept familiar to Western cognitive psychology – and neglect the intention and
insight aspects of Mindfulness which are essential for generating the alchemy of
45
renunciation and compassion and may potentially prove less susceptible to cultural
those experiencing poor ego-boundaries and patients who have issues relating to
lack of empathy, rigid over-control and reality testing. Epstein (2007) in his
as Sokrlung, which results from straining too tightly in an obsessive way to achieve
silent retreats and identified that sixty-two point nine percent of participants
experienced at least one aversive effect. Perez-De-Albeniz et al. (2000) believe that
Mindfulness practices can evoke repressed emotions and memories. Meditation has
also been correlated with reports of anxiety, depersonalisation and muscular tension
which result in part from increased attention to bodily experiences. Whitfield (1993)
relationship patterns which could benefit from exploration are avoided by meditative
practice.
focuses upon the effectiveness of Vajrayana practices when adapted and applied to
contemporary neuroscientific and real world research evidence for the potential of
46
Vajrayana practices to simultaneously increase learning and reduce stress. I will also
explore the Western therapeutic literature which links Vajrayana Buddhism with
therapeutic relationship.
response to a suggestion from the Dalai Lama that the effects of compassion
practice be explored, Davidson (2012) describes how he recruited sixteen long term
meditation. The task given to both groups was to focus their thoughts on someone
they cared about and allow the mind to be overwhelmed by compassion and then to
apply compassion to all beings. This feeling was to become dominant over all
thinking processes. Results showed that when both groups were exposed to the
meditation than in the resting state and in long term meditators than in the novices.
Long term meditators also experienced more intensive impact. Functional magnetic
resonance imaging indicated activity in the insular, considered essential for the
another person’s experience. The sound of a cooing baby also generated similar
responses, activity in the insula increasing in the meditation state rather than in the
compassion state, and greater increases in the long term meditators rather than the
novices. Davidson inferred from this experiment that loving kindness and
they are not personally known to us. When participants were asked about their
47
resonance imaging also showed that a circuit linked to appraising the mental and
than the novices. Self-reported altruism has been linked to increased activity in the
left rather than the right side in some of these regions. Even in non-meditating
oscillations in the prefrontal cortex than the novices. Brain regions associated with
attentiveness differed significantly from the novices. Davidson concluded from this
evidence that there is a possibility that compassion meditation resets the brain with
To counter the possibility that these results occur due to innate tendencies within the
meditators rather than meditation practice in itself, Davidson experimented with the
effects of short term meditation. In this study forty one volunteers were assigned
involved participating in an online instructional program for thirty minutes a day for
the duration of two weeks. The neurological data, using functional magnetic
resonance imaging scans taken before and after the training programs of both
ascertain if this would then lead to behaviour change in a real world setting,
Davidson then tested both groups in an experiment which gauged willingness to help
another at a cost to oneself and found participants from the meditation group showed
more altruistic responding than those who had experienced training in cognitive
can reduce the extent of personal distress experienced when hearing the sufferings
of others (as indicated by reduced activation of the amygdala) and at the same time
48
increase activation of the brain associated with goal directed behaviour. The
neurological results also showed more connectivity between the part of the brain
where representations of the body take place (the insula, in the prefrontal cortex)
and the part of the brain where reward and motivation are processed. Davidson
experience a greater degree of social intuition and are generally more empathic to
generalizable they might become when applied to specific real world settings and to
larger samples of people. Qualitative analysis would also explicate and provide
being on both intra and interpersonal levels is Joe Loizzo, a Harvard trained
based on Vajrayana Buddhism on the quality of life of women who have breast or
model used with cancer patients in the United States. This quality of life scale
measured twenty-eight items in four domains which included physical, social, family
and functional well-being. A short form health survey was also applied which
measured six functional domains: physical function, social function, energy level,
Loizzo’s underlying hypothesis was that the lack of positive results from many
different treatments (including Mindfulness) with this client group results from their
failure to acknowledge the adverse impact of stress reactivity upon learning, lifestyle
Vajrayana principles, techniques and practices have the unique capacity to reduce
model he devised applies the psychobiological model of stress reactivity and stress
affective and behavioural stress reactivity (McEwen 2007). Stress reactivity is now
known to impact upon the natural systems of immunity, tissue healing, regeneration,
Corresponding research into health and well-being has also demonstrated the
Loizzo’s study engaged participants in a twenty week program, the first eight weeks
breathing practice. The twelve sessions after this dealt with the utilisation of these
basic skills to redress stress reactive habits of thinking, feeling and action and the
path between feeling their fate to be predestined by a higher power and experiencing
their bodies as helplessly out of their own control. They were encouraged to take
visualisations taken directly from the Vajrayana tradition. Social elements of the self
learning to view each action of body, speech and mind as an opportunity to move
Existential concerns were explored and met in specific stages which moved from the
application of Vajrayana on the quality of life of a client group in which stress related
symptoms often include intense fear, avoidance, and intrusive thoughts. The 2014
general scale. Loizzo concluded that the application of his model improved overall
Qualitative research in the form of open ended questioning was also used to explore
participants' experience of the program. Results from this indicated that the majority
of participants from both research studies felt that they had learnt useful skills and
had become less fearful and stressed. Loizzo claims that these successful results
51
from the fact that the Vajrayana-influenced program extended beyond Mindfulness
Based Stress Reduction and towards the addressing of twelve specific components
clinging, compulsive life, mindless reproduction and senseless ageing, illness and
with deep breathing and mantra recitation to alter cognition, emotion, physiological
The methodological issues and weaknesses identified in these studies related to the
high attrition rate. Participants described this as a consequence of the high time
commitment required. The fact that only half of the participants took part in the
biological assessment represents a further limitation of the study. The lack of any
control group also impacts upon the validity of these results as the hypothesis that
stress would have reduced during this time period without any intervention was not
experience would also have been fruitful in ascertaining which particular elements of
the intervention clients found most helpful and why they responded in this way.
Loizzo argues that applying Vajrayana practices in this manner represents a more
effective method of teaching stress reduction and learning than the more frequently
CBT results from the lack of psychophysiological knowledge available at the time of
the behavioural tradition of the early twentieth century, which geared itself toward
of how stress reinforces negatively conditioned habits. CBT, influenced by the need
human experience and focused upon treating symptoms rather than causes,
impact, Loizzo believes that CBT’s focus upon prescribed targets – changing
thinking patterns, behaviours and fantasies – limits the amount of positive health or
perceives a tradition like Vajrayana as capable of addressing both long and short
encourages and empowers people to remain open to continual growth and change.
He also argues that Vajrayana, a model in which the mind and body work closely
understanding of mind and body and perceive the impact of the stress response as a
conditioned responses.
Loizzo also believes that, in relation to this client group and possibly to others, not all
negative thoughts may be bad ones, as negative thoughts may contain some
realistic insights which would benefit from being addressed. More existential
approaches, which enquire into life meanings, are arguably in a stronger position to
facilitate changes in mind set and avoid any sense of personal failure, which can be
Loizzo further criticises CBT for failing to address the subtle sedimentary layers of
therapy and imagery, Vajrayana is neither linear nor narrow; it brings together a
unique range of healing and stress-reducing constituents and provides a general and
Benson et al. (1990) used mantra recitation, visualisation and breath control, which,
increased arousal. This differed from the relaxed alertness synonymous with
as cerebral blood flow and galvanic skill responses states, were unexpectedly found
metabolism (Infant et al. 1998). These states are associated with heart brain
preparation in REM sleep (Jevning et al. 1992). The Tibetan Buddhist tradition uses
lucid high arousal states, believing them to be important for attaining states of
very advanced meditators to regulate body temperature has also been documented
(Benson 1990; 1996), with the most advanced practitioner showing the paradoxical
More recently, Kozhevnikov et al. (2009) and Davidson (2012) compared two groups
memory tasks. Their results showed that compared with both control groups and a
maintenance and spatial tasks. The researchers concluded that Deity Yoga develops
has positive implications for therapy, memory loss and mental training, as it
demonstrates that latent resources of the brain can be accessed and consciously
activated.
Loizzo acknowledges that the results from highly advanced practitioners are
uncommon, but believes that they nonetheless indicate that self-induced plasticity
can occur in the most primary pathways of the nervous system, and equally indicate
combination of euphoria and clarity. The high arousal increases in attention which
occur in Tibetan Buddhist meditation are seen to result from a deepening of limbic-
practices which have been applied in psychotherapy, Loizzo identifies some studies
high intensity, high control individuals who have the characteristics of high
performance anxiety, high stress tolerance, high affect tolerance and high capacities
for expressed emotion, absorption and visualisation. Fergusson (1993) found these
practices worked well with clients experiencing inhibited creativity. There has also
been some research into the application of these advanced practices with clients
(1992) intervention with clients with bipolar disorder and Alexander et al.’s (1991)
emphasis upon the spiritualisation of sexuality, effective when applied to clients who
have shame based inhibitions which prevent intimacy and healthy sexual expression.
behavioural skills groups (Sweet 1990), and family and marital therapies (Jain et al.
1985). He asserts that Vajrayana’s emphasis upon emptiness, and its understanding
of the conditioned nature of reality and emotional experiencing has affinities with
Kohut and Lacan, while its emphasis upon archetypes and body work has much in
“spiritual science of civilised happiness” (2010, p.1), which shares with Western
therapeutic theories the intention of preventing the suffering and emotional bondage
56
identifies its capacity to uphold counter-cultural agency with the powerful utilisation,
well evidenced in Social Learning Theory, of a healing ally and mentor, and a depth
of psychological processing.
Similarly to research into Focusing and Mindfulness, many of these studies lack peer
reviews, standardised procedures and control groups and many involve very small
evidence that meditation techniques can produce different effects upon even the
Vajrayana may also only prove effective if a relatively high degree of personality
personality disorders are likely to be ill-suited to these techniques. The high rate of
withdrawal from Loizzo’s own research study may also be indicative of participants
finding the program too demanding and too complex, requiring as it does a high
allegiance effects are likely to be particularly strong when spiritual or religious beliefs
studies reviewed here are too few and samples involved too small to be of great
significance. Recent studies have more rigour than earlier ones and there is much to
difficult at this stage to imagine the provision of sufficient funding to sponsor large
experiencing in which there is a high degree of reliance upon the intangible and
reciprocal dialectic which exists between the therapist or educator’s experience and
the client’s state of readiness. The evidence which does exist nonetheless
about the value and limitations of this body of research and literature on Vajrayana
Buddhist-adapted practices stems from the assertion that there is a need for
investigations which allow clients to take embodied and subjective ownership of the
practices. This can result from integrating them with a Focusing-orientated and
psychotherapeutic model in which these adapted practices are presented within the
fold of generic psychotherapy will facilitate a wider and more subjective range of
responses.
Psychotherapist Rob Preece (2006) has emphasised the essentially creative nature
of tantra, which requires freedom of individual expression and the crucial importance
and tantric practice are highly complementary, as the witnessing and supportive
for tantric practice, while also embedding clients in the relational and integrated
Preece highlights the harmony between Jung’s concept of archetypes and Vajrayana
tantric practices, perceiving that tantric practices fully meet and then transform the
raw energies of the denied shadow aspects of the self. Jung believed that these
aspects often take the form of complexes – powerful and self-destructive elements of
the self which, when activated, become all consuming, containing a powerful and
non-negotiable emotional sense of the ‘I’. These result from traumatic experiences
which have resulted in fundamental damage to the self-concept. Working with Deity
into socially benevolent archetypes, due to the fusion of euphoric experience and
more positive and integrated response to the natural world is also identified as a
Bradford’s (2009) and Welwood’s (2002) therapeutic use of the term ‘unconditional
Klein (1995), in her feminist deconstruction of Deity Yoga practice Meeting The
59
Great Bliss Queen, describes how Tibetan Buddhist thought provides a means of
sought to develop self-other relationships which differ from the traditional Freudian
and medically orientated traditions, in which the client has long been viewed as an
object of study. Rogers (1958) stated that while perceiving a person as an object has
been of use to the physical sciences, it has not to the human sciences. To Giorgi
separated from an observed subject is a fantasy (Bradford 2009). The neutral lens of
the detached observer is, to Bradford, not a reality but simply indicative of the
therapeutic presence:
The interdependent nature of the self has also been well documented in
as has the healing potential of playful reality creation (Winnicott 1971; Axline 1964)
in which a fixation with rigid distinctions of self and other, imprinted at specific points
profession could itself be seen, over the past one hundred years, to have suffered
60
Disregarding its original quest for all that can heal the psyche, psychotherapy has
become obsessive in its need to prove its value through an ill-suited methodology
borrowed from the natural sciences, rather than identifying one which resonates with
its central aim. The recent shift in the APA’s definition of effective practice to include
adventurous in its explorations of the psyche and the world. He believes that
tangible embodied and existential territories such as grounded vibrancy and creative
expansion. These states represent manifestations of the dynamic tensions which can
exist when psychotherapy extends beyond the constraints of working with a limited
self- object and a habitual denial of both embodied sensations and the human
existential position.
Reconstituting and healing the past, reframing thoughts, encouraging human agency
and therapeutic relationship, are the current tried and tested lodestones of
creative educational packages such as that devised by Loizzo (2010) can ethically
facilitate more discovery oriented research. This then enables the creation of vibrant
new maps of subtle areas of human experiencing with which others can explore .
61
The next chapter on Vajrayana Buddhism has two sections. The first, a) details the
definition and history of Vajrayana Buddhism as it appears within its own cultural
context and traces its emergence in Western academic literature. The second, b)
describes the personal and professional factors which have underpinned this study.
perhaps in part due to the fact that secrecy has historically surrounded the
transmission of its practices. Texts were often written in twilight, esoteric language in
order to deter all but advanced students. In addition, Vajrayana philosophy and
practices have been difficult for Western culture to assimilate. Vicki Mackenzie
(1998, p. 24) has described the manner in which, during the 1960s when Buddhism
was becoming established in the West after the invasion of Tibet, the intellectual
“shamanistic, esoteric and basically degenerate”. While the minimalism of Zen and
Buddhism, with its strong identification with Vajrayana practices was seen as “too
odd and exotic to catch on” (Mackenzie, p. 24). From a Tibetan Buddhist
Since then, due to the presence of the Dalai Lama on the world stage for over four
decades, his prolific writings on Tibetan Buddhism and mental health and his
teachers who have argued that tantric practices are particularly well suited to the
Western mind (Yeshe 1998; Ray 2001), there has been a wider degree of
1
Tantra refers to specific practices which affirm continuity of mind (Dalai Lama XIV and Hopkins
1982). The term Vajrayana refers to a specifically Buddhist ideology, and to the path and practices associated
with the application of these Buddhist teachings. Historically, usage of the term tantra preceded that of
Vajraynana, although tantra has now become synonymous with Vajrayana. Tantra is the name given to the oral
imparting of teachings which have unconscious or subliminal power.
63
Historically, in a social context, Vajrayana has been associated with protest against
the established order (Ray 2001; Allione 2008). Its tradition of validating subjective
experience and individual rights over traditionally established social hierarchies and
the monastic tradition has led some post-modern feminist academics to explore its
component parts in-depth (Klein 1995; Shaw 1994). Sociological studies have been
being and a form of social and political activity capable of working simultaneously
both within and beyond any hierarchical structure, a capacity which is likely to
Deity Yoga has been proven, demonstrating that a higher level of mental processing
is accessed when using this specific Vajrayana technique (Kozhevnikov et al. 2009).
Trungpa (2002), Allione (2008), Ray (2001) and Lama Yeshe (1987) have all made
links between Vajrayana practices and psychological well-being. All of these factors
have raised awareness of Vajrayana in the academic world. It is, however, still very
far from the extent to which Mindfulness practices, developed from the first teachings
other issues relevant to its Eastern context, in accordance with the aims and scope
of this thesis and to clarify potential cross-cultural issues. In Chapter Five, I will
describe the paths and principles from this tradition which are specifically relevant to
64
the practices which I have adapted in this study. In Chapter Seven, I will detail and
Other terms used to capture the essence of Vajrayana have been the path of skilful
means, the golden roof of the temple of enlightenment and the union of wisdom and
innumerable aeons. While both these paths are strands of the Mahayana tradition
and share the Mahayana view that the innate nature of mind is one of complete
purity, the Sutrayana or the Perfection Vehicle is known as a causal path which
analysis through meditative practice, cultivating what have been called the six
insight. The Vajrayana path, by contrast, is known as the resultant or effect path as it
significant difference lies in the way in which these two vehicles towards
Buddhahood are seen to view the body. Generally, from the Sutrayana perspective,
the body is a source of suffering; it is temporary, and has desires and attachments
to the body in that they see it as containing all we need to become enlightened, and
Vajrayana identifies, beneath the gross physical body, a subtle vajra (‘indestructible’)
body, which can be further developed by opening specific channels within the
physical body and moving kundalini energy.2 Subtle energy winds are seen to move
through these channels, affecting consciousness as they do so, hence the tantric
expression ‘the mind rides on the wind’. Controlling these winds is seen to lead to
The Vajrayana path is one in which the human journey of repeated suffering is seen
Vajrayana teachers believe that we can advance more quickly towards Buddhahood.
emptiness which then facilitates an experience of bliss in the body. The Dalai Lama
has described this process as becoming a Buddha by meditating upon the body of a
Buddha (Dalai Lama XIV 2005). Deity Yoga, a common practice developed for this
body and alters habitual patterns of self-perception, creating a sense of divine pride
in the unconditioned, innately perfected elements of mind (Dalai Lama and Hopkins
1982).
2
Kundalini also commonly known as 'tummo practice' in Tibet, literally means 'coiled' and in Vajrayana
Buddhism refers to the coiled power which arises when all the winds in the body rise up through the central
channel as a consequence of certain practices (Yeshe 1998 ).
3
Mantra has been translated as 'protectors of the mind' (Dalai Lama XIV and Hopkins 1982). It is the
term commonly used in Buddhism for the recitation of sacred words which are associated with particular deities
or enlightened beings. The mind is seen to need protection from the conventional view of life.
66
in relation to Buddhist doctrine, and of viewing each of these schools as a coherent and
unitary whole. He believes that each valley in Tibet had its own distinctive teacher, with
its own distinctive teachings, and that, in its early stages, Buddhism was seen not as a
series of tenets to be followed but rather as a medicine for curing specific ills. Michael
Pye (2003), in his in-depth analysis of the Mahayanan concept of skilful means,
believes the key adaptive strength of Buddhism to be its positionless, mediating method
application whilst similarly inferring the existence of a position of optimum action. This
displace essentialism. These teachings are the analytic training in which concepts and
phenomena are deconstructed into dependent parts and ultimately into emptiness, and
the manner in which, from its earliest stages, Buddhism emphasised the importance of
the use of skilful means and personal experience over dogma. The Buddha taught
different things to different people, depending on their level of understanding. The Lotus
Sutra describes the Buddha as using ‘innumerable devices’ to lead living beings (Pye
2003).
to the words of the teacher and negates practice-driven personal experience and the
Buddhism rather than in relation to either of the other Buddhist schools. Records
date the first appearances of the Vajrayana in Buddhist texts in the first and third
centuries, becoming more prolific by the seventh (Ray 2001). Records of tantric
practices from other traditions are evident earlier and have links to the Hindu and
ancient Shakti religion and to early shamanic practices (Samuel 1995). Vajrayana
tantra can be differentiated from earlier tantric practice in that the main goal of
while in Hindu tantra, the intention is to realize the highest form of deities. It is also
the case that the deities in the Buddhist tradition are viewed as manifestations of our
own mind whereas in Hindu tantra they are seen as ultimate principles in themselves
(Dalai Lama XIV 2005). The final key differentiation between Buddhist tantra and
other forms is the pivotal role in Vajrayana tantra of what Samuel (1995) has termed
the Bodhi orientation, the drive to transform ordinary states of consciousness in the
impassioned belief that by so doing others will be released from suffering. Whilst in
many Buddhist societies this orientation became subordinate to the ethically based
in which people sought guidance on difficult issues and tuition from siddhas 4, yogis,
or yoginis who had gained insights from deep meditations attained in solitary retreats
(Ray 2001). Its lineages were passed down from one teacher to another or at most
4
Sanskrit term meaning 'accomplished one'. The Oxford dictionary of Buddhism (Keown 2013) defines
a Siddha as “An enlightened master or guru, particularly in the tantric tradition. The term signifies a master of
yoga who has attained magical powers and has the ability to work miracles”.
68
very few disciples and kept hidden for centuries. From the seventh century it
engagement. Early tantric texts suggest that a decline in spirituality within the
monastic tradition (where scholasticism and behaviour were emphasised rather than
Vajrayana included amongst its ranks siddhas who had been criminals and menial
workers in addition to kings, queens and Brahmins. The unifying components were
intense spiritual aspiration, devotion and, on occasion, the need to resolve personal
crises which went beyond normal personal and cultural resources (Ray 2001).
Between the 8th and 12th centuries, Indian scholars organised the Buddha’s
teachings, which had been orally transmitted for hundreds of years. Each of these
was believed to have been delivered at a different point in time and space.
teachings into an accessible and fast moving whole (Yeshe 1987). In this thesis,
however, for the purpose of differentiation and to align with established academic
discourse, the fundamental differences between teachings which emerged from the
truth – the manner in which suffering can cease – the teachings of the Mahayana
scriptures are required. These scriptures also contain the philosophy of the
Vajrayana path and convey in fine detail how we can put an end to suffering. The
Mahayana teachings are believed to have been given by the Buddha at Vulture
69
Peak, a small mountain outside the ancient city of Rajgir. The Dalai Lama has said
that the single most important element of the Mahayana School – its real heart – is
loving kindness and Bodichitta. Bodicitta can be defined as the profound intention to
delay individual enlightenment in order to dedicate one’s life to the benefit of others.
This deep passion to reduce the suffering of other sentient beings is also the engine
that powers Vajrayana. The second highly significant element of Mahayana is the
concept of emptiness, which, historically, has proven difficult for the Western mind to
understand. In Mahayana, the self is seen to be empty not in the manner a nihilistic
any objective and autonomously derived identity – and therefore not separate from
expense of the other, and challenges the binary oppositions which underlie a
dualistic perspective. The Dalai Lama has described how, in his later life and as a
consequence of particular practices, his visual perception has altered to the extent
2005).
The Heart Sutra, a highly significant Mahayana text, explores the point of
all concepts and experience, leaving us already potentially in the resultant state of
therefore illusory. In contemporary literature, Anne Klein (1995) has coined the
the immutable, intrinsic purity of mind, the distance between ultimate and ordinary
consciousness is reduced. The Dalai Lama (2005) has summarised the teachings
delivered at Vulture Peak as the Wisdom Sutras which focus on the topics of
and the more subtle imprints and manifestations of ignorance and attachment.
It is, however, the third teaching of the Buddha, thought to have been delivered
sixteen years after his first, which is most associated with Vajrayana and tantra. In
the Tathagata Sutra, our innate potential for enlightenment is explored, emphasising
the essence of Buddhahood within. It was within this teaching that the meditative
techniques aimed at realizing emptiness were shared to a smaller and more select
group of students. It is these teachings which will form the bedrock of this study.
Vajrayana does not possess its own distinctive view, as it is essentially meditative in
one lifetime (Ray 2001). Although the philosophical model of emptiness and
reality within emptiness (Ray 2001), utilising the visions experienced by the
While many of the Hianayana scriptures, such as those recorded in the Pali Canon,
scriptures are not universally accepted, and were not among the teachings
canonised at the three councils that took place after the Buddha’s death. This may
be a further reason why Vajrayana took a longer period of time to gain acceptance in
the West. In Tibet, however, they are believed to have been transmitted from the
Buddha himself (Yeshe 1998). The history of Tibetan Buddhism involved a dialectical
dance between monastic and tantric elements, underpinned by the need to integrate
71
discipline with a more freewheeling and creative spiritual exploration. Both aspects
emptiness (Ray 2001). This is exemplified by the story of Atisha, which I will briefly
summarise. At the start of the tenth century, the Tibetan King Lha Lama Yeshe Od
appealed to the Indian Buddhist teacher Atisha to come to Tibet to rectify what he
he did not want to leave his monastery in Vikramashila at a time in which it was at
risk of Muslim invasion. When Lha Lama Yeshe Od was later captured and held
prisoner and a ransom demanded for his life, his great nephew collected a huge
quantity of gold to secure his release. However, he was then told by his imprisoned
Uncle that he considered his life to be of less significance than the future of
Buddhism in Tibet and that he was to take the gold to Atisha and tell him of the
sacrifice that had been made in the hope of bringing Atisha to Tibet (Laird 2005).
The Dalai Lama believes that Atisha’s decision to come to Tibet resulted from an
appreciation of the depth of this sacrifice. Heart passion for the end of the suffering
reintegration of monastism and tantra in Tibet. Atisha was a master of tantra, but
ensured that these elements did not overshadow the ethics and scholasticism of the
path, which placed tantric practices as the final level of teachings to be given to
monks, and only when they could display a depth of understanding of ethics and the
In Tibetan Buddhism, the continued emphasis upon integrating monastic and tantric
polarities evident when comparing the Gelukpa and Rimed Schools (Samuel 1995).
Yeshe (1987) believes that Atisha’s lamrim, the graduated approach – eminently
sensible at the time for a monastic setting – can be misinterpreted and result in
people feeling that they will never reach a state of readiness for the tantric teachings.
well-suited to the West and to the times in which we live. The Dalai Lama has also
stated that in these challenging times, Vajrayana practices can be adapted and
one of the highest Vajrayana practices, to a wide range of students further supports
Historically, the four main Tibetan Buddhist schools have all taken slightly different
teachings, the Gelukpa favouring intellectual analysis and the Kagyudpa placing
more emphasis upon tantric meditative practices. All schools do include tantric
Miranda Shaw (1994) has explored, specifically sexual tantric practices were
withheld from translation and general transmission, remaining in the hands of high
Lamas. When Buddhism was attacked and overthrown in India in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries it was in Tibet that the widest translations and transmissions of all
the Buddha’s teachings were preserved, a situation which remained until 1959.
73
The story of Naropa and Tilopa is one which highlights the range of Vajrayana
Buddhism and captures the power dynamics and comedic interplay between tantric
siddha and monastic scholar. Naropa, a well renowned scholar at Nalanda University
in the eleventh century, felt an inner dissatisfaction despite years of study and
his intellectual attainments were disparaged and he was told to go and find his
teacher, Tilopa. He found Tilopa in the wilderness, looking wild and dirty and
point Naropa recognises him and appeals to be his student. Teachings are finally
made with his urine. Tilopa then initiates him by throwing an object at his head
(Yeshe 1998).
the ordered world of scholastic enquiry must be relinquished, and attention given to
meditative vision obtained in the wilderness. This implies a need to expand beyond
the limits of the social conventions in which we as social actors are embedded; the
actions which can conceal the interior of the self. In a manner reminiscent of
Shakespearean and Jacobean theatre, it is the marginal, the miscreant, the Fool and
the shaman who hold the wider vision. What is distinctive to the Tibetan Buddhist
tradition is the manner in which these archetypal positions have informed each other
and chaotic states of consciousness explored and documented in the pursuit of the
The detailed teachings given by Tilopa to Naropa became known as the Six Yogas
of Naropa. They were then passed on to the householder Marpa and then to Tibet’s
74
most well-known yogi and renunciant, Milarepa, and were later introduced into the
Elements of these particular teachings have been adapted and applied in my client
originated with the tenth century Tibetan yogini Machig Labdrom and which has been
adapted for psychotherapy by Tsultrim Allione (2008). All of these will be described
simultaneously within the body, the union of form and emptiness, visualisations,
study.
Before defining my research methodology, I will review briefly the personal and
degree with the manner in which euphoric meditative experiences reduce stress
observed how Vajrayana practices unite Social Learning theories’ emphasis upon
75
the power of role modelling and the value of working with an idealised other and the
(Assagioli 1965) which address the importance of finding authentic life meanings.
also integrates Freud’s belief in the pleasure principle (1923) and the later insights of
Jung and Adler. Recent research affirming the power of imagery to override habitual
patterns of experiencing and the impact of visual beauty upon emotional affect has
1997).
Professional factors
Within the Humanistic therapeutic tradition, there have been recent movements to
disregard the concept of a unitary self and replace it with a more fluid definition of
configurations of the self which has associations with individual flux and variance.
The pivotal research of Rogers (1948) into the contribution a good self-concept
makes to adaptive coping mechanisms and person centred counselling’s focus upon
the creation of conditions in which clients can access their ‘limitless’ potential, also
has an affinity with Vajrayana’s emphasis upon the innately perfected qualities of
human nature and the provision of tools to replace the pride of ordinariness with a
divine pride in human potential. Carl Rogers, ( Kirschenbaum and Henderson 1986)
spiritual and transcendent aspects. Historically, it was Abraham Maslow (1964), the
actualising personalities. This reversed the Western trend of defining normality from
and that this would be based wholly within the spiritual aspects of human
76
experiencing. Bowlby’s attachment theory (1951) which identified a child’s need for
intense parental love and the presence of a caring adult whose love is beyond the
that our drive for a secure attachment can to some extent be met in the intense
union formed with the deity. An ability to find secure attachment with an accessible-
at- will deity which automatically triggers pleasurable sensations can work to heal
complex and deep rooted needs relating to abandonment and the need for an
idealised other. The secure base provided by this practice can then provide the ego
therapy for similar reasons that people went to Indian yogis, seeking solutions for
issues they cannot personally resolve and which may be beyond the supportive
The Western Social Sciences have identified the “I “as being largely a formation of
relationship with the self, our own mentally derived self-consciousness, which
contains within it the internalisation of our social world, has been the key meeting
point of therapy. Freud’s emphasis on the ego (1923) as a central area to address in
therapy has arguably obscured attention to other areas of the self and to the power
practice, I see that people come into therapy as a consequence of issues relating to
their experience of themselves, and that this often involves difficult to define somatic
shifts and sensations. Clients may not feel comfortable under their own skin, they
may feel trapped in emotional experiences they can neither understand nor
disregard. Vajrayana practices deal directly with somatic experiencing and are well
77
suited to addressing unconscious aspects of the psyche. Ray (2001) described the
thought. As a psychotherapist, I find these states to be both largely absent and much
desired in clients seeking therapeutic support. Clients often have a poor self-
concept and low self-esteem and experience degrees of pain and suffering which
cannot be directly explained by life events and which lead to frequent and
reoccurring rumination. Many clients are made unhappy by their inability to control
their thoughts or over identify with disturbed thoughts and cannot find an embodied
axis with which to anchor a positive sense of self identity and pleasurable embodied
experiencing. For these clients, Vajrayana practices have the potential to teach
clients into therapy. Common issues are distrust in relationships, lack of boundary
relationships are also common presenting problems, as are Existential issues; fear of
death and of solitude and an inability to recover a trust in life following loss. Clients
may have socially embedded unrealistic expectations which make them unhappy
with themselves, women who think they must be thin, men who think they must earn
high incomes and many have the secondary problem of believing sadness to be
success and independence inevitably lead to fears surrounding ageing, sadness and
dependence on others. Many clients dislike, distrust or are exhausted to the point of
boredom by their limited sense of who they are and the range of experiences and
feelings to which they have access. Often clients express a desire to let go of the
emotional experiences they have accumulated throughout their life course, their
tradition, the key tenets of which I will briefly summarise. Person centred therapy
nature of change within the psychological therapies. The most central of these
assumptions was that it is the therapist who had the answers to the client’s issues.
According to Rogers, solutions to the client's issues can only be found from the
client's own exploration. The role of the therapist should rather be to create the
conditions in which the client’s own innate inner drive to self-actualise (their
actualising tendency) could begin to emerge. This then provides the client with an
authentic inner referent with which to find a path forward. The core conditions which
to person centred counselling is the idea that people are born with two potentially
conflicting needs, a need for positive regard (to feel positively esteemed by others)
and a need to self-actualise (to follow an innate instinct to fulfil their potential).
clients was insufficiently sensitive to the potential fragility of the emerging actualising
tendency, the need for positive regard may lead clients to acquiesce to
own innate sense of what was best for them. The potential risk I encountered by
orientated psychotherapy was that the therapy could degenerate into a subtle form of
religious indoctrination, overruling the client’s developing trust in their own felt sense
79
experiencing and activating habitual positions of over compliance which would have
I have attempted to redress this risk in four ways, firstly by discussing with my
clinical supervisor which clients may be best suited for the application of adapted
Vajrayana practices within therapy (the details of this process are explored later in
designed by Gendlin in his work with Rogers to give voice to the emerging
actualising tendency and to place the client fully in charge of the therapeutic process.
This enables clients to check in with their own embodied sensing exactly how they
own felt sense, which would be immediately disregarded if the client either verbally
or implicitly through their body language conveyed this was not something in they
wanted to do. Recent writers on person centred therapy (Mearns and Cooper 2005)
have emphasized the need for therapists to be actively rather than passively
present in the therapeutic relationship, being fully who they are and owning and
offering their own experiences. From this perspective, if I had a sense that a
this and ask clients to take time to enquire using Focusing techniques if this is
something that appeals to them. By working to this particular structure and by being
practices with my own deeply felt person centred beliefs. These are that it is the
80
client, and the client alone, who has the answers and that it is the role of the
the indestructible drop at the centre of the neural complex at the heart. Human
tendencies. Ray (2001) identifies the manner in which it is common for different
regions of the body to be identified with specific emotional states: thinking is done
with the head, strong love and attachment issues with the heart, speaking and
repressing speech with the throat. These associations are well evidenced in
literature and in the history of Western medicine and the study of the humours.
accessible domains of selfless awareness, compassion and wisdom. For clients who
feel trapped and confused by their own embodiment, the application of this model
can therefore facilitate a powerful sense of personal agency and relief. The detailed
body map provided by Vajrayana, particularly when linked to the embodied enquiry
how, in the Vajrayana perspective on the body, mind and wind energies
automatically go to the part of the body which the mind contemplates. Concentration
on a particular place is seen to slowly clarify and unblock channels and chakras,
or illusory body. This illusory body contains chakras (energy centres), nadis (energy
pathways), pranas (the wind energy of the mind) and bindus (seeds or drops
containing the essence of mind), which are seen to relate directly to states of
81
and are linked to the connecting nadis in a manner which loosely correlates to the
central nervous system (Loizzo 2010). The nadis are widely distributed throughout
the body. These internal systems are not perceived to be abstract but are rather
and the journey to enlightenment and are directly addressed through the
visualisations and breathing practices of inner yoga and other Vajrayana practices.
The explicit mechanics for enlightenment and relief from suffering are therefore
clearly identified as within the body, already present, and requiring only specific
Without these conditions being in place, the physical techniques in themselves are
unlikely to lead to any significantly beneficial results. An example of the crucial role
these factors play in the journey out of suffering can be seen in the hagiographies of
Tibet’s most famous yogi, Milerapa, who is widely believed to have been able to
commitment which impacted his subtle energetic body and enabled him to generate
tubes. Ray (2001) describes the manner in which, through experiences in many
lifetimes, these raw energy pathways have become blocked or literally tied up in
knots. These knots and blockages have the effect of binding us into states of
82
ignorance, distorting perceptions and experiences and rendering our innate wisdom
inaccessible. The knots result from traumatic experiences accumulated over many
lifetimes and Vajrayana practices are designed to clear them. I will now review the
The philosophical and spiritual paths and practices – or 'fruits' – upon which
the adapted practices used in therapy were based
All Vajrayana techniques are composed of a 'path' element and a 'fruit' element (Ray
2001). The path aspect relates to the spiritual learning or philosophical position
which underpins the practice and the fruit refers to the outcome and the actual
embodied experience of the practice. Key Vajrayana practices influential to this study
are Deity Yoga, Tummo and Mahamudra practice – which are known as the six
(Allione 2008; Shaw 1994), and have designed particular visualisations which
integrate Tummo, Tonglen and Mahamudra. The six yogas of Naropa, which are
believed to have been transmitted from Naropa to Marpa in the eighth century, have
been central to my research and are considered to be among the most powerful
techniques within Tibetan Buddhism. All these practices involve either visualisation,
Deity Yoga
One of the most fundamental and well known of these practices is Deity Yoga. Deity
Yoga commonly involves two stages, the first in which a specific deity is visualised
and a second stage in which the practitioner visualises themselves merging with
that deity and emanating their qualities before imagining themselves dissolving into
the deity is used to inspire and engage with, as well as an aspect which involves
identifying with our own already perfected nature. Awareness of emptiness is also a
feature of Deity Yoga as all Deity Yoga visualisations end with visualising the deity,
and the self, dissolving into emptiness. Emptiness was described by Nagarjuna to be
the ultimate therapeutic tool as, when understood, it has the capacity to free people
from all the suffering caused by attachment, egocentricity and reification (Loizzo
2010).
Deity Yoga iconography and practices symbolise the union of form and emptiness.
They illustrate, in their second stage that the most beautiful aesthetic forms and the
highest philosophical and spiritual states exist not only within us but, in the process
of their dissolution, become equally present and active in the space which surrounds
us.
To Loizzo, practices such as these have the physiological and psychological function
Yeshe, a Western based Tibetan Lama, the purpose of Deity Yoga is to enable
appetite for more (1987). According to Yeshe, people have a choice as to whether
make no emanation at all is not considered to lie within the range of human options.
As with all Vajrayana practices, Deity Yoga practices can also be used in daily
activities and therefore are useful at moments in which clients might feel insecure or
focused attention and confidence. All activities, even the most mundane and solitary,
intention to be of benefit and to live as if we are already enlightened that has the
power to transform actions from the level of habitude to that of pristine awareness.
This is the essential purpose of Deity Yoga practices, which are designed to infiltrate
all aspects of lived experience. Lama Yeshe advocates perceiving food as if it has
been blessed and energetically charged by the Buddha, and seeing the Buddha
nature and deity emanation within all beings. Every breath can also be used to
express a profound intention to draw suffering out of the world on the in-breath, and
to send healing and peace on the out-breath. Sexual union is seen as a particularly
powerful means of spiritual practice. It can be used to symbolise the union of both
form and emptiness and of wisdom and method in its potential expression of loving
kindness, non-dualism and euphoric liberation. Visualising oneself and one’s partner
relationship to the benefit of all beings merges eros with altruism in a manner which
is unfamiliar to Western culture. This can help clients who experience a separation
between the spiritual and sexual aspects of themselves to integrate these important
self-aspects. It also enables clients who do not know where to take their thoughts
Deity Yoga involves using deities in our perception of self, other and world on a daily
basis. In Vajrayana Buddhism, seeing through their [the deities'] eyes and feeling
Vajasattva and Tara are two of a vast number of deities which can be utilised to
enable practitioners to access particular perfected aspects of their own nature. The
Dalai Lama recommends that specific deities be tried and tested to ascertain which
are best suited to practitioner’s needs at particular points in time (Komito 1983).
Tummo
A further practice adapted from the six yogas of Naropa which I have included in this
research study is inner fire – or Tummo – practice. The aim of Tummo, as with all of
emptiness. Inner fire practice also has the distinction of having been acknowledged
by Milerapa to be the most powerful of all the Naropa yogas and the one best suited
to rapid spiritual acceleration (Yeshe 1998). Ray (2001) describes how all the
visualisations which relate to inner fire address the basic heat which is our life force
and our innermost nature. Tummo enables us to meet this fundamental energy,
usually inaccessible and repressed because of its raw potency, and transform it into
the fire of our inherent wisdom which is capable of burning obscurations, ignorance
and negative karma. As a consequence of Tummo, the subtle body becomes cleared
and clarified. According to Kalu Rinpoche, inner fire practice is like a main door
leading into a complex of hundreds of treasure houses (Ray 2001). He identifies two
specific beneficial effects of tummo in addition to its cleansing capacity. These are
the provision of beneficial heat to the body, and a sensation of happiness which
an easily accessible, experiential way of engaging with our primary life force without
having to analyse or dilute it into such concepts as the libido or id as could be seen
breathing, which involves filling the lower half of the body with breath and releasing it
slowly (Yeshe 1998). This is believed to stir up energy and to bring to light previously
repressed thoughts and emotions. According to Ray (2001) the way we breathe, how
we let the air in, where we bring it into the body, and how we hold it all serve to
maintain the restricted awareness required for the belief in a separate self. Breathing
energy, light and clarity. It therefore directly affects the amount of canvas we have at
our disposal to create our reality. In Western psychology, with its traditional
emphasis upon pathology, breathing practices are used to reduce anxiety and panic
attacks.
The 'Fire of Purification' visualisation described later in this section has been strongly
influenced by Tummo.
Mahamudra
A Tibetan Buddhist practice which also lends itself to therapeutic adaptation is
which the true nature of reality can be experienced as a vast expanse, alive with
potency and potential and in which there is a different sense of time. Trungpa
Ray (2001) has described how, within an experience of emptiness, the world does
not disappear but begins to appear in a new way, empty of anything fixed and solid.
perception and the integration of different levels of reality, can be brought into guided
perceptions of day to day life. The 'Planet of Healing' visualisation described later in
Tsultrum Allione’s (2008) work on adapting the yogini Machig’s practices, in which
demonic or sabotaging elements of the self are brought into relationship with
enlightened deities and asked what they need to become allies of the self, have also
compassionate integration and enquiry into all areas of the self. The practice
'Feeding your Demons' developed by Tsultum Allione has been used in this study.
Western India, which are known as the Buddha of Infinite Life, have also been
influential in my therapeutic work. The visualisation which I have taken from her
practice involves imagining the deities at different points within the body, then
dissolving them into radiant energy and spreading the warmth and light throughout
the body, ostensibly to create mental and emotional purification (Shaw 1994). I have
used this particularly with clients who are experiencing pain or who, during the
stuck.
practices and the suite of practices adapted from the 'paths' and 'fruits' of the
When clients come for their first psychotherapy session, I explain to them my
towards the body, breathing techniques and guided visualisation. I ask them how
they might feel about working in this way. I also give them a leaflet to take home with
them which conveys this information. If they seem uncomfortable with this during
their first session, I offer to work in a more traditionally Western, humanistic model. If
them briefly the increasing neuroscientific evidence for the positive effects of these
practices.
During this initial meeting, I also assess whether a client may benefit from
heard is such that they might experience any intervention as an invasive interruption
of their own processing. An indication that this is the case may occur when I suggest
a breathing technique, some clients pull me back immediately into our spoken,
relational dynamic, wanting to explain something more fully. At this point they need
the skills of generic therapy. This can be the case with clients whose early
childhoods were intensely lacking in parental attention and validation. Clients who
In relation to the manner in which I selected my research sample from group of the
clients who had worked with Vajrayana practices, I felt that a two weeks minimum
89
application was required for inclusion. A minimum two months duration between
clients’ final psychotherapy session and their first interview was made mandatory to
reduce the risks that clients would be overly influenced by our previous
psychotherapeutic relationship.
Therapeutic Setting
My private practice is situated in the conservatory in my own home and I currently
see approximately twelve clients each week. Some clients are referred by GPs, a
telephone directory and the majority hear about my work from previous clients. The
Psychotherapy (CPP), is traditionally a long term therapy, however I also see clients
for a few sessions if that is all they seem to need. CPP comes under the HIB section
to ascertain what works best, and to transmit this information to other practitioners. It
has its origins within psychotherapy in the psychoanalytic research of Freud (1895d)
in which he presented evidence from his own clients to validate his theories using
the case study method of analysis. This was later criticised as an unscientific means
of testing hypotheses (Grunbaum 1986). In the past twenty years, practice based
research has become more common and has taken a variety of forms.
practice by use of questionnaires and surveys both during and after therapy.
therapeutic outcome (Wampold 2015). The UKCP report “NICE Under Scrutiny”
(Guy et al. 2011) refers to the increase in Practice Research Networks, which
These networks can combine clinical relevance, scientific rigour and collaboration
circumstances is explored in the final section in this chapter, which details the
for the intertwining of embodied enquiry and descriptive phenomenology. I will now
identify and explore some aspects of practice based research which are relevant to
this study.
both the personal journeying involved within the “working towards” and the
spiritually aligned with the techniques being imparted to my clients during our
therapy sessions and which I am researching. This form of spiritual allegiance has
resources from this spiritual tradition to reduce attachment to specific outcomes. The
practice of emptiness has been developed to enable the loss of a desired outcome
'betterness'. There are some post-modern aspects to my research study, in that the
recurrent themes are aspects of psychoanalytic interviewing which have been both
interviewing.
“shocked to the core” by her own research into her own psychotherapeutic practice:-
“Seeing the transcripts gave me a totally new insight into how the clients’
narratives take shape; I had naively thought they somehow developed in
isolation from me. My research has prompted me to think long and hard on
how I interact with my clients.” (2014, p.204).
Unexpected results occurring in this manner provide opportunities for qualities and
highlights the potential for clients as much as therapists to find it difficult to adjust to
before beginning the research the differences in the horizons of intentionality of the
therapeutic and the researcher role, enabling them to become visible and specific. I
felt very aware of the ethical importance throughout of being congruent and
93
psychotherapists also emphasise the need for careful management of any form of
dual relationships with past clients. Evans and Finlay (2009) have described
researcher with participants who were previously her own clients. Issues regarding
This involves the analysis of participant silence, which was found to be a central
medium for the negative politeness which can underpin client deference towards
ethical issues are explored more fully in later chapters, in my Methods and Analysis
of Results sections.
I will now introduce philosophical ideas from Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and
analysis of findings.
One of the aims of this study was to investigate the potential effects of Vajrayana-
sessions, and will involve retrospective interviewing of previous clients who are no
the clients’ experience in their own words, using an approach to data gathering
which would not bias my data with questions which could limit participants’ ability to
explore their own experience or guide them into territories of my own devising. I
phenomenological method.
philosophical intention. I have chosen this methodology for three reasons. Firstly
researcher at the same time as it explores the client’s lived experience and the
nature of a phenomenon. This seems well suited for a study which needs to be
I will briefly describe these elements in more detail, beginning with the philosophical
positions. Its ideas originate with the philosophy of Edmund Husserl and were further
areas of similarity to Tibetan Buddhist thought. I will then review more contemporary
dualism between self and world in which meanings became prescribed from an
This life-world contains some specific invariant structures: embodiment and a sense
of self, use of language, cultural history, spatiality and temporality. It emphasises the
quality of experiential occurrences which are lived before they are consciously
known. Husserl felt that the bracketing of habitual perception was essential in order
to see things as they truly are. In other words, in order to experience phenomena
freshly, we have to return to our primary experiencing in the life-world, and allow
language to emerge from this naturally unspoken part of our selves as if we were
discovering something for the first time. Husserl believed that it is through concrete
descriptions of specific lived happenings that implicit meanings and nuances from
the lived world can be captured. This then reduces the risk of abstract human
theorising and more superficial assumptions about the nature of an experience. Any
96
exploring what can be known to us, challenging the assumptions of the natural
sciences and their disregard for the innate human givens of intuition and spirituality .
identification and bracketing when exploring phenomena. Husserl also identified the
beginnings or endings to our enquiries, we are always, already engaged in the life-
world, and we can neither engage nor disengage from this context.
oneself from previously held worldly and empirical assumptions. Being in the
involves the movement of attention to the act of perception as opposed to its object.
In the process of doing this, the interaction of three elements becomes apparent: the
noeses (the structuring experience within the act of perception), the noema (the
structure given in the act), and the hyle (the containing and filling experience).
perception beyond the natural attitude. This fundamental switch in attitude he called
an epoché, the Greek word for abstaining from judgement. This focus upon the
97
transcendental ego, which we are unaware of when in the natural attitude, but notice
when we realise how our own consciousness structures perception. The task of the
object of study but instead to consciously interact with it from identified and inevitable
horizons of subjectivity.
2) Applying the reduction. This entails the bracketing of the objects in the world and
the eide, so they are no longer perceived as realities but instead as phenomena. The
reduction is so called because it reduces the manner in which objects in the world
are seen through the natural attitude. This habitual approach is bracketed and the
interpretation and an attuned focusing upon the details of human processing rather
defined the life-world as Dasein – as the being that humans are and have –
disregarding entirely any sense that humans can have an existence separate from
manifest presences from doing and being in the world. Moods arise out of a
relationship between the world of Dasein, that is, the horizon of significance in which
Dasein finds itself. In this way affect is a particular form of relationship to lived
Heidegger identified the body, time, feeling, mood and spatiality – a sense of place
experience are not accessible for quantitative measurement, but are nonetheless
experientially felt and lived. Heinmaa (2011) has challenged the view that Husserl
and Heidegger have the degree of difference in their philosophical views as has
been commonly understood. She finds strong similarities between them in their
being captured by phenomenological examinations. They also share the view that
science considerations” (Heinmaa 2011, p. 36). She asserts that, for Husserl, the
world is
“A plurality in which all types of entities have their own regions and are,
irreducible to one another. Consciousness exercises a formative path and
presence is discovered by a reflective move in which attention is moved away
from entities and to their constituent parts” (p.32).
“Presence does not have the character of a stable or solid ground but that of
a momentary revelation. Presence at hand is never discovered in purity but
always bears trace of the practical setting from which it emerges.” (p.32).
The exploration of qualities of presence has associations with the subtle energy
systems of Vajrayana Buddhism and with Gendlin’s Focusing. The contributions of
both are therefore relevant to my study.
According to Heidegger, Dasein, our being-in-the-world, inevitably experiences
‘throwness’ into the pre-existing world of objects, language, culture and history which
limits authentic perception (Finlay 2011). As Dasein is irrevocably social, without
moments of insight to alert us to more existentially profound elements of experience
we fall in with the majority, defined by Heidegger as 'the they' or Das Man. To
Heidegger, art has the potential to reveal the truths of existence. He identified
language as a house of Being (Heidegger 1971, p. 190):
“Language itself is language. The understanding that is schooled in logic,
thinking of things in terms of calculation and hence usually overbearing, calls
this preposition an empty tautology. Merely to say the identical thing twice –
language is language – how does that get us anywhere? But we do not want to
get anywhere. We would like only, for once, to get just where we are already.”
This emphasis on language and Being has links to the Romantic tradition, and
embedded in the world, prior understanding and engagement in the subject under
further unfold the contributions of these ideas in relation to Vajrayana practices later
in this chapter.
Giorgi (2007) believes the emphasis on innate interpretation and lack of reduction
research.
component of our relationship with the world and to lived relations within it. The
meaning of ‘flesh’ to Merleau-Ponty has been widely debated and due to the
relevance this concept has to my own research study I will briefly review this debate.
Hass (2007), cited in Bannon (2011), identified Merleau-Ponty as using the word
(pp. 201-202). Bannon (2011) explores whether flesh refers to the dynamism of our
perceptual field or to our intersubjectivity – relating to all beings and therefore to the
in human personal engagement with the world (lived perceptual experience) but in a
“Flesh is the word for the being of beings; each being as a dimensional
this, an essence, the level of nature; is what it is due to its flesh
relations with other beings. As these various fleshes interact, they form
a distinct horizon around each of the bodies engaging in flesh relations,
a horizon of space and time that is the flesh of the world [...] the flesh of
the world.. is the gestalt formed by contact between field beings, it is the
overlapping of fields that remains pregnant with myriad
possibilities.”(p.350).
This vivid description conveys the manner in which Merleau-Ponty brings qualities of
which enable the 'flesh' to speak. In different ways, these central existential thinkers
similarities as follows:
1) The philosophical basis and practices of Vajrayana Buddhism have their roots in
of the embodied heart in realisation. The potential impact of these practices are
therefore better illuminated by research enquiries which are experience near and
experience rather than from dualistic models of Western conditioning which are
traditions in which habitual practices and perceptions had obscured the potential
3) Vajrayana practices are body-based. Practitioners believe that deep enquiry into
4) The two thousand year history of Vajrayana Buddhism is one in which systematic
informed one another in pursuit of the ultimate goals of compassion and emptiness.
The experiential mystical element of this tradition was conveyed orally and previous
experiencing. This synthesis of the known and the new has an accord with Merleau-
perception, in which what is observed is not completely foreign to the perceiver but
nonetheless contains more than can be known from any one standpoint, hence the
element of transcendence.
5) In the phenomenological tradition, language has a power to expand and define us,
as Heidegger notes:-
“Mortal speech is a calling that names, a bidding which, out of the simple one
fold of difference, bids things and world to come.” (1971, p. 208).
This links to the use of mantra in Vajrayana Buddhist practices in which states of
science is, comparatively, still in its infancy (Giorgi 2009) the study of consciousness
and of phenomena has been established within the Indo-Tibetan tradition for
thousands of years. There are similarities between Husserl’s search for invariant
essences and the Abhidharma’s exploration into the fundamental roots of the
103
behaviours and actions which determine morality and the quality of individual
consciousness. A difference between the two lies in the higher degree of reflexivity
perspectives from which the phenomenon is being viewed and the process of
reduction.
mixed discourse and establish best fit methods for their particular area of study, are
aware, from the contribution of Merleau-Ponty, that body, language and perception
participants, travel back to previously experienced relational fields, and that I will
I will now review more contemporary writers, beginning with Giorgi, who took
Giorgi studied phenomenology in North America and Europe but could not find a
method in which it could become easily utilised for psychological research (Giorgi
2012). He developed one himself, in the anticipation that at some point traditional,
method adheres strongly to the principles of scientific rigour, but also extends
beyond the logical empirical tradition. Giorgi was strongly influenced by Dilthey, who
104
defined psychology as a human science, the topic of which should be the world of
implicit meaning of experience and lived experience (Dahlberg 2008). Dilthey, in his
reason and the empirical tradition of the Enlightenment when applied to psychology.
studying psychology:-
“My graduate education rarely raised the question of how to study the whole
person. Human functions were separated from one another and were studied
in isolated manners…I began to see possibilities for developing a frame of
reference for studying human experiential and behavioural phenomena that
would be both rigorous and non-reductionist. The spirit of science would be
respected but it would be implemented with methods and concepts different
from the natural sciences because the subject matter – human persons and
relationships – had characteristics different from the object of the natural
sciences – things and processes.”
ignores the rich sources of data which can be gleaned from investigating the context
of the phenomenon being studied and the life-world of the researcher and
participant (Giorgi 2009). Giorgi believed that all objects should be viewed from the
psychology as not so much its methods, but the philosophy behind them. Giorgi
argued that psychology as a science has failed to address the being-ness of human
beings. This includes our human relationship with time and space, the world in which
“When you are caring for a patient who is in distress, is your caringness
capable of being broken down into equal additive units? If not, and I don’t see
how it can be, then measuring your caringness is an illegitimate procedure.”
(Giorgi, 2005 p 82).
In this situation, Giorgi argues that categories should emerge from the experience of
categories which cannot capture the true nature of the experience. Phenomenology,
according to Giorgi, unlike empiricism, has the advantage of being able to explore
that while humans are part of the natural world, consciousness significantly differs
from nature and requires a different approach. Giorgi cites Michell (1997) who
described psychology’s failure to admit that it had never tested its own assumption –
thought disorder.
design, the descriptions to be analysed are gathered from those who are in the
sought instead of the philosophical. The imaginative variations applied are then
related to the empirical variations which have been given in the descriptive data and
the eidetic structure identified is perceived to be typical rather than universal. This
phenomenologists have argued for the value of more readable and evocative
language in research, a language which replicates our humanness rather than that of
of aesthetics.
This more post-modern perspective is growing within the social sciences and health
care studies in general (Finlay, 2011; Holloway and Todres, 2010). Field workers
Kleinman and Copp (1993) describe the restrictions placed both upon their data
responding has psychological and analytic implications, which also impacts upon the
quality and interest value of the final report. Dulling originally vibrant and
idiosyncratic experience for the placation of the wider scientific community is the
imaginative variation (testing the described phenomena for an intuitive fit) and eidetic
reduction (identifying essential structures within ideas and experiences.) This can
facilitate what Todres (2007) has defined as a meeting of texture and structure,
approach. Within this framework, human beings become more visible and dynamic;
107
their interactions with time, space and place convey the essential fluidity and flux of
Galvin and Todres (2012) also explore the potential of language to awaken deeper
this context, presence is defined as “an intangible spirit or mysterious influence felt to
forms capable of generating more embodied forms of knowing. Within health care
settings, presences can manifest as subtle but powerful openings to the experience
of the other; empathic resonances from the experience and imagination of clients
and patients to carers and health care professionals. Galvin and Todres argue these
can carry forward embodied experiencing which had previously been concealed is
originating from present time embodied experiencing, can create a sense of open
space, inviting new understandings. Shotter (2003) has also explored the potential
beyond the narrow confines of academic debate. It impacts upon social norms, and
what is, for some people, a daily battle to meet externally derived criteria indicative of
mental health. Failing to meet such criteria significantly impacts upon self-perception
and life chances. Van den Berg (1972) in his description of existential
psychopathology explores the vast gulf which can exist between an individual’s
experience of mental illness and the lens through which they are viewed by the
helping profession. Giorgi (2005) has described in detail how the empirical tradition
of research and diagnosis is ill suited to pathology and personal suffering and writes
of the need to listen to the client’s idiosyncratic experience rather than viewing
believes that the existential facts of a person’s lived experiencing should be given
prominence over the tangible, external facts which can be gathered about them.
of life within health and social care settings. It challenges the biomedical perspective
that well-being is simply an absence of illness and highlights the multiplicity of ways
applicable to everyday life can be derived from ontological levels of analyses, Galvin
at-homeness) to be utilised in health care. This model has many similarities to the
qualities of presence accessible within Vajrayana Buddhist practices, Deity Yoga, for
109
example, combines the familiar at-homeness of the archetypal parent with the
enquiry seeks a language which is full of client participation, champions the human
individual as the starting point in the human sciences and endorses our inherent
freedom by expressing essences and themes not as final and conclusive, but rather
enquiry will support the underlying intention of my research aim, which is to hear and
convey the individual human voice and to empower individuals through awareness of
(2005) sought to obtain knowledge about human beings in situations which was
been well documented, as has the influence of the researcher’s area of specialism
psychology acknowledges these areas of subjectivity but fails to directly engage with
science of ideas which can be used to extract invariant phenomena from the free
nature of mental life and called the essences at their root ‘morphological essences’,
inexact in principle but essences nonetheless. Husserl believed that what was
the perception of an object and the positing of meaning upon that object. Finlay
The scale of this task has not been underestimated within phenomenology, Merleau-
Ponty went on to acknowledge that “the important lesson which reduction teaches us
The mind returns to its habitual modes of viewing and imposing meanings which
creates checks and balances that can protect the authentic meanings of the
111
“What matters is that we realise the importance of taking the first step
on the path towards objectivity, that we develop an awareness of
conscious processes that contribute to our understanding of that
phenomena.” (2008, p.138).
research. Dahlberg (2008) prefers the term 'bridling' rather than bracketing,
reduction as an activity rather than a method, and one in which the event of
understanding is itself restrained. This can inhibit any tendency towards facile
bridled.
bracketed to allow the life-world of the research participant to emerge. These are
inner realm), the truth or falsity of claims being made by the participant, and personal
views and experiences of the researcher. This last point has been subjected to
academic scrutiny and debate. Finlay (2008) advocates a constant enquiry into the
extent to which our perspectives could close down further understandings, and
endorses a dialectical dance between the habitual and fresh modes of being.
experienced the phenomena in which the researcher is interested. The data is then
analysed with a psychological attitude. This involves first positing the psychological
differentiation between the laying out of meaning and the interpretation of meaning to
clarify this issue. She describes the focus on the laying out of meaning to be
which meanings are brought in from outside the phenomena. The description of
meaning can be therefore seen to exist in this primary phase of the laying out of
meaning.
essences and argues for a more idiographic approach, believing that we should be
sceptical that general essences and psychological universals may be found at all.
Held within a paradigm which acknowledges these variations and the amorphous
believe Giorgi’s method has the potential to uniquely aid us in our understanding of
phenomenology has faced criticism from both sides. It nonetheless presents rare
opportunities for analyses of difference and sameness, creativity and structure. It has
than arguing for specific definitions of reality or behaviours also endorses its
qualitative legitimacy.
Giorgi (2009) also advocates the need for a greater depth of understanding in the
acquaintances. This is the case in my study where my clients and I have a pre-
suited for a study in which texture and substance, distance and closeness, need to
be equally represented.
bodies and language rather than minds (1964). His understanding of the potency of
psychology has explored. Historically, the body’s response to experience, and its
role in the interpretation of that experience, has been excluded from research,
resulting in a one dimensional framing of human stories. Burkitt (1999) has criticised
the implicit Cartesian dualism which has informed the majority of psychological work.
that they have constituted a form of disembodiment. Recently bodies have become a
upon embodied responding and resonance in order to capture the fullness of the
client’s experience within their life-worlds. Finlay describes ways in which a sudden
114
can lead her to embodied memory and empathy. She identifies three different ways
in which the body can be perceived and attuned during the research process: body
as object, body as subject and the intersubjective body, and she describes how she
uses her visceral bodily reactions when reading transcripts as an indication to slow
down and attend to implicit meanings which she might otherwise have missed. Giorgi
(2009) has also acknowledged that the researcher should feel a certain shift in
bodily communication which is essentially non-dualistic, and all place emphasis upon
how the body responds to language. The meeting of bodies and words within the
of my wanting to hear a particular response from them. Todres (2007) describes how
Gendlin has the ability the enable therapists to connect with the embodied truths of
human experience as they are identified by the client. This is equally possible in the
or guide has relevance to the researcher’s dialectic with their data, their participant
(2008) has described how the body, when correctly attended to can become a moral
The phenomena of interest in this study is the clients’ experience of 'lightness' and
'aliveness'; the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ of this experience and of adapted Vajrayana
describe this experience of 'lightness' and 'aliveness' and to clarify how it lives in the
therapeutic encounter. I am aware that in my seeking of the human context for the
concrete and specific series of happenings in which the phenomena lives. This
should give rise to a matrix of implicit meanings and relationships which can deepen
approach. This has its philosophical foundation in the work of Merleau-Ponty. In The
“It is the body and it alone, because it is a two dimensional being, that can
bring us to the things themselves” (1964, p. 4).
The manner in which words and clarity emerge from silence and the implicit
Gendlin’s six steps of Focusing at each stage of Giorgi’s model, embedding Giorgi’s
116
method explicitly within the 'flesh' of embodied relating and visceral feeling. Gendlin’s
structure, capturing meanings as they emerge from the inner “felt sense” of bodily
summarising each of the two models before describing their integration at each
The six steps of Focusing are subtle embodied processes involving the direction of
authentic implicit meanings and processes. Gendlin (1996) emphasises that these
steps serve to provide a structure for what is essentially a very open and
window into Focusing”, as Focusing “has no rigid, fixed agenda for the inner world”,
and many Focusing sessions evolve very differently (1996, p.1). However, Gendlin
acknowledges that the six steps do provide a structure with which every Focusing
also describes the six steps as movements flowing into each other rather than as
manualised separated out steps. These six steps are listed in the Methods section
resulting from having spent some time “sensing and touching an unclear holistic
by Todres (2007) in his investigation of the potential which the research participant
has as both informer and participant in the process of making phenomena known.
Krycka (2006) has also used a form of Focusing called 'Thinking at the Edge' to bring
“Typically, we feel something deep in us, something stirring there deep down
that is rumbling to get out of us. The we (prematurely) employ some existing
patterns (concepts, theories, symbols) […] a powerful kind of logical action
embedded in linear ordering.” (2006, p.4).
phenomena. This results from participants being given the opportunity to convey the
times at which words fail and to enquire into the experiential space of their absence.
The value of using Focusing in health care research is also explored by Galvin and
Todres (2006) in their study of caring for a partner with Alzheimers. They describe
“Stand before the general structures as embodied beings and [...] imagine
in a bodily grounded way what the general structures evoke and signify.”(p.
51).
118
This then lends itself to a quality of experiential knowing which can be conveyed to
as it is lived through the body. Eatough argues that psychology could benefit from
thinking in terms of the lived, experiential body and quotes Moran (2000, p. 425):-
I will be applying Focusing as a researcher in three distinct ways, each of which will
analysis.
described the manner in which clients seeking therapy often have an intersubjective
experience which differs from the normative; from what is usually taken for granted.
This necessities the need for checking, bracketing assumptions, and clarifying
understandings. Giorgi believes that meeting a client within the intersubjective space
119
requires the therapist to have first been able to identify their own intrapsychic
processing, and then to bracket themselves, so that the personal and private aspects
of the self are removed. Psychoanalytic theorists believe that transference and
both client and therapist. Therapy therefore requires the therapist to identify and
boundary the client’s potential impact upon their own psychohistory, in addition to
therapist and client develop a degree of embodied mutuality resulting from the
exists between the self as it is experienced within and as it hears itself from the
outside, distanced from the inner horizons of its intentionality. This gap can be
representative of:
and meet this gap, enabling clients to find harmony between their inner and outer
experiencing and to trust that the entirety of their experience can be met. Good
120
therapy enables clients to believe that both the essence and the echo of their
emotional reverberations can be heard and held. Klein (1987) describes the holding
environment required for clients to be similar to that of amniotic fluid. Therapists fill
gaps, if not with words then with therapeutic presence. The therapist’s horizons of
intentionality are concerned with supporting and meeting, often at preverbal levels.
in which I am not moving towards the client’s improvement or the development of the
therapeutic relationship but am meeting the phenomena itself, waiting for its
emergence from any presenting gaps. For this, a different quality of space is
the phenomena as opposed to the person. I will therefore use Focusing as a means
to my client’s words and how my sense of open presence is being impacted by either
embodied projection – the pushing into my embodied sensing or that of another what
this, I anticipate that the former might give me a felt sense of closing in, a stickiness
entering into a dialogue with another will inevitably lead to fresh and unpredictable
within the interview process. The transparency afforded by this laying bare of
Arguments that the researcher’s unconscious material should form part of the fore
From Gendlin’s perspective the felt sense, the point from which explications of inner
experience take form, emerges at the border zone between the conscious and
unconscious and therefore receives information from both these territories. This
“The therapist’s aim is not the client’s direct sensing of just any kind of
feeling, especially not a familiar feeling. The aim is rather to invite the
client to attend to what is directly sensed but is more global and
unclear than usual, something at the zone between conscious and
unconscious” (1996, p.53).
While Gendlin is referring to the dialectical relationship between therapist and client,
self-enquiry. This theme is further explored by Weiser Cornell as she describes how
“The quality of my being with this client, which is impacted by and emerges
from how she is with me and with herself, as well as our history from
previous sessions that we both carry. It would take hours to detail all of that
[…] but it is all there in the felt experience of now which we both hold
implicitly. There is a difference between this level of experiencing that is
always present and the awareness of it. The client may not be directly
sensing it yet – or ever – but I certainly need to be.” (2013, p. 202).
Gendlin uses the term content mutation to describe the manner in which turning
attention to the body can enable shifts from superficial to more deeply resonating
intuitions. It is this process which I will track in this research investigation. Neither
122
eidetic reduction nor Focusing seek or claim objective truths, facts about specific
by others. The felt shifts of Focusing bring feelings of physical relief (Gendlin 1996).
These are bodily indications that what was said or recognised is meaningful or
“feels right”, equating therefore with a release of energy rather than the finding of an
ultimate truth: “its emergence – the step of finding – always brings relief, like fresh
myself, this expansiveness of space which can be equated with what Finlay (2008)
has described as a dimension of ‘open presence.’ From this position I can meet data,
outcomes.
to recording the thoughts, ideas and feelings which flow in and out of consciousness
model, the extraction of essences is an intuitive process which occurs most explicitly
at the point of data analysis. After a full reading of the overall description, a mark is
made in the text at each point in which there emerges a sense of a different
psychological meaning:-
123
Giorgi (2009) acknowledges that using imaginative variation to identify meaning units
involves a degree of arbitrariness, as it is reliant upon the capacity of the research
participant to articulate experience and on the degree of psychological sensitivity of
the researcher.
Giorgi identifies the importance of:-
”dwelling with the data, imagining the opposite of what you want to say, until
you find an invariant structure.” (2009, p.135)
The psychological attitude in this context does not refer to an academic position, but
one which focuses more on the role of individual subjectivity in constituting the
specific phenomenological presences. The onus thus lies with the participant’s
Giorgi describes the identification of the invariant structure as also being a process in
which consciousness enacts a signifying act, which then in turn seeks a meaning
that has to be fulfilled. It is then directed toward an object that will completely satisfy
its specific but empty meaning, and is so programmed that unless the object satisfies
'aliveness' in therapy, the process in which I identify and transform meanings derived
from the natural attitude to specific psychological meanings and then to invariant
arise from 'felt senses' in which the steps of Focusing are applied as much as
cognitive and analytic ones. This will be detailed in the data analysis section. The
This chapter has two sections, section a) Practice Method which details the adapted
practices in the manner in which they were described to clients and b) Research
A suite of adapted practices were offered to clients at specific points within their
to feel the heat in the upper body, releasing breath slowly, pushing out stagnant air
from the perineum, pausing before the next intake of breath. In between breaths,
feeling the heat in the lower body is encouraged. This is particularly associated with
b) Moving attention to the natural movement of breath in the body and using focused
attention to track the movement of the breath. This is associated with Mindfulness
practices.
These two forms of breathing were often used in combination, with (b) being used at
the beginning of sessions and frequently combined with the application of Embodied
Focusing throughout sessions. The deeper, slower breathing (a) was used at points
resource, often at times of vulnerability and overwhelm. One client found the deeper,
slower breathing helped her to stay in touch with life when she was feeling very
to visualise three different colours at three specific points in the body: white at the
crown, red at the throat and blue at the heart. When visualising white at the crown,
participants made the sound Om, after this they would take a deep breath and
visualise red at the throat and make the sound Ah. This would be followed by
another deep breath, visualising blue at the heart and the sound Hum. This was
powerlessness, or felt constricted in the throat when expressing them. One client,
working with the trauma of sexual abuse, alternated between mantras and then
expressing streams of abuse towards her perpetrator. This made her laugh and gave
her a sense that she had within her access to powerful, purifying practices that
client, when using Focusing to explore difficult feelings in her relationship with her
father, experienced constriction at her throat and found using the Ah at the throat
and combining it with the blue Hum at the heart very helpful. She visualised her
father sitting opposite and imagined herself directly communicating with him in this
way.
purification and protection) were used with all clients. Clients would be shown
images of the deity and listen to a visualisation involving three distinct stages:-
a) Visualising the deity who understands all of their pain and receiving a sense of
c) Dissolving both bodies into compassionate emptiness for the benefit of all beings.
Adapted Deity Yoga practices were applied particularly at points when clients were
vulnerable in relation to authority figures. One client used the image of Vajasattva to
help her resolve a sense of being abandoned by her father, another used the deity
Tara to help her to find a bridge of understanding between herself and her female
friends. A client with a history of sexual abuse found that Vajasattva visualisations
helped her to gain a sense of inherent purity, dissolving vulnerability and shame.
unhappiness and abandonment were located in her shoulder and then visualised
miniature deities moving into that part of her body. As she went back into Focusing
practice she felt as if the sensations in her shoulder began to spiral through her
entire body to the extent that all disturbed and unhappy feelings had to move. Clients
with self-esteem issues or who were unhappy with their body image first met and
explored where these feelings were located using Focusing techniques, and then
working with the Deity Yoga practice of Tara, they were able to notice their ‘limitless’
beauty.
Adapted Deity Yoga practices were always preceded with an explanation that they
represented the client’s own innate perfection and always finished with the dissolving
of the deity into the brilliant blue of emptiness, symbolising the integration of the
highest of human qualities into the empty space of day to day life.
would take time to visualise gathering all the experiences or self-aspects which they
wanted to be rid of or transform, and then visualise placing them like driftwood upon
128
a pyramid of fire at the base of their body. The shape of the pyramid was described
as expressive of innate perfection and their intention to transform all experiences for
the benefit of others. The brilliant red of the fire intensified as more experiences and
self-aspects were added to it, the heat resulting from this was described to
participants as rising up the body, releasing blue drops from the heart which meet
with the red from the fire creating sensations of bliss in the body.
suggested that they visualise placing their heads onto the 'Fire of Purification' at the
base of the body. This aspect of the pyramid of fire purification was the one most
A client feeling sad and empty in her stomach because of bereavement and guilt
actions as if they were driftwood and placing them in the base of her body. Then,
viewing them with the intention to transform them into energies to benefit to others,
she imagined lighting a fire under them which became a pure red pyramid
symbolising her passion to transform her own and collective pain. Any thoughts or
distracting sensations which occurred during this process, she imagined putting
immediately into the fire. All her experiences, even negative and distracting ones,
therefore gained the beneficial aspect of providing more fuel for the fire. This
their breath imagine that they are pulling all of their suffering out of their body and
releasing it through the top of their own head, where it is met with complete
understanding and compassion and dissolves. The client’s descending breath is then
129
visualised as sending out a blue healing light which makes the person they are
working with aware of their ‘limitless’ own nature and frees them from suffering.
The visualisation involves clients taking three deep slow breaths and being guided
by the therapist to imagine they are drifting out through the top of their heads,
leaving their bodies safe and protected in the therapy room. Travelling through time
and space, they land on a 'Planet of Healing' . They feel soft grass beneath their feet
and looking up notice a midday sun shining in a cloudless blue sky. They sense that
it always will be midday here, that there is no time and therefore no future to concern
themselves with. They also sense that there are no other people on this planet; it is
solely devoted to their own healing. They follow a path through woodland to a
clearing amidst tall pine trees. Everything around them feels simultaneously vibrantly
alive and deeply peaceful. Waves of energy come through the grass into the soles of
the feet and up the body, rising with each breath. Breathing feels more buoyant than
ever before. Next to a stream within the clearing, they find a bed covered in soft and
beautiful fabric. They lie down, feeling the heat of the sun but realise that there is no
need to protect them from it as the hazards encountered on planet Earth have been
completely transformed. Around them, brilliantly coloured birds fly past; their songs
are clearer and purer than on Earth. Even the movement of the sap in the tall fir
trees is palpable. Feeling more deeply at peace than ever before, each breath rises
up from the soles of the feet like a stream of energy. Using Focusing they find
everything which would benefit from healing in the body, and allow each breath to
carry it out through the top of their head where it transforms itself into beautiful
colours which drift down to planet earth, sending healing and reminding people of
130
their true natures. Clients then start breathing the suffering out of the planet,
transforming it into beautiful colours. As this happens, white light forms at the crown
emanating the sound Om, red disc at the throat emanating the sound Ah and blue at
the heart emanating the sound Hum (mantra). Birds gather around them and heat
rises up the body creating a sensation of bliss in the central channel. After breathing
into this image they then visualise themselves gently floating down to planet earth,
landing in the therapy room. As they breathe and feel the softness of the sofa, they
realise that this planet has exactly the same potential for healing as the other one, all
they need to do is stay aware of their breath and notice what is surrounding them
(Mahamudra).
by the therapist to imagine meeting a deity and expressing their deep longing to be
free from a particular habitual pattern of suffering. The deity grants this permission,
and the client takes time to find where their painful pattern is experienced in the
body. They then ask the pain to take a form opposite them which has eyes and with
which they can engage in a dialogue. The emerging entity is then asked three
questions: what it wants, what it needs and how it will be when it gets what it needs.
When answered, the client visualises the deity pouring pure white light nectar into
the top of the head which then flows into every cell. This nectar is charged with the
qualities which the entity has said that it needs. The entity is then invited to eat this
nectar-filled body (which is constantly refilled), until it is full and happy, and is then
asked how frequently it would like to be fed in this way. The client then promises the
returning happily into the body. The deity, client and entity then dissolve in the
painful attachments. Clients are first guided to visualise themselves sitting in a circle
of light and then another circle joining theirs, forming an overlap between the two
circles. They then visualise the person with whom they want to clear unhelpful
patterns of attachment. After first allowing themselves to feel the emotional impact of
the other person, clients then visualise giant scissors cutting where the two circles
join, while visualising the words 'I claim back all the power you took from me' forming
around their heads. At this point, the two circles separate and the one in which the
client is sitting rises up making the client feel light and free, able to travel wherever
they want to go. They then finally visualise another circle coming to join theirs in
which they visualise whatever they most wish for in their lives. One client was able to
differentiate a wide range of responses to the person they visualised and from this
relationship issues. Clients visualise a person they are experiencing difficulties with
(or an aspect of themselves) sitting opposite them in an empty chair. They are then
encouraged to express all their feelings to the empty chair. They then move to sit in
that chair and reply as if they were the other person. One client was able to identify
previously repressed feelings towards his mother and develop the confidence to
empathy, warmth and unconditional regard (Rogers 1954) were used to establish a
when combined with Experiential Focusing. One of the purposes of using Focusing
movement into Vajrayana practices which is not wholly predetermined and controlled
by the therapist. Using a body based experiential model, itself underpinned by the
philosophical position that the body, given space and attention, will find the right
answers, also serves to bypass the Western conditioning which can inhibit sensitivity
accessing the interior of the self, located within the body, can transform stuck and
habitual emotional processing. Gendlin (1996) has acknowledged that when working
results from the depth of processing involved when identifying a specific embodied
memory for a longer period of time and suggests that Focusing has the potential to
were designed to accelerate routes out of suffering and into embodied resourcing.
both the client's and the therapist's introspective processing highly visible and
therefore easily accessible to both parties. Schore (2001) has emphasised the value
trauma. Wampold (2015) has also identified the value of therapist’s acknowledging
I will now describe the six steps of Experiential Focusing and present some
techniques. Focusing was normally used after the therapeutic relationship had been
and emotions.
3) Exploring: what is the quality of the felt sense? What one word, phrase or image
comes out of the felt sense? What word would fit it best?
4) Resonating: going back and forth between the image or word or the felt sense.
Ask, is that right? Do they resonate? If there is a match, have a sense of matching
several times. If the felt sense changes, follow it with your attention. When you get a
perfect match – an 'ah, that’s it' feeling – then let yourself deepen into the feeling.
5) Asking: what is it about the whole problem that makes me so ...? When stuck, ask
questions. What is the worst of this feeling? What’s really so bad about this? What
does it need? What should happen? Don’t answer immediately – wait for the feeling
itself to stir and give you an answer. What would it feel like if it was all okay? Let the
6) Receiving: accepting and welcoming what help comes up, feeling and meeting
changes arising from any part of the self. Deepen into a felt sense which answers.
Ask: is there anything else arising from any part of the self which would like
134
attention? If so, begin the process again. Protect the felt sense from critical voices
whatever experience the client has. The therapist stays within the realm of embodied
experiencing, but keeps their focus on the client, noticing what arises in themselves
as a response to the client’s process and closely tracking the client’s experience.
stillness for the client to develop a confidence in finding their own answers. I found
that as I attuned myself to the client’s experience I would sometimes have an image
from the Vajrayana tradition which, if appropriate, I would share with the client and
ask if she or he would like to experiment with the visualisation. As the client engaged
both with the image and their own embodied processing they would then describe
something slightly different to what I had originally suggested, one more appropriate
to their own specific needs. On many occasions, clients were able to describe
another sequence of visual and embodied experiencing which felt more appropriate
for them. One client, when asked to visualise the deities sitting at certain points in
her body found that they positioned themselves quite differently from where she
anticipated and began to speak to her. She was then able to explore the
Tibetan Vajrayana practices of transformation), the following section on the research method
3. To answer the following three research questions that are enabled by pursuing the above
two aims:
c) What happens when Gendlin's Focusing is combined with adapted Vajrayana practices?
Having described how the adapted practices were described to clients, in this section b)
Research Method I describe how the research was conducted.
Interview Question
I needed to find a life-world evoking question which would illuminate these phenomena and
enable participants to use their Focusing skills to find their own authentic, body-based
responses to my questions. The question I chose is:-
“Can you describe any moments you have had in therapy in which you felt an
increased sense of 'aliveness' or 'lightness' which began to change your
sense of self…you may want to use your own words for this…but any
experience in therapy which energised you and led to a shift in your sense of
who you are. If so, can we begin by describing this experience as fully as
possible?”
The specific use of the words 'aliveness' and 'lightness' to capture the phemomena
of a shift in an embodied feeling state which impacts positively upon the client’s
relationship with themselves came partly from my own experience of positive change
as a consequence of meditative practice. I normally feel lighter and more alive after
136
meditating. They are also the most frequently used words by clients when I ask
them, at the end of therapy, to take time to focus on what they are now feeling. I
Focusing techniques and found that question elicited a rich response which had
relevance to both process and outcome contingencies. Although I could not find any
language, such as ‘openness’ and ‘lighting’. This represents a movement away from
and towards words which let us out; explications resonant of wider experiential
territories.
Pilot study
I conducted an initial interview with a local psychotherapist, exploring any
experiences of 'lightness' or 'aliveness' which she might have experienced during her
time in therapy. This therapist was also familiar with Focusing techniques and the
feedback she gave me related to my interview style. She felt, for example,that
silences could be longer to enable her to go deeper into her experiencing. I also
learnt from this experience the value of keeping a Focusing diary, recording my initial
'felt sense' of each interview, both before and after the interview.
I was interested to notice how this participant had experienced both 'lightness' and
experiences with her own therapist many years before. After silent self-enquiry in
response to my question, she told me that when she had shared early traumatic
137
experiences she found they had attached to them a sense of guilt which had
dissolved when her experience met the therapist’s field of awareness and was then
reflected back to her. She could suddenly feel the dissolving of shame and felt
Ponty’s (1964) description of how our flesh is always, already altered by that of
and also had a vivid sense of a journey through pain. This stayed with me throughout
talk of other experiences and seemed to be in strongly in her adult self. This was a
fully in the therapist role if this was required, without then having insufficient time to
sense of the importance of keeping both identities responsive within the interviews.
From a 'felt sense' perspective, they were vividly different experiences. This gave me
a sense that it should be relatively easy to identify when I moved from one to the
other.
The pilot study confirmed my initial sense that enquiring into clients’ experiences of
Recruitment
I telephoned eight previous clients who had been out of therapy for a minimum of
two months. I explained my research project and asked them if they would like to
138
receive more information to help them decide if they might like to participate. All eight
said they would like me to send further information, after which they all contacted me
Sixteen interviews were held with eight participants. Giorgi (2009) has stated that
while for certain research topics one participant can be sufficient, for others there
the phenomena.
limited by ethical considerations. I could not interview the students at the Further
Education College where I work as the College Counsellor as they were under the
in my research sample in which two participants are male and six female, in itself
current residency in Jersey and their ability to pay for psychotherapy, albeit on a
research, not to the process of participant selection. The sample therefore did not
139
identify what an experience is like rather than quantitative enquiries into how many,
how much or how often (Giorgi 2009). It requires only that the subject has had an
experience of the phenomena being explored and has the ability to describe it.
phenomena’s variability but would not impact upon the generalizability of my results.
me, resonances of intertwined excitement and anxiety as to what they might say.
Each participant also elicited my felt sense of them as an individual and of our
therapy which they might name, and used breath and a sense of openness to the
specific consent for the interview to be recorded (Appendix B). The Participant
Information Sheet (Appendix A) had previously been sent in the post. Participants
were asked if they had any questions or concerns relating to the Information Sheet
and were given a brief explanation of what was going to happen during the interview.
I reminded them that they were free to withdraw at any point. Interviews were
recorded and transcribed from the point at which I began asking the research
question.
140
research were also limited by the relatively small number of my clients with whom I
had applied Vajrayana-based practices and with whom therapy had ended a
minimum of two months previously. Within this restriction, I tried to include as much
variation as possible, choosing two male participants in addition to the six female
worked in the finance industry, B was a single parent, S worked in a residential unit
participants who had been given a medical diagnosis and were unable to work, and
those who had avoided diagnosis and were managing to stay in employment. All
participants were familiar with some form of body work such as yoga and all had
past.
I ensured that confidentiality issues were discussed after participants had read my
therefore able to make clear and informed decisions regarding what they wanted to
alter in terms of personal material to protect their anonymity at all stages in the
Non-maleficence
Participants in this study were clearly informed about the possibility of role confusion
in the Participant Information Sheet (See Appendix A). Gendlin’s Focusing technique
141
was used throughout the interview process to aid participants in the process of
noticing any felt responses which may have indicated subtle anxiety regarding role
confusion. The original letter to participants placed emphasis upon the value of
A).
Beneficence
A minimum of two months had elapsed before I made contact with previous clients to
invite them to become participants. Participants were invited to discuss with me any
concerns they had about this relationship change. They were also made aware of my
Sheet gave giving clear information about the aims of this study and the potential risk
the nature of the open questioning involved which can take participants into sudden
and unexpected emotional territories which are hard to anticipate at onset (Hollway
and Wheeler, 2010). I had previously requested and received consent sent from
Relational positions were established at the preliminary meeting as open and fluid,
level. Participants’ freedom to withdraw from the study at any point was emphasised
throughout.
142
A shift in the relational dynamics may occur which may make it more difficult for
in the future. Participants may also belatedly resent being requested to share
potential relevance to this issue is the recent study by Biddle et al. (2012) which
correspondence with previous clients. I upheld and communicated the principle that
the rights of the participant are more important than the rights of the researcher. Of
over-riding importance throughout was that the dignity and welfare of participants is
upheld.
filing cabinet at the College. All electronically stored information was password
Participants were also provided with contact numbers and postal addresses for my
University.
143
Access to participants
Both sets of interviews took place at Highlands College. This was done to
differentiate the context of interviewing from the therapeutic setting. All participants
were able to drive to the College as distances in Jersey do not present a challenge
and as all participants owned cars. The College receptionists were informed about
their arrival and a light and quiet room was allocated for interviewing. One hour was
established for each interview. Several clients finished before the allotted time,
having used Focusing to clarify that they had said everything which they wanted to
say.
The interviews
The primary aim of phenomenological interviewing is to gather rich life-world
experiences of 'lightness' and 'aliveness' I could receive, the richer and deeper my
understanding would be. I chose to use semi structured interviewing in order to direct
participants back to the phenomena being explored while also giving them sufficient
time and space to clarify their own experiences and to 'feel into' the rightness of their
responses using Focusing techniques. To adapt the steps of Focusing specifically for
research purposes, I substituted the enquiry into a problem at steps two (“finding the
unclear sense felt sense of all of that”) and five (“asking what is in this sense, being
with the felt sense till something comes along with a shift, a slight 'give' or release”)
already familiar with Focusing techniques from their own experience of therapy and
“ Give
yourself permission to completely relax knowing everything you say is
welcome…”
when a participant talked at length about her experience of 'lightness' and I asked:-
On another occasion, in response to a participant saying it was hard to find the right
words I suggested “Maybe create your own language, take time”.
I included many prompts, validations of experience and checking of meanings:-
“Tell me if I am not getting this right, doing breathing and seed syllables
helped you to feel integrated and also to notice more of what you are feeling?”
“Can you describe the heart space, as you are in touch with it right now as we
talk about it?”
”So this place you are describing, this zinginess, it feels very palpable, very
alive but in a very pure way, is this right?”
“As you are talking I get a sense of stretching out, of not being compressed is
that right?”
“Let me know if I’m getting this right or not …”
“Can you describe by letting your body talk through you what’s it like to be
feeling really free?”
“Can you deepen into that experience where you feel it in the body, visualise
an opening drawer and see what is there?”
“Could we take a moment to check in with the middle of your body and ask if
All participants seemed to engage easily with Focusing techniques in the interview
energy running down my arms as you say that”, “I notice that I need a wee”, “I feel
very clear that I have said everything that’s there”, “I notice I need to yawn”. I found
that tentativeness on my part created time for an inward trying out and sensing into
I also utilised the therapist techniques which Gendlin has identified for engendering
process, adapting them to explore their felt sense experiencing in relation to their
reflecting or listening – saying back exactly what the person is trying to say – as well
reflects it, the participant then corrects it, and the interviewer then restates the
corrected reflection. The participant asks themselves, does the reflection say just
what I meant?
Gendlin (1996) believes that there will generally be a missed nuance that the
researcher has not grasped, and so the participant is given space to repeat the
missed nuance. In this way, the participant is accompanied in each nuance and sits
in the silence at the edge of what could be said. When the next word comes, it often
emerges from a deeper level. I also asked participants to find 'handle' words from
direct inward sensing: “as with the handle of a suitcase, the whole weight of the felt
sense is brought to bear by that one word or phrase when one repeats it to oneself.”
our meeting again. The richness of this fusion of interior territories is conveyed by
Husserl:-
“The particular object of our active consciousness, and correlatively the active,
conscious having of it, being directed toward it, and dealing with it – all this is
forever surrounded by an atmosphere of mute, concealed but cofunctioning
validities, a vital horizon into which the active ego can also direct itself
voluntarily, reactivating old acquisitions, consciously grasping new
apperceptive ideas, transforming them into intuitions. Because of this
constantly flowing horizontal character, then every straightforwardly performed
validity in the natural life-world always presupposes validities extending back,
immediately or mediately, into a necessary subsoil of obscure but occasionally
available reactivable validities, all of which together, including the present acts,
makes up a single indivisible, interrelated complex of life.” (1936/1970, p.149).
On several occasions, participants disagreed with my words, going into the body to
find words which they sensed as more accurate. I noticed how, if a participant was
and having a calm acceptant response to my own feelings and sensations. This
other research aims, such as exploring whether any of the Vajrayana practices had
related to the phenomena and exploring what other areas of generic therapy had
As I was applying Galvin and Todres’ model of breadth and depth, the first interviews
frequently as the participants and I were assimilating new roles. I was aware that
researching the past experiences of participants- to whom I held two active identities
– researcher and previous therapist – may have impacted upon the participants’
intentionality and layers of relating visible and transparent. Giorgi (2009) has stated
freedom and reflexivity than fixed meanings from which the complexity of lived
After each interview, I thanked participants and asked them if they would like to see
the recorded transcripts. All of them said they would like to do so. After they had left
the room, I took some time to apply Focusing techniques on myself and wrote down
my sense of how I had been impacted. After transcribing the interview I replayed the
interviews twice while rereading the transcripts, to eliminate errors and increase
methodological rigour.
Method of analysis
The interviews were transcribed and each stage of Giorgi’s stages then applied in
relation to the texts. The first step was to assume the phenomenological attitude,
which differs from the natural attitude in that habitual perception based upon one’s
every day assumptions and attitudes is put to one side, or bracketed (Husserl 1931)
to prevent meanings being posited upon the phenomena. I read each transcript with
a view to gaining a sense of the overall meaning of what was actually being
transcript. Each participant’s transcript generated a different felt sense in me, which
had the distinctive qualities of my sensing of them and of our relationship. I noticed
that I was surprised by the free flow of their descriptions (the potential reasons for
this are explored in my analysis section). I was also warmed and excited by their
journeying.
148
The narrative at this point is referred to as “naïve description” arising from the
This first step was also necessary to enable me, in the second stage, to identify how
the different parts fitted into a meaningful whole. When the whole had implicitly
imprinted itself, the second stage involved re-reading each transcript, seeking and
marked the text, having found discrete meaning units which could be considered in
I noticed this was an embodied process of differentiation, there was a 'felt shift' each
In the third stage, I altered the language, from the specific meaning units in the
that meaning. Giorgi describes this third step as being the “heart” of the method
(1009, p.130). An example of this from my own research is M1’s reflections on the
“I’m not sure what was the bridge between the kind of seriousness and the laughing,
but that really gave me a lot of energy during the treatment, being seen with what
was and… um… yeah… and some way or another bringing that out and yeah just
seeing the 'lightness' in it rather than the heaviness, when before only I could see it
or only I was feeling it, it hadn’t yet been properly expressed or brought out into the
open.”
149
This was transformed into the following meaning unit, which contained more
“Being seen with what was being experienced and expressing it led to M1 seeing the
'lightness' within situations. This was in contrast to times when only she could see or
meanings, but this sensitivity needed to be reflexively explored to ensure I was not
anxious about getting this right and ensuring nothing important to the participant was
that nothing should be wasted and the image of peeling a lemon came to mind: I was
seeking the essences of meaning – the juice – but the discarded idiosyncratic
resonances within the description – the rind – was put to one side to be utilised more
implicitly later, in the forming of the general structure, the constituents and their
nuances. The discarded pieces of the transformed meaning units also remained
other transcripts, i.e. from the excerpt quoted above from M1, the experience of not
which qualities in the narrative are essential to the distillation of meaning and which
can be discarded. This was achieved largely by using my embodied felt sense.
150
The transformed meaning unit was then merged with other participants’ descriptions
generic therapeutic skills of 'seeing' and hearing the client and her story were
The final phase of the analysis involved comparing the transformed meaning units
from all the participant’s transcripts and gathering the key essential meanings which
were consistent through all of the participants’ experiences (the invariant essences)
into a general structure. This also required the use of imaginative variation, finding
which was faithful to the essence of the emerging phenomena. From a Focusing
At this point, I found my attempts to convey an integrated description for the general
structure were too textured and poetic. My felt sense naturally moved forward to
structured matrix capable of holding all the distinctive facets of the phenomena. I felt
the identified invariant essences needed room to move and breathe. To find the
balance between attention to the detail of what was actually described and finding
the all-encompassing frame of the general structure I had to go back and forth from
rule:-
"Thus the movement of understanding is constantly from the whole to the part
151
and back to the whole ... the harmony of all the details with the whole is the
criterion of correct understanding. The failure to achieve this harmony means
the understanding has failed". (Gadamer 1995, p.291).
'aliveness' which brought together all the variations of meaning into a unifying whole.
To achieve this, I had to establish broad constituents with distinctive and detailed
emphases and nuances. This was very much an embodied experience, I had a
sense of finding water when the general structure and constituents were finally
Having completed the general structure and the constituents, I then used the
participant, including contextual details (one of these is included in the next chapter,
and others form Appendix C). The purpose of writing individual situated descriptions
was to enable the reader to meet the phenomena from the life-world perspective of
the participants and to allow participants to take ownership of their own stories,
to the idea of distilling the experiences of my previous clients into constituents and
general structures without also being faithful to their individual identities and the
freedom and possibility into one’s life, and pathways to freedom and integration. I
expressing the essential meaning of each and their particular nuances and
152
variations. Excerpts and quotes from participants’ interviews are used to provide
examples and to enable the reader to feel the textures of the rich descriptions and
the participants’ life-worlds, which formed the general structure and the constituents.
To further facilitate this, I have included one individual situated description within the
main body of the text, and it is with this example that the findings begin. The
meaning units gathered from both their interviews and therefore provides a detailed
Biographical summary
M1, aged 36 had been in therapy for two years, with intermittent breaks. Her initial
who seemed unobtainable and if they became interested in her she then frequently
ceased to find them attractive. The therapy contained many generic elements, such
as exploration of childhood experiences and her feelings towards a father who had
left her as a baby to establish a new family from which M1 was excluded. M1 felt
consistently judged and undermined by her father and also experienced feelings of
anger and resentment towards her mother. M1 had childhood memories of feeling
neglected and not valued by her mother and of making faces at her to receive some
attention. In the therapy she often expressed a fear of taking on her mother’s
different forms. Sometimes M1 would feel an abyss of despair and loneliness and at
others a sense of self-disgust and a harsh contempt for herself and others. She
experienced this as alien to the person that she wanted to be and struggled to find
the balance between authenticity and her vision for herself. M1 also felt conflicted
when she was in a relationship by her drive to love and her need to control.
Relationships therefore often caused her acute anxiety and, at times, paralysing pain
and grief.
the therapy, M1 identified several elements of these phenomena which related to her
154
about certain things and situations and although she was not exactly aware what the
bridge was between the seriousness and the laughter, this process in itself gave her
a lot of energy. Using Embodied Focusing in the interview to explore this further, M1
felt that being seen in her experiencing, and expressing it, enabled her to see and
feel the 'lightness' within situations as compared to a sense of heaviness that she felt
when she was alone in her experiencing. M1 also felt that the way in which the
therapist tuned into and named her sense of what was going on in M1’s body was
helpful, giving M1 a spacious feeling and a sense that things could be transformed
and released. M1 felt that as the therapeutic relationship developed and, as certain
practices were used, she began to feel the ridiculousness in the heaviness of
situations. This gave her more energy and more 'aliveness'. Using Focusing during
the interview to explore this, she identified a particular deity practice – a Vajasattva
practice – as helping her to move from heaviness to humour. She felt that the way in
which it was described to her and the energy which she felt coming from the
therapist made the experience more intense. The combination of the practice and
this feeling enabled M1 to breathe the practice into her. Since we did the Vajasattva
practice in the therapy, M1 has found friends who do that particular practice and she
believes that they hold a particular quality which she called groundedness. This
Deity Yoga practice also gave M1 a sense of doing something, of taking positive
action and having a focus. Originally M1 had felt unsure about Deity Yoga, having a
sense that she was not very good at visualisations. At the time of M1’s first interview
she had forgotten bits of the Vajasattva practice but remembered how hearing it
audibly from the therapist had conveyed its flavour. She remembers doing the
practice a few times and being quite mesmerised and excited by the way it was
155
described to her. She felt it accurate to describe Vajasattva as luscious, which made
her laugh, and the image of him stayed with her. She remembered the colour blue
associated with him and the long dark hair. She also remembered being shown a
small black and white picture of Vajasattva during the therapy. She now intends to
get another picture of him, as it helps her to connect with the visual. It helps M1 to
imagine him inside her, clearing and purifying. M1 remembers connecting with
Vajasattva strongly, first as outside of her with colours – his gold and his richness
and beauty – and then owning the possibility of that manifestation inside herself. She
found this very useful. This enabled M1 to feel that there really was a healing and
holding presence within herself and her life in a way that she had not felt before. She
felt that the therapist’s energy behind the practice and her belief in it contributed to
this.
M1 has recently been doing some Deity Yoga with the deity Tara and plans to
alternate between Vajasattva and Tara. M1 doesn’t specifically remember how I first
described Tara to her as she has used the visualisation so many times since then.
She remembers that the image of Tara was given as a tool for deepening into the
the Tara mantra which she first heard in therapy and which she has worked with
since. She had first heard Tara mentioned by someone when she was in India so
when she later was used in the therapy M1 knew that she represented a deeper part
and used the mantra to pull Tara in. She then felt waves of love and gratitude and
since then have found Tara’s presence even easier to access. She recalls how
connecting with Tara’s energy in the therapy helped her to deepen into herself and to
let go a little bit more. She felt she was letting go of tightness, contraction and
156
blockages – fear or resistance in the body. M1 feels that Tara enables her to go into
places which she is pushing against, enabling a sense of acceptance. Overtime, this
points, M1 pulls Tara in to help her in very stressful situations. M has a continuing
strong sense of Tara around her resulting from this. M1 also uses Tara for protection
when she is doing her beauty therapy and reflexology work and sometimes shares
etheric realm and making it accessible to her. It therefore formed a bridge between
the realms. M1 enjoyed the other visualisations but found it easier to reach out to a
M1 remembers doing quite a few deep breathing practices in the therapy. She
remembers one we did when she had to breathe in as deeply as she could, then
hold the breath, bolting the door at the top and bolting the door at the bottom and
then releasing all the breath. M1 described this as being very innately necessary for
her, releasing a good deal and giving a focus and presence to this release. It also
meditation which we did at the beginning of the session. M1 remembers that she
would come into the session and naturally use the breathing to feel into what she
wanted to do, whether she would like to do deep breathing or not depending on what
was arising in the moment, and what would be most beneficial. That made her
realise that she had developed resources. M1 still uses these now on a daily basis.
M1 also used to make expressive sounds if that was what she felt that her body
needed to do. This would happen especially if M1 was feeling very constricted. It felt
157
herself talking to her parents in the empty chair. M1 found that useful and the
experience stayed with her. M1 also remembered the 'Feeding Your Demons'
practice; although she did not use it after our session time and thinks that we only
did it once or twice. M1 remembers feeling the energy that she no longer wanted any
more inside her and then releasing it outwards. It left M1 feeling that something had
been seen and dispersed. When the practice is described back to M1 as we did it in
the therapy M1 laughs and says that she does not remember the detail of the
practice but that she would like to do it again as it sounded fun. M1 also remembers
doing the 'Cutting the Ties that Bind' exercise – cutting the ties to old partners,
releasing the fragments which she had been left with, the heaviness. M1 describes
this as a strong and necessary ritualistic practice; a good and practical thing to do.
M1 experienced the therapy as an organic process in which she became more open
and trustful over time. As she was able to open up more in the therapy, she felt that
there were other influences energetically around her urging her to open still further.
M1 named deep breathing as very important to her and as something which she now
uses on a daily basis to help her deal with life. She described it as being helpful to
her core and feels that there is a strong prayer behind it, something beyond her will
but related to it. She described how everything behind the breath helped her with this
transformation. She felt that combining deep breathing with therapy was very helpful.
Recently M1 went on a three day course in Thailand and found that similar to the
work which we had done in the therapy. She felt that the therapy had given her good
tools to work in a group setting and she was able to open a healing, open space in
herself. M1 feels that is essential, when doing any kind of therapy work to be in the
body and to allow the body to respond in its own organic way and to witness this
158
consequence of the therapy. She would feel shifting in her stomach, throat and
chest. She felt that everything which rose up from her body to her mind was relevant
and this enabled her to trust that they co-exist. It took M1 a while to trust this and she
felt that this was facilitated and supported by breathing into these parts of the body
(Focusing). M1 realised that she had a choice as to whether she resisted what was
in the body or not. The therapist’s reassurance that everything that she felt in the
body was relevant enabled her to have a faith in the process. Using Focusing to
enquire into the body once again, M1 became aware that she was feeling a lot of
gratitude and that this felt light. She felt so much gratitude at having been able to
have the experience of being held and being open and being seen, and to really be
engaging with her body. M1 felt that her experience of gratitude follows 'lightness'
and that the feeling spirals and expands. M1 felt that the therapy helped her to
establish a very good foundation for identifying what is true. This she defines as
emerging from just being and not interrupting the flow of being. Now when M1
experiences challenging times she has less fear and resistance and can open more
has found that taking time for herself gives back to her a thousand fold. M1 has also
been able to access this space in fearful times of relating to others. M1 feels in touch
with this quality as she talks about it and enjoying it. As this happens she is
reminded of some commitments which she has made to herself. She has recently
become aware that she has a very subtle attraction to drama. As she senses into it
she has an image of a vampire and a sense of the detrimental nature of drama and
follow what feels good, to follow passion, energy and flow. Her sense of flow has
In the final use of Focusing in the first interview M1 describes a sense of gratitude for
the therapy, for having a space to come to and the tenderness of being held. M1
cannot imagine her life without the therapy because it was the glue which held her
problem which she had with her lungs. She felt that the breath work helped very
much with this. She felt that grief had been stored in her lungs and that we had been
doing work ancestrally connecting to a lot of work which had not been done before.
M1, enquiring using Focusing one last time during the second interview, described
how, on many occasions, she left the therapy feeling like a completely different
person to the person who walked in as. As she walked away she felt lighter but with
containing two related but differently nuanced experiences: a sense of freedom and
a sense of the possibilities that the freedom could open up. 'Aliveness' appeared to
experiences appear to occur within a wider context, which helps to define their
essence and elements from this wider context, and thus forms part of their essential
constituents. I will first name these constituents before exploring them in greater
different forms of implicit or explicit painful feelings, states of personal identity, and
concentrate on the nature of the ‘from where’ or ‘from what’ this freedom – a sense
constituent.
the potential of being that is 'already there', to be uncovered. This kind of freedom of
(presence), and thus becomes an important reference point for living. An elaboration
161
and these variations will be explored under this constituent (e.g. Peace as
independent of noise, moving into the 'heart' etc.). Such freedom as independence
can be experienced in sporadic or sustained ways and this will also be indicated.
to the term 'lightness', but mostly to the term 'aliveness'. In elaborating on this
quality, I will show something of the nature of the wider horizons of meaning that
become available to the person, as well as the wider horizons of living or acting that
become available. These wider horizons of meaning and living appear to occur
creative ability to transform and mould the self and surrounding concerns and
engagements. In elaborating and clarifying this constituent, I will show how there are
a number of ways that such direction and integration occur: the experience of
freedom or 'aliveness' becomes an ongoing reference for living, practices (tools) that
open up this experience become an important reference for living, 'lightness' and
integration occur through a tantric entrance into the 'heaviness' and 'pain' rather than
an avoidance of it (and this constitutes a greater faith and experiential power), and
finally a kind of ‘bridging' occurs between one’s 'heavy' experiences and one’s lighter
ones, and this back and forth becomes productive in an integrative way.
oriented therapy. Under this constituent I will elaborate and clarify these nuances:
how, for example, deity practice is particularly conducive in some cases to facilitate a
restrictions; how one first experiences this possibility as a separate image, but how
practices will indicate their particular possible strength in relation to facilitating the
expressed as a sense of relief and release from an invisible but tangible sense of
weight. I identified three distinct forms of this heaviness which were interconnected
and frequently flowed into each other but nonetheless had distinctive qualities that
which I will explore and illustrate as sub-variations of the theme of the release of
'heaviness'. Within this constituent I will therefore be exploring the from where or
from what a sense of the 'lightness' of freedom emerges. I have categorised these
I will explore each of the specific nuances which emerged from these-sub variations
as identified by participants.
from others, a lack of fluidity and ease in relating. I identified four distinct nuances
within this constituent, all of which can be understood as one kind of experiential
experiences.
Prior to exploring these specific nuances in more detail, I will make a few more
which they had not previously been aware that they were holding onto, or which had
weighed upon them. The giving of permission to explore and listen to neglected
aspects of the self and its experiences while being witnessed by another person who
was attuned to them were significant components of the relief from interpersonal
aloneness. For several participants’ safety, feeling held spiritually and emotionally,
structure and the comfort of the setting – all of which generated a sense of trust –
were contributory factors. These nuances provided a holding matrix, both physically
interpersonal pain relating to the subtle impact of painful past experiences upon
attention to neglected self-aspects, noticing and naming earlier 'wounding' within the
safety of the therapeutic relationship. Participants described how failing to seek out
experiences undermined their capacity to make positive changes in their lives and
kept them preoccupied with the needs of others. T described how being held
repressed experiences. T 'had needed to be listened to' and the particular part of
the self which T identified as 'dark' did not get listened to, as T is normally too busy
to engage with it and does not give her pain priority, even though she recognised
that it had something precious to say to her. J1 described how the 'torture' of having
had to abruptly stop breast feeding her daughter and leave her behind had created
J1: - “I knew that the way I was feeling just wasn’t the optimal way to be
living. I knew that but I think it's habit, and I do hold onto things and it would
be through a series of doing things like that that I would slowly let go. It
might not happen in one fell swoop, but it might be that I am down the road
somewhere and something happens and I feel I have really moved on,
because six months ago or a year ago I might have reacted like this or
thought that. I’ve come a long way in small steps.”
165
T:-“Well, what immediately comes to mind is, um, having a spiritual parent,
parent was the word that sort of popped up, and I know they use different
terms about... in that respect but, there is … although I have spiritual friends
there was nobody else that I could feel that sense of structured letting go
with, even though my exchanges with my spiritual friends do involve some
kind of release... that felt like a very structured, it was a structured place to
let … to let things arise, provide a very healing and accepting energy and
then, um, move on at the end of it.”
originally experienced when alone and unprotected, was dispersed through the
S:-“I think it's very important that witnessing aspect, I've thought about that a
bit actually, I've had a few conversations with other people about the
importance of, why it seems so important to have witness and actually a
friend of mine said something that once she said it I realised it's incredibly
obvious but wonderful, and she just said well, I guess because there was no
good witness when you got traumatised in the first place! – And so you know,
it's sort of validation in a way. But I think it seems even if it's new
experiences, new positive open experiences that actually there seems to be
an additional something that happens when it's in witness, I think because I
guess we can't doubt ourselves so much anymore, you know, it's like the
human doubting Thomas aspect of us can't, that can't get a hold onto
something if there's the witness quality with that.”
The words release and relief were used to convey the dissolving of the weight of
implicitly holding interpersonal issues and difficulties alone as opposed to sharing
them with a therapist.
b) A form of interpersonal pain which results from the pain of not being
This quality of interpersonal pain was described as congested and limiting. Being
perceived solely from cognitive or analytical relational fields made it difficult for
participants to work with the entirety of the self and increased their vulnerability to
restrictive thought patterns. This became evident as participants described the relief
of being able to safely explore what they identified as the spiritual aspect of
themselves. This was important to participants, as this had more often been an
aspect of themselves subjectively and implicitly known rather than explicitly shared in
166
relationships. The therapist’s capacity to see more of the client’s field of being in this
J2:- “To be honest, um, I remember coming away and thinking what have I
gone to see, who have I gone to see. I have done some psychotherapy in
the past but it had never really met me on the spiritual part of myself, it had
always been very intellectual and very mental, very mind just I think even for
myself bringing in the breathing practice, bringing in that meditative route I
suppose it was the first step of understanding how powerful meditation is.. .I
think what I felt more it was that I was a little bit surprised by how much it
resonated with me afterwards and how that transition began, which led me to
a place of calmness and acceptance, whereas before when I have done
other psychotherapy I have come out and thought, okay I just am that
person. After this I came back and thought, well this is a bit different … this
is also about me and what goes on inside me I think. What I had been doing
is letting other people’s ideas about me get right into me. I was full of
people’s projections. Doing the meditation or whatever you want to call it
brought about such stillness. I never felt that from psychotherapy before. I
think that’s important. It’s really important.”
“It would have been like trying to make myself whole while staring at only a
third of myself.”
Being seen had specific nuances for different participants in relation to the general
become more of themselves, generating a greater sense of their own presence and
in which participants felt that their experiences had been more fully seen and
freedom as independence.
“seeing himself through other people’s eyes” which resulted in an anxious drive to
please.
T described herself feeling “shackled” by the force of her sense of her parents’
judgement to do a job which was completely alien to her own value system.
J1 described a habitual sense that she could not take any time for herself, she was
constantly preoccupied with other people’s needs and whether she was meeting
them sufficiently.
For M2, the space to be both to be seen by the therapist and to really see things
which were happening provided a mirror and brought about what she described as a
“I am remembering one day I came to see you and I felt so shaky and the
wind was blowing and blowing and it was raining and it was really making
me anxious and so shaky and I think you saw that and you said to me 'Its
okay, M, the roof isn’t going to blow off', and I realised that I really was
holding that level of fear. That I felt so unsafe in my body and in the world. I
felt so vulnerable. And there was something about this being seen that
helped me to see it.”
S explained that while she had experienced other practices and trainings, these
failed to integrate and embed themselves because they were retained by her as
witnessed while being in a state of presence increased the validity and permanence
of S’s experiencing.
S:-“I think otherwise you don’t actually know if it’s real. I have an active
mind, I can be very analytical, and that can be very useful. That can be very
useful but also can potentially be very damaging to myself. I am interested in
human behaviour, in what it is to be human. I am interested in myself as my
best case example, um, but I think it’s very easy to have strong experiences
on one’s own and to just go 'Was I deluding myself, is this some throwback
to when I was 17 and tried a drug.' [Laughter] I think there seems to be
something very much about being witnessed. It brings, if you like, the etheric
quality of that presence and I think this links to what I wanted to explore in
the wording of heaviness and lightness, in that being met, being seen, being
invited. That etheric quality meets with the very human physical realm and I
guess for me that comes out of the heart.”
The quality of the therapist’s presence and her confidence in the therapy was also
M1:- “But it was something in the way you were describing it and the energy
that was coming from you as well, that really heightened my experience of
that practice. And I don’t think I would necessarily… [Clears throat] It feels
like a good foundation to do it, to begin with, because just me reading it and
doing it it’s just not the same. You’re being seen at the same time, you’re
being held. So, I think, yeah, there’s a real… the kind of mixture of the two
together.”
relationship and personal life goals were explored during therapy, participants began
suddenly finding a bridge between their habitual story and the possibility of new
interpretations and meanings. This resulted from the thematised life story being
perceived as less real than either the dynamic exchange of the therapeutic
sense of freedom from the restricting story frequently gave rise to laughter as
M1:- “Well first of all I just kind of… I, I… had these memories of, um… us…
um… talking about certain things, but then laughing about them too… and
I’m not sure what was the bridge between the kind of seriousness and being
seen with what was and… um… yeah… and some way or another bringing
that out and yeah just seeing the 'lightness' in it rather than the heaviness
when before only I could see it or only I was feeling it, it hadn’t yet been
properly expressed or brought out into the open… I don’t know it was
something to do with our relationship and…… how you… yeah… I mean it’s
a very delicate process because at the beginning of our therapy I don’t think
it happened so much but as time got on we developed certain practices,
then… um, yeah… I could definitely… yeah just see the kind of… um… see
the kind of ridiculousness in the heaviness of it.”
I will now explore the second sub-constituent which emerged from participants’
the converse experience to 'lightness' and 'aliveness'. This pain was often expressed
during the therapy in tears or in anger as the depths of individual 'wounding' behind
'Heaviness' as bodily or emotional pain had several nuances which I will now clarify
in greater detail.
the body frequently related to the painful impact of analytical, judgemental and
expansion and flow. For several participants, embodied pain had been the major
feature of their depression and the primary reason for seeking therapy.
M2:-“I remember feeling, my body feeling dark and tense and I don’t think I
had realised quite how tense I was.”
“I was running around like a headless chicken all the time, trying to please
everybody.”
b) Pain recurrently located in specific parts of the body which was primarily
Participants described feeling dark, tense and unsafe with pain in specific parts of
the body such as in the hands, the anxious feeling of butterflies in the stomach or
trauma in the lungs leading to chest pain and recurrent chest infections. All
described how using breathing had relaxed her jaw and enabled her to stop grinding
her teeth:-
M2:-“But I want to talk about the breathing first. My teeth were grinding and
grinding and I had never had that before at night. And I kept asking myself
why, why, why is this happening to me? And things had got better and I had
a new job and I went to the dentist and the dentist had given me a tooth
guard to help with grinding. Well, that lasted a night and I wasn’t going to be
messing around with that anymore and then I realised it’s the breath.
Because when you breathe into your belly it relaxes the jaw helps to open it
up and stop the grinding. So I told myself that for a couple of days, you are
not going to grind your teeth any more, you are going to breathe. And that’s
what I did. Literally, within a couple of days, it had stopped.”
171
inability to find pathways with which to move forward through pain or discern
meanings within it
This generalised into an undifferentiated loss of trust in the body. The intentionality of
pain, and subsequently of the body, became distrusted. This form of embodied
insights. These took a variety of forms. One of these involved a realisation that the
body could be nurtured separately and the mind bypassed, thereby reducing mental
heaviness. The impact of critical and self-blaming thoughts was transformed into
J2:-“So when I sensed that my head was this computer hard drive and that I
was taking it away and turning it into energy I sensed that from my neck
down my body … that's really where the pureness and simplicity of energy
and sense of, you know, well-being and love and all these feelings come
from, so I felt it was a relief to get rid of... you know, turn my head off and
turn it into this pure heart energy.”
For some participants, if therapeutic insight into their experience was sufficiently
the therapist named her sense of how J1 had been impacted by her relationship with
her father which she described as liberating, as if some form of “cellular change” had
occurred. Participants described stuck, heavy sensations in the body being released
by particular practices. The direct movement of these stuck experiences was clearly
S described how chanting mantra enabled her to feel that she could transform
something which felt stuck in her or something which she had experienced which did
172
not belong to her, creating a sense of movement in which she felt that she could
S:- “With sound I think I sometimes use it more cathartically, I think I would
experience the world in quite a kinaesthetic way and I think sound enables
me to just have a sense that I can somehow transform, um, something that
feels like its stuck in me or something that I’ve experienced that actually
didn’t belong to me…”
I will now address the third specific constituent of heaviness as pain and explore
participants’ descriptions of experiential heaviness in relation to states of restricted
self-definition.
1.3. 'Heaviness' relating to states of restricted self-definition
'Heaviness' relating to preoccupations of attention and restricted self-definition was
described.
impacting upon personal agency, freedom and self-respect and was often
difficult for them to move forward and develop a more expansive and pliable sense of
self. J2 described how blaming himself for the break-up of his relationship had
inhibited his ability to access other parts of himself. T described how her shame at
being a single parent had prevented her from leaving a job she disliked and being
“That particular shift in my life, and that was about non-compliance, that's
about having the internal strength to say no to certain social pressures, to
conforming a certain way, and … take the harder route which is actually
resisting those pressures and saying, and being true to oneself, and I think
… that was about having the strength to know that I could … that I could,
um, take that route and survive because before that I'd felt, particularly as a
173
restriction.
”How do I put it um, I think for me I have always had this thing, how can I put
it, that I am looking through someone else’s eyes… And what would they
think of x and what would they think of y and that’s lifted quite substantially to
me. I am not nearly so judgemental as I was. I don’t know how to explain it...
acceptance I am far more accepting of myself and also of others…Maybe
that judgement I had previously has definitely lifted, which limited what I can
do because when there is judgement all of a sudden you have put all these
barriers up.”
patterns of relating which were habitually lived but not consciously known. T
described how a visualisation exercise enabled her to meet a more authentic aspect
of herself which was angry with her for being compliant, a compliance which had
described how constant criticism from his mother had left him with a constant fear of
being judged by others, which had left him seeing himself through other peoples’
incongruent and seeing oneself through other people’s eyes were retrospectively
described as existential states lacking in space, ease and freedom which had origins
in a limited self-concept. J2 found that being in his “mind” was linked to self-blame
which restricted his capacity to be fully present and comfortable with others. B
experienced a real release of tears and emotion when the therapist pointed out to
her that she was not accepting her humanness or her inevitable attachments to the
people that she loves and began to identify ways in which she had sabotaged
relationships:-
“In a way I have realised that that is a form of detachment and protection
that I am creating this intensity, this push-pull, this human level of expanded
reality continuously, that I am actually not accepting or loving myself in that
human way so it’s a defence mechanism of never getting too, um, close.”
One participant described the release of this 'heaviness' as akin to suddenly realising
he had legs and choices and could choose to disengage from the umbilical cord of
participants’ inability to change. At its extreme form this resembled the rigidity of
mental illness.
M2:-“But oh yes, I'd forgotten about loving myself, and I know that there was a part
of me that erm, I had no control over, you know … I wonder now whether it was a
mental illness, and you know when I hear about other people's situations and the
paranoia that can suddenly occur to them, and I was in … I was paranoid – and that
was a very dark area and that paranoia which I had no control over, albeit small in
comparison perhaps with other, you know, situations with people who are
desperately ill.”
175
Freedom from the weight of restricted self-definition also took the form of greater
sense of choice regarding which aspect of the self could be prioritised. B realised
she could choose between being an accepting adult or rebellious teenager and this
“Yes, that's it, to witness them a bit more and to choose, you know, if it that's
aspect that's relating to some angry teenager inside, it's to choose not to
allow that to lead, you know, to kind of hear her or hear that part and just
kind of be in the wiser part that doesn't need to react to that any more, that
can just kind of hold her or hold that part. So yes, still very much working
with all of that, trying not to … to witness but not to push away or to …
because I think, well I know for me, when I try to follow that just divine love
all the time, because I'm not enlightened yet, I might follow that divine love
and keep blessing something and then in the morning wake up and be like
so angry and hurt and be like 'argh I didn't mean that!' [laughter] And then it
kind of flips and there's this like neurotic behaviour. So it's trying to find a
way to hold all of that in some way.”
This was also symbolised by B as the opening of previously tightly clenched fists.
context from which freedom can be understood, I will now move to the second major
The second major constituent concerns the way in which freedom was experienced
the potential of being that is 'already there', to be uncovered. As I will clarify later on,
of oneself (presence), and thus becomes an important reference point for living.
these variations will be explored (e.g. Peace as independent of noise, moving into
participants:-
and groundedness.
upon others.
and groundedness.
J3 described:-
“Um, I think what’s coming through now and I don’t know if its answering
your question but it’s the whole thing about perfection, you don’t have to be
perfect and the space that was created in therapy holds you in this perfect
place, it’s just where you are at really. And that’s fine... Yes, how do I put it
um, I think for me I have always had this thing, how can I put it, that I am
looking through someone else’s eyes…Yes it is like that, like a sense of
177
b) Participants described a domain in which they felt peaceful, liberated from noise,
accessing an existential territory which felt both lighter and fuller. “Presence” was the
most frequently used word to describe the uncovering of a more expansive quality of
self which was also significantly relational. Being in presence was described by
centeredness and hope. Participants often related this sense of presence to the
and breathing practices, which had the effect of creating a closer relationship with
the rhythms of the natural world. Presence also had a nuance which was enabling,
and emphasised becoming real and stronger and finding a bigger picture rather than
J1:- “I have an internal dialogue all the time about all these things that I need
to do for work and about all these things that I need to do and then when I
just take time to be by myself and tune in, all that is inconsequential really. It
just pushes away that away or it dissipates and I just feel more like I can get
in touch with this very peaceful part of myself. When I am in that space I feel
connected with everything and I feel real, this is the real me and I feel
stronger as if I am in control, these things are doable and there is no need to
be talking to myself like, 'Oh God, I need to do this or do that'. It brings me a
lot of patience.”
S:- “I think the difference for me is that with the presence I feel quite a
potency of space, it’s almost as if the air is pregnant with possibility or just
being or just awareness that is not necessarily either light or heavy, it
tangibly feels, as if there is a weight to it, but it’s not contracted.”
An experience of presence also had the function of changing the perspective from
S:-“It can feel a bit frightening to be in that utter presence, it feels a bit
frightening to notice I can move my fingers and actually that’s awesome.
[Laughs] If I am in that utter presence you cannot notice the breath anymore.
It’s like breath is happening to you. You become the actual thing that you are
focusing upon. It’s very hard to relate to your problems in the same way after
that.”
as reference points for establishing the authenticity of one’s personal thoughts and
quality of space from which participants could re-emerge with a greater sense of
clarity. Applying Embodied Focusing or using breathing techniques to scan the body
M1:- “Just being and identifying the flow of being helped to identify what was
true.”
A sense of safety was also named as a contributory factor to this increasing trust in
the body’s innate sense of direction. Participants had to feel sufficiently safe
described the feeling of accepting her humanness as akin to her being descending,
and becoming more embodied and at rest. The fact that this was sporadic rather
than sustained she believed resulted from a sense that she was not able to do a
179
increase in confidence. The element of trusting in the inherent wisdom of the self-
structure was the essential component for the experiential freedom of independence.
from habitual thought patterns, enabling more freedom in states of being and
interacting.
heart:-
J2:-“The heart space is the place where I can experience emotion. I don’t
think I really cried at all before treatment and I now can get to that space
where I can do that … yes it’s a much softer place to be.”
B:-“Well to me it's like, the heart, it felt very healing and like a bridge, like it
was connecting the two aspects of where I feel separate sometimes, that
kind of divine self and then that human part that feels everything.”
that being very beneficial, very gentle, and very compassionate and very
self-empowering, to understand that, you know, I had the answers inside me.
And for me its learning to manage that duality, that yes we need our brains
and maybe for some jobs we need them more, but we also need our heart
space to make sure I am in my truth. So the benefits to the relationships I
have are to make sure that the quality of them is increasing, that they are
more heart felt and they are deeper and more connected. It is the right place
to be, it’s the only place to be.”
This developed into a contemplative space which he could access outside of the
therapy for short periods of time. Several participants described how accessing the
heart resulted in them being more confident when engaging with others, reducing
self-consciousness and anxiety, and giving them a sense of expansion and peace.
This lack of dependence upon the approval of others gave rise to a sense of relief
J3:-“ It’s just so much easier to be the person you are than maybe the
person that somebody wants you to be, or expects you to be, or the person
you expect them to expect you to be.”
upon others.
was also expressed in a sense that, rather than being driven by a need for the
181
approval of others, interactions with others were potentially liberated from habitual
tensions if participants were interacting from the 'heart' or from a place of 'presence'.
J2:- “I know that I want to strengthen that connection with my heart and have
more conversations with it. And why not have conversations with it, having
conversations with your head is a no brainer it can go in a million directions
it’s like having a conversation with the internet. I don’t want to beat myself up
but at the same time I want this relationship. It needs practice and every day
I become stronger and more aware of myself and you know it’s really
important. I actually find that if I am in the company of people who are very
much in their heads, and I think there is a significant limitation as to how
deep or meaningful that interaction can be. But you know it is important to be
able to connect with people who are in their heads, so you know sometimes
we have to have this duality and this subtleness of how much can I be in my
head with this person and how much I can be in my heart, and maintaining
some connection and maybe drawing them into the heart. So maybe they
sense something in you and the can be drawn into that, because I think most
people are drawn to this place of the heart, but most people don’t know how
to tap into it. Hopefully by me being there more it will help other people to be
there and it’s a great place to be.”
enable others to move into deeper states of presence and heart consciousness, as
freedom:-
S:- “ I think it helps someone to find that place in someone else because
that’s the place I’m communicating from in myself… I think it’s almost like an
unconscious invite, while I say its intangible there seems to be some sort of
subconscious tangibility to that unconscious, or whatever we want to call it.”
Having explored the nuances identified by participants within the second major
constituent, I will now turn to the third essential constituent: a sense of possibilities
opening up.
This experience was referred to in relation to the term 'lightness', but mostly in
relation to the term 'aliveness'. In elaborating on this quality, I will show something of
the nature of the wider horizons of living or acting that become available. These
experience that opens up the possibility of a different future from that preoccupation,
Participants described four distinct but overlapping ways in which new possibilities
emerged:
feeling enlivened.
sensory experiencing.
I will now explore each of these nuances as they were described by participants.
M1:-“I often left therapy feeling like a different person than the one who
came in. I felt lighter and with a set of tools under each arm.”
M1:-“I could feel more energy shifting in the centre of my stomach.”
M2 described being able to dance and feeling incredibly alive after previously having
183
felt contracted and depressed. This quality of increased energy came from talking
and laughing and from certain practices which were described as facilitating subtle
shifts of embodied change. For others there was a sense that energy had been re
positioned and had reshaped them. This sense of an increase in energy also had a
M2:-“I no longer feel alone because the energy I feel belongs to everyone.”
S:-“I feel neither separate nor singular.”
Increases in energy frequently came from being able to access more of the self
quickly and easily and by giving neglected self-aspects regular attention. Many
S: -“This is what comes from going into my body and kind of listening, I hope
in a present way to what’s going on, what’s behind the initial emotions, this
sense of physicalness. There’s this me that I guess I had before I explored
this with you, it felt a lot more recessed, like it was sitting a lot further back.
Rather than being a back seat driver, more like the back of a double decker
bus. Whereas I feel now, through the therapy, I’ve gradually come forward
and forward in myself to the point where I can fairly quickly go 'There I am',
so who I am becomes something different than I might have thought before.”
J2 described the value of embodying practices into his life, particularly practices
which developed masculine qualities, as the most helpful aspect of the therapy.
hope.
S:- “I guess for me to experience that kind of feeling, just noticing what’s
going on in myself... I feel it often. I think it feels like an expansion. Even if
the human emotions are quite raw at the time, with the noticing of the
emotion there’s also even pleasantness when you meet the feeling and the
184
sense of expansion…it is also like tingly… I don’t know how, sort of reminds
me of the spring in a way [laughter], the growth and spring has an almost
innocent cheekiness to it.”
This embodied experience also resulted in shifts in perception and in more vivid
sensory experiencing, a more intense sense of participants' own colour and vitality.
For some participants this contrasted with the colourlessness of their experience of
crystal, an experience which she described as very lovely. Fire and heat and colour
M2:-“I am remembering now something else about colour and about warmth
and 'aliveness'. I felt I had no colour and you said your colours will come
back and I remember how grey and cold those winter months were, and I
said how much I missed the sun and you said something about how in the
winter you used the fire to find that heat and light and that helped me to see
in the fire.”
T found that she spontaneously experienced colours in her body when doing
Focusing. All participants described the Deity Yoga and the 'Planet of Healing'
possibility of being existentially capable of more than had previously been assumed.
J2:- “It doesn’t have to be a battle, it’s a gentle process.. when I go into my
heart space, I feel this unconditional love where the ego is not around and
there are no attachments or needs and there is just this infinite space of just
pure love that’s all I have. It’s warm, it has a tingliness and very much a
peacefulness and a 'lightness' and sometimes I see colours, green or gold or
blue, whatever works at the time and it’s a real sense of stillness and purity
and it’s a real refuge of safeness, where the mind is not throwing words in. I
185
Many participants spoke of the loss of fear in relation to further self-exploration and a
sense of intrigue about what else might emerge from further therapy, or from lived
J3:-“I had a sense of excitement before each session waiting to see what
would emerge.”
T:-“Now I am no longer afraid of meeting parts of myself, I am free from the
shackles. I can be the person that I truly am.”
Wider horizons of meaning and acting were often expressed in more spontaneous
and fearless ways of relating, and a growing respect for the creative autonomy of the
narratives. These meanings were often associated with more valuing of the self and
also mattered; it was not about always being selfless. J3 described how therapy had
secured his sense of self during a time of endings and new directions, allowing him
“I became excited before each session to see what was about to come up.
It’s about growth and being open, being open enough to welcome who or
what is coming up and its okay. It gave me that sense of, its okay to be who
you are and where you are. That that’s acceptable. I think at that time as well
there was a sense of… There was a sense of new direction coming with my
divorce, my marriage ending but I think the therapy assisted to secure …
secured my sense of self, but also allowed me to look at the possibilities of
the future without feeling fearful.”
186
visualisation took him to a new place within himself which he described as his “pure
source.”
greater sense of being carried forward to a future which felt open and potent with
creative possibilities.
function constituted by a creative ability to transform and mould the self and
constituent, I will show how there are a number of nuances relating to how such
(tools) that open up this experience and become an important reference for
living.
movement from rigid and defensive self-definition to a more open and expansive
self-identity. This was combined with a determination not to surrender newly gained
existential territories.
J2 describes how a shift in a sense of self occurred by finding access to the “heart
space”.
J2:- “Maybe we overuse the brain and it’s introducing the heart space back
into one’s life and allowing it to become the driving force for me rather than
allowing your brain to be your driving force. To let your heart, your body and
your soul to drive you. And you know it’s not always an easy thing to do
because your brain, it’s like a computer, the heart is more ethereal and
visceral and not as tangible as maybe a thought and I think especially if you
are a guy it’s harder to tap into. But that said, once tapped into and you have
that feeling you feel very fortunate and lucky that you discovered it and you
can use it to keep being in your truth. And that really is such a much more
peaceful place to be.”
authenticity, a commitment to being who one truly is in the wider world. This resulted
188
altruism. This was expressed in a variety of ways, a mission to bring presence into
and forgiving of the behaviour of others. Some participants described the excitement
B:-“ Yeah, I still feel I resonate with … it's almost like taking more
responsibility, or like standing more in self, I still feel my awareness is still
growing in that, of like yes I can remove myself or can just shift my energy
and breath and not be so reactive or … trying to push something, you know,
find ways or tools within a circumstance, take myself inside myself or … and
that part with the door did really help when some thing’s on fire, just walk
out, yet at the same time I had to be careful because that was my pattern
always was to just walk, so it's like a fine … I'm learning how not to walk, but
I think it's erm, walking out on that pattern, you know. What's just coming
then, I don't know what words exactly you said or when, but just a sense of
feeling how much I'm creating or responsible for my life, and that brings a
sense of real 'lightness' and freedom, to really see and feel that authority of
self, and realising that, you know, it's only when we choose to do that,
there's such freedom in that. I don't know, I remember that, it's more of a
feeling of that, awareness.”
(tools) that open up this experience and become an important reference for
living.
For all participants, the experience of having tools to regularly work with assisted in
“‘limitless’” and “nurturing”. T described a huge sense of release and relief that she
had acquired a tool with which she could access her darker side, meet the anger that
was there and also nurture and heal it. The sense of empowerment afforded by
having tools and resources was important for many participants, giving them a sense
described the relief of having a “key” to her own well-being. Other participants had
similar words for this experience: a “set of tools,” a “magic tool box,” a “set of keys,”
a “walking staff” to take with them and apply in challenging situations. This
generated a sense of experiential freedom. For T, the fact that she was not
dependant on anyone and could go inside herself and do this as a daily practice was
very important. She described this as “the thing I really needed to move forward”. J1
described her sense of relief at having tools which she could use immediately and
which were simple and effective. S expresses the value of these practices in this
way:-
S:- “Through these practices you notice, you suddenly realise, now I’m
engaged with myself, now there’s this presence, this expansion, this potency
and if I drop off that I notice how superficially I am talking to myself
[Laughter].”
The capacity to use these tools to change experiences quickly and easily was
narratives were reduced by moving attention from the fear or the specific situation to
and pain rather than avoiding it (and this constitutes a greater faith and
experiential power).
190
The freedom and vitality required to creatively mould the self instead of passively
and safe rather than threatening. Participants described how going into previously
empowerment. For T meeting the part of her which was angry with herself and
allowing it to speak to the other part of herself in a symbolic form enabled two
opposing self-aspects to meet and become integrated. Being able to meet and
nurture pain herself was intensely liberating as previously the religion she had been
brought up in had mechanisms which had protected her from meeting and managing
a mediator was liberating and reduced the potential of being shamed by sharing
T:- “Mmm, [pause] well what first comes up in response to that is ... growing
up with, erm, in a Catholic environment and the darker side of oneself is
something that … you do look at but you can confess on a regular basis so,
the way I was brought up was that I would go and I would tell my sins, or the
darker side of myself, to the priest, and then I would get penance, which was
about … cleansing myself I suppose – But and there was a feeling of … of
guilt and seeking forgiveness, so this kind of mechanism for accessing that
side of yourself and listening to it as actually needing to be listened to in its
own right and it having something precious to say, is so different –
Yes it does, it was giving me … it was empowering me to, erm, deal with it
myself, not through a priest or … what had happened in the past was an
intermediary”.
Participants described how this shift from avoidance to exploration, was sometimes
M1:-“I think we used it once, when maybe once or twice when I sort of came
across something quite big quite suddenly and I maybe…my initial reaction
was to let it go or push it away rather and we used breathing there to see if
we could go deeper and see if there was anything else really going on
there.”
S:- “The breath helped me to become more present in my body and made
me more integrated... an integrated sense of self…The breath helps me, um,
come into that... and notice my state of being and what actually needs to
191
experiences in the body and then consciously invited 'lightness' into those places.
J3:- “I am sure it was the light coming in and then I would visualise that
coming down and then bring up each layer of what was happening at the
time, what came into my mind or my heart or however it was felt and sat with
it…that helped me to prioritise what to work with, like a filter. I was feeling
light and listening and healing myself.”
J1 described how she was able to reveal new parts of herself through the therapy.
She began to sing and write new songs and at one point suddenly visualised herself
as having grown a dragon’s tale when she had been applying Focusing to explore
pain in the base of her spine. To J1, this represented her hidden strength which had
finally been allowed to reveal itself. B discovered a new territory within herself during
one therapy session which gave her a sense of 'lightness' and space as it could
accommodate all of the inner battle which she had previously felt unable to either
and Focusing
192
'lightness' and 'aliveness'. Within this constituent, I will explore particular pathways to
interpersonal situation of therapy and others which reflect the distinctive practices of
'Cutting the Ties that Bind' exercise, descriptions of which are explored in this
constituent.
consequence of Deity Yoga. This new identity was independent of previous identity
feelings of overwhelm, whether they were related to guilt, sadness or lack of self-
love, and which became blocks to expansion. These newly sensed freedoms
In response to a question about any moments within the therapy when he had
Tara.
J2:- “At the time I … because I was needing a sense of self-nurturing and
compassion, actually Tara was very powerful because of how you described
her and how you asked me to embody her whole being and sense of her into
myself, so that I think, because nurturing is potentially a more feminine
energy, I probably needed that at the time, and erm … actually it did work for
me.”
Some participants originally felt they would not be able to work with visualisation, but
with practice found they had developed an embedded resource for times of
vulnerability:-
M1:-“. And then especially recently I used her when I was away, because I
was having quite a big sort of spiritual experience and, um, I was feeling
quite vulnerable in that experience and I really called upon her and really
tried to pull her in strongly, and at the same time while I was doing that, while
I was reciting her mantra over and over again, I was also getting these
194
waves of love for people I knew just kind of coming through me without
making it happen or trying to make it happen I suddenly realised what was
happening and I was just kind of in this really open state of gratitude of love
flowing, and since then – and that was about three weeks ago – I've kind of
felt almost like her presence nearer or even more easy to access”.
.
A further effect of Deity Yoga identified by participants was a sense of “bridging.”
aspects as follows:-
B:-“It was the part that, that part of ourself that is, is that divinity and
connects with that. So it was that part that isn't hurt and isn't, you know,
shaken by the day to day pains of being human. It felt really beautiful and it
felt like it was really connecting the two, connecting, erm, that kind of divinity
within the heart space, within that landscape of the heart, and from that
place kind of cleansing what's still a very physical, painful emotion or
sensation in the body. So it felt very healing and like a bridge, like it was
connecting the two aspects of where I feel separate sometimes, that kind of
divine self and then that human part that feels everything.”
For M1, the fact that the deities were essentially human in appearance helped to
facilitate this quality of “bridging two distinct dimensions”, which she differentiated as
Appealing aspects of the image of the deity were identified as activating subtle, fast
sense of movement towards the deity resulted from participants seeing within the
image of the deity whatever they individually needed or wanted. For some, the deity
originally signified an attractive member of the opposite sex and then became an
195
dimension as follows:-
M1:-“The way you described him made him sound quite luscious and
exciting and I’ve looked at a few pictures of him and they differ slightly and er
… it’s hard to find one actually with the way you described. But I saw one
recently, um yeah and I could really see him again and actually I’m going to
get another picture of him and blow it up a bit bigger so I can really connect
with that visual again … because I find it really helpful ... and to really kind of
imagine that inside of me ... to clear and to purify … So with the Vajasattva
practice, we've used it a few times and I remember being quite kind of
mesmerised and excited by the way you were describing him, um, the first
time as this very kind of luscious deity. Yeah, yeah, just really connecting
with him strongly and him being first of all outside of me and, um, and the
colours and the gold and just the richness and the beauty of him, and then,
yeah, really sort of owning that possibility, that sense inside myself of that
manifestation of energy.”
M1 also described how she used the same sex deity Tara to find the extra resources
access Tara as enabling her to explore parts of herself which she would habitually
memory which she could then more deeply connect with and access in stressful
situations:-
“There's something about connecting with her energy that helped me to just
deepen into myself, to let go a little bit more and, um, some kind of tightness,
contraction in my body, some kind of blockage or fear or resistance and,
erm, she helps me to just go … go into the places I think that I'm pushing
against, somehow, and to just kind of allow it to be, and as I've used her
more over time I think there's more of a … that acceptance becomes like a
memory that then I can connect with a bit deeper maybe, you know, and at
certain points of really pulling her in, in more stressful situations I think, I
don't know, for some reason that seems to build a stronger sense of her
around me which continues.”
For other participants, the same sex element was significant for collective and
“archetypal” reasons. To J1, Tara was associated with a wise woman archetype, a
transform her own personal and pathologised experiencing into a wider existential,
196
dialectical relationship between the image of the deity and the perceiving subject, the
example, J1 described how visualising Tara enabled both the experience of nurture
and of healing:-
J1:-“She was kind of giving as much blue light as you need, kind of thing,
and I think the reason I really went for that as well was because when I first
started meditating, a long, long time ago when I was probably about
seventeen, so about twenty years ago, um … one of the first methods of
meditation that I did was when we imagined somebody … well I don't know
how we go to doing this, but I remember imagining, visualising, my
grandmother who had passed away – maybe it wasn't that long after she
passed away – and that she was feeding me blue medicine. So that
visualisation of being healed by the female, with this blue energy, with this
blue healing energy or light, was one of the first sort of methods that I used, I
suppose, or one that stuck in my mind anyway. And, um, so I've always
imagined this sort of like being fed a blue healing light or blue medicine,
which contains whatever it was I would need in order to restore or heal, and
so the Tara practice probably picked up on that, and, um, I think that's why,
and obviously with it being female, so … I think that's why it appealed to me.
And within the practice I just imagined this sort of vivid character that she is,
sort of all-knowing and sort of very motherly, but not in a motherly … it's
difficult to say, nurturing not motherly, nurturing, like a wise woman would
be. And um, understanding me, as a woman, understanding women's
suffering. Yeah, that's what I remember really.”
J1 then used the internalisation element of Deity Yoga to find the nourishment she
needed to heal her relationship with her daughter, and others with whom she was
sense of giving without depletion. This then impacted upon a previously held implicit
belief that damage done to others, or herself, in the past could not be healed or
transformed. Participants spontaneously and creatively took from the deity the self-
aspects which were most helpful to them and which were relevant to their own
psychohistory.
197
J1: - “A practice we did involving, was it Tara? It was female and that was
really, really helpful for me … Um what we did was, you were saying that
when we are healing ourselves we are healing the world as well and so I just
felt this connection. I remember quite vividly this sense of sharing that with
the world and I just felt like it was a source of comfort to imagine her um and
her capacity to understand suffering so that was really, really, useful. And I
think there was another really, really powerful thing, um, that I found was
imaging someone sitting opposite you, maybe C [participant's daughter], or
someone else or myself and imagining taking C to my breast and letting her
take whatever she needed ... And I suppose there were two different things
there, there was looking at the person sitting opposite and seeing what was
needed, maybe it was me when I was younger or someone I was having an
issue with or something like that, and there was this sense of having no limit
to my physical body and being able to give, to make up for what had
happened in the past … I think just nurturing, a nurturing feeling, of being
able to ... Because sometimes I felt like I just didn't have enough energy to
give, um, and sort of whether it being the physical, or emotionally or even
mentally, and using that meditation was, just felt like it was infinite and there
was no worry over having to feel depleted, or, it was feeding me as it was
feeding her”.
J1 also described how using the deity Tara impacted upon her capacity to view
situations and others differently, giving her a greater sense of vision and
interpersonal resource:-
“I was able to have a different perception of that situation and um to see that
person in a different light because we had had a conversation on another
level.”
The “archetypal” aspect of the deity engendered both general and idiosyncratic
spiritual “helper” developed in distinctive and unpredictable ways and was retained in
memory in the form most culturally acceptable for integration. For M2, the deity Tara
became an angel:-
“Then there was there was this vision in front in my head, quite small at first
about this size, like an egg and that was very light and bright either I went
into it or you suggested I go right into it to go and observe it closer to see
what it was and it turned into an angel and it was my angel. So that that
angel was bright white but I could see, I could feel, that it was a her and I
think this business of nurturing has been incredibly transformational for me. I
suppose I am still learning how to … how to deeply nurture myself and love
myself so this was just the start. And she was so beautiful and she accepted
me and she was completely unconditional love, which I hadn’t realised was
198
there for me in the universe, that began to lighten that darkness so I went
into her and she held me and I cried and cried and I cried a lot … so that’s
what began that transformation into the light. That beginning to understand
that I was loved and that um, that the pain that I had could be transformed
from a dark, dark colour to a gradual turning … Of course it doesn’t just go
from black to white. It had a process of transformation that it had to go
through, but that was the beginning of it.”
The realisation that this angelic, nurturing symbol was an aspect of herself was also
almost unnoticeable:-
“At the time I had forgotten how to love myself, and I was so critical of myself
and that … that self-nurture, when I realised that, and that was definitely
through your guidance, because that angel is myself, self-nurturing, being
kind, and unconditional love and compassion for myself, and it took that, it
took the therapy to draw me into that, make me see that. So yeah. Oh yeah,
yeah … I don't think of that so much now, I probably just sort of do it without
realising really …”
described her experience of accessing the light energy in herself and how it
“I liked our … I liked the work we did on the sutra of golden light, the
confessions, I loved that and that did used to make me feel very … I
suppose, transcendental is a bit of an exaggeration, but it does ... it felt like
an opening up to that aspect of my consciousness and that certainly did give
me a feeling of 'lightness' and ... compassion for the universe and... the
release of suffering of all beings … the relief I should say, of suffering of all
beings, which is what ... it really is a kind of plea for, really. So, yes, that
certainly did. And also the practices with light, the … just that, the use of
light, the use of the golden light, healing light … that did also make me feel
lighter, for sure … it was, it was … accessing that energy in myself and
giving it its movement, releasing the stuckness or something, you know,
because I can remember feeling quite thick and sticky and stuck, energy-
wise, so somehow it was ... giving it a little bit of momentum, yeah, and then
working with the light did that, you know the kind of... and turning it into
nectar and that kind of thing.”
199
Participants’ descriptions suggest that Deity Yoga facilitated points of connection and
described these blocks as occurring in relation to issues with the opposite sex, with
a) Breathing techniques
from 'heaviness' ('lightness') and as generating a sense of both new possibilities and
breathing with attention on the breath, which was often combined with the application
described these as having specifically different effects, the former facilitating a sense
of “centring” and moving attention into the body and the latter generating an
increase in “power” and life force. As breathing practices also formed part of guided
Participants’ descriptions suggest that breath can be a direct portal, giving rise to a
grounded sense of space and identity in which they felt enlivened. Breathing
connected participants to feeling grounded in the body, which then linked to a sense
of being in the present moment and to the surrounding context. This resulted in a
200
greater sense of 'aliveness', with the corresponding freedoms which renewed energy
brought.
contextually related grounded 'aliveness' and the 'lightness' associated with moving
forward through stuck and painful experiences into a greater sense of awareness.
the possibility of experiencing a “sense of self”, and “moving out of the head”, in
J2:- “I definitely retained that we always started off with slow breathing and
that we often focused that breathing into the heart. So we had as much, you
know, deeper breathing to get us into our sense of self and move us out of
our heads. So I always remember that being a prerequisite. I couldn't have
done it without, I mean, I wouldn't get the same powerful sense, you know,
I've done different things whether it's reiki, or, you know, other energy
healing and without the centred-ness of your breathing, and slow breathing,
you just don't get the same power in your experience.”
A similar sense of using breath (and in this case, also mantra) to move into a more
S:-“I experience it on a feeling level, but the practices help me notice what I
am feeling in my body, but I think if I was to stay in my head I wouldn’t be
able to release into the expansiveness, feeling able to expand myself … it
wouldn’t come from the mind aspect, it comes from the sense of self and
then this unknown or known quality that we seem to have.”
M2 described the deep, slow breathing as being the most significantly helpful aspect
of the therapy for her, helping her to “hold onto life” at points of acute vulnerability.
When asked in her first interview to use Embodied Focusing to see if there was
anything else which her body wanted to say about the experience of lightness, she
responded:-
“Yes, it’s about the breathing, about how important that has been. I have to
talk about this. You see when I first came to see you I thought I knew how to
breathe; I had done it before when I learnt transcendental meditation. So I
was irritated at first when you said we should breathe. And that first breath
201
M1 also described the essential nature of the deep slow breathing for her:-
”So, there's been a few, and I think I remember one, probably more recent,
where I had to breath in quite … really deeply, actually – as deep as I could
– and then hold it in and bolt the door at the top and bolt the door at the
bottom, and really just hold it in and then let it all out, and that feels very
innately necessary for me, I think”.
Two participants felt uncomfortable with the therapists’ deep slow breathing as if it
was reminding them of self-aspects which they were resistant towards or unaware
of:-
T:- “ There is one last thing, but it's not really... it's not a direct response to
your question, it’s just something that has arisen that I'd like to say, which is
an aside if you like. Which is that I can remember doing deep-breathing with
you … and I was always kind of fascinated by your deep breathing ... which
is really deep-breathing, and it felt like … that the depth that you went to
within yourself felt quite almost like you... you know, like it was really sort of,
sounded like quite primitive deep-breathing, almost like cat-like or
something, and I kind of sometimes used to find that a bit unnerving a little
bit, and that made me think well is there a kind of ... that really deep primitive
part of myself? Does that still frighten me a little bit? That somehow
something about what you were doing that used to make me feel a little bit
… mm, you know. And so I'm kind of curious about my response to that and
thinking maybe there's something deep down in me that is still kind of …
there's something there that I'm not a hundred percent comfortable about
accessing, the really deep primitive kind of energy maybe ...”
M2 also described how the deep, slow breathing enabled her to have a sense that
she was returning into herself. Each time she brought her attention back to her
points in the therapy and afterwards. M2 described in detail how she used breathing
practice many months after the therapy had finished to stop her grinding her teeth at
night:-
“But I want to talk about the breathing first. My teeth were grinding and
grinding and I had never had that before at night. And I kept asking myself
why, why, why is this happening to me. And things had got better and I had a
new job and I went to the dentist and the dentist had given me a tooth guard
to help with grinding. Well, that lasted a night and I wasn’t going to be
messing around with that anymore and then I realised it’s the breath.
Because when you breathe into your belly it relaxes the jaw helps to open it
up and stop the grinding. So I told myself that for a couple of days, you are
not going to grind your teeth any more, you are going to breathe. And that’s
what I did. Literally, within a couple of days, it had stopped.”
“The breathing brought me into a new space that’s for sure and allowed me
to access what’s really going on for me. I found that really, really comforting
and calming.”
with his heart and his mind. He found the more regular “centring” breathing
J3:- “Um I remember you saying take a moment and feeling into what was
going on at the time as well as the breathing. The breathing allowed me
space to really find out what was going on inside. You would ask me to
explore what in my body would like space and attention right now and my
breath would seek it out … It made me realise that it isn’t so much that I
need yoga but that I need meditation because that is what takes me into that
place, the breathing … Breath, time out, surfing, that’s amazing, the ocean
enables me to connect with my heart and my mind.”
203
visualisations and how this became integrated into his life outside the therapy:-
“Yes, it was a visualisation where we brought down light through layers, first
we did breath work and then this light came through the body and there was
also the 'Planet of Healing' where every breath was cleansing. That was
really healing, that was really good as pain relief through that whole divorce
process … I think because I got married so young, actually it was actually all
I could remember and that process, I thought it went on for longer than it did,
it felt like it didn’t stop in the therapy room it went on extending outwards it
was like I was being fed and I was using it a lot to check in with I mean
outside the sessions as well.”
S described how both breathing and mantra gave rise to a spring like quality of
potency and hope and breath became a metaphor for life, of giving in and giving out.
described how using both breath and mantra created a sensory quality of sweetness
S:-“Breath I’ve learnt also to be for me, a metaphor for life, taking things in,
giving them out. Being able to create a sort of even-ness of in and out breath
and also being able to be okay with its changes.”
““The breath helps me, um, come into that. And notice my state of being and
what actually needs to exercise itself [laughter] in a way, or be heard … Yes,
I guess, once I had become familiar with breath and sound an awareness
begins to grow that I am not just thought, not just emotions …the practices
lent a sweetness to meeting even difficult emotions. It would now seem
bizarre in a therapeutic environment not to explore into those elements of
self, the breath, the sound. I am not greatly comfortable with the word
spiritual but spiritual aspects, the things that encourage a sense of being,
that seems to me to have been a very important sense that I can come into a
sense of integrated in myself, that I can get through challenging times, or
even that in those times I can meet myself.”
S also described her use of breath and mantra as reducing her sense of aloneness
and isolation by affirming a sense that she is neither “separate” nor “singular.”
S:-”It feels a very personal experience, but it also makes me feel very aware
also of a sense of greater connection which, looking at it purely from a
therapeutic point of view, what it’s done for me is when you are feeling very
challenged, no matter how many family or friends you have you can feel very
alone and that in itself can cause a lot of additional suffering and from the
204
For some participants, combining attention to breath with Embodied Focusing gave a
J3:-“I suppose it’s almost a form of direction, breathing and finding when
you’re taking that time to breathe its giving you and your body space and
that takes you to that place. So I mean I used to do it, I don’t so much now,
but at home I would make a decision when I was going through the divorce
and all that. I used to use breathe to check out my wellness, checking into
each organ, is it grief, is it bereavement? It brings stillness … it really helped
with the adrenal rush that I was experiencing, that butterflies feeling in the
body.”
contextually related grounded 'aliveness' and the 'lightness' associated with moving
forward through stuck and painful experiences into a greater sense of awareness.
b) Mantra
Two participants described mantra, a combination of visualisation and sound, as
energy, the accessing of a distinctive quality to 'aliveness'. For S, the power of the
sound aspect of mantra was intensified by regular practice, enabling her to develop
because I don’t feel that I’m kind of bogged down, you keep your
kinaesthetic energy going.”
emotional experiences into the weight of sediment. Together with breathing practice,
reducing aloneness and giving her a subtle strength to explore previously avoided
territories.
J1:-“Yes, we did some breathing and you told me the sounds, Om, and to
visualise a white light at the top of the head I think it was and then red at the
throat and the Ah sound and then blue at the heart. That was really, really
effective for me and I would use that at home and take myself off and do that
and just get myself back to balance. I felt that was really, really effective and
I had never used, I had looked at chanting when I had looked at meditation
but I had never used it and it was only when I first came to you and we did
that, with the visualisation, that really unlocked it for me and I really found
that a benefit through that. It appealed to me because well, you introduced it
to me as something that would just sort of help slow things down and sort of
… clear? It felt like sort of like a cleansing, and like a connection. And with
the … because it was visualizing colour, which I … and visualizing the
chakras that really, really spoke to me because I'm very visual – and I just
could feel a tangible change in my body, and I think the reason why I really
liked it is because it felt familiar in some way to me, and also because it was
just so simple and so effective, so even if I did just have five minutes to take
myself away, then it's something I could do and I think at the time also ... the
timing, it was a very, very … you know, things were going on with C, it was a
really, really, stressful home life. And, just to … it sometimes felt like the only
way I could be alone was to sort of lock myself in the bedroom where she
couldn't, perhaps, sort of force her way in. Um ... and so, that was really
helpful for me because I'd just disappear upstairs, lock the door and do my
sort of Om and do the whole thing and I did feel, I did find it was immediately
effective for me. Yeah, I do remember, I remember saying 'oh I really like
that', I just remember sort of saying 'oh I really like that, yeah I really got a lot
from that', and I almost felt like a relief, that I had some sort of tools that I
could immediately work with, and I think I just started using it myself at home
straight away.”
206
J1 clearly remembered using the visualisation at the same time as chanting the
mantra, which gave her a sense of being in a temple and of the body itself being a
temple.
J1:-” With the mantra could just feel the change in my body, things slowing
down, and things becoming peaceful. I felt that my body was a temple, I
have never really said that before.”
She described the effects of mantra as resulting from a “filling of the space”, and
“Because it's almost like being in a temple then isn't it? It's what you imagine,
because of the chanting. And it's kind of reverberating in your head, in your
eyes, and it just sort of does push everything back doesn't it? It just –it fills
the space doesn't it? It fills that space that might be filled with … if you're
trying to start off meditation and you've got chatter going on or any anxieties
or 'what's that noise outside?' or anything like that, but when you're using
that particular exercise, it does just fill the space. And it just focuses you on
… well it doesn't focus you on anything, it just becomes what you're doing,
so everything else is pushed away and it does feel like a relief, yeah.”
Descriptions suggested that mantra had, for some participants a capacity to liberate
them from “congested” and uncomfortable emotional and mental states, enabling a
positive effect for these two participants resulted in it being frequently utilised,
idiosyncratically derived meanings from the visualisation, the shared constituent was
an amplified sense of the body’s capacity to heal itself in a different place generated
'aliveness'. For J3, this visualisation worked effectively as pain relief during a difficult
divorce process:-
J3:-“There was also the 'Planet of Healing' where every breath was
cleansing. That was really healing, that was really good as pain relief
through that whole divorce process … I think because I got married so
young, actually it was actually all I could remember and that process, I
thought it went on for longer than it did, it felt like it didn’t stop in the therapy
room it went on extending outwards it was like I was being fed and I was
using it a lot to check in with, I mean outside, the sessions as well.”
associations for J3, leaving him with an overriding sense of safety and security in
J3:-“Yes absolutely I particularly remember the nectar. That was kind of like
… it was almost like … I remember at that point there was an element of, I
don’t want to use the word fulfilment but like nutrition, almost like a feeding. I
felt like I was being fed, like I was being fertilised. Um, I suppose I just felt
totally secure I suppose. There was a sense of security .I suppose it’s a bit
like, I am relating it to um, yeah it’s like um how do I put it… it was almost
like an emotional physical….Okay when you have a connection with food
and I don’t know why I am linking this with food, but you know what it’s like
when you have … There, I suppose when you feel fulfilled, you feel full but
you feel satisfied. It’s that comfort, its feeling comforted really.”
beautiful sensory experiences, and this was integrated outside of the therapy in
208
different by each participant. J2 found that the most significant aspects of the guided
visualisation was the sense of 'lightness' which came from being able to detach
himself from his mental processes and transform an attitude of self-blame into
J2: “One practice I remember that we did was more when I was going
through, you know, the aftermath of a break up and we did quite a few
healing practices on the self and there was one where we went to a healing
planet, and it was a beautiful place and I remember that instilling inside me a
sense of how to have compassion for yourself and nurture yourself and
nourish your soul and your emotions and that made me aware that when you
are suffering you are putting yourself in that place and I remember initially
having more of a blame attitude. One can think that the external factors in
one’s life like a break up or a boss, whatever the situation, are the causes of
one’s own suffering, but when one takes responsibility for oneself and has
compassion for oneself, I can change it and reformulate it into a healing.”
J2 described his sense of the relief from habitual, heavy preoccupations of attention
afforded by the vivid description within the visualisation. The connection between
external beauty and internal qualities such as compassion also provide a sense of
coherence between the inner world and the outer. This enabled him to access the
“Those things on their own could be nurtured more in a healing planet and I
could detach myself away from any mental interference or in the sense of
blame, whether it's blaming the other person or myself in a break up. So I felt
that was much more nurturing for me, because I think at that time I needed
more – I didn't need to understand why the break-up had happened – but I
needed more, and I know this sounds like a bit of a cliché, I needed to know
how to nurture myself in a self-loving way, and it's a bit like having a bath or
a shower. You know, a shower can be very practical whereas a bath can be
very … you can wallow in and nurture … And that wallowing and nurturing is
so much better than any medicine or even thought patterns and I felt that for
me that healing planet was a very simple but very powerful thing to do
because I can do it very easily, whereas I didn't find cutting the cord was that
easy because my mind was too involved. Erm, so my overall sense, because
209
there's so much vivid description in there that's very … takes you to energy, I
think it all takes you to your pure soul or your source, that's what all your
descriptions are doing all the time, so it's a repetitive thing. And there were
so many things in there, obviously the use of colours, which is a very pure
thing, the use of … taking things out, that maybe limiting thoughts or things
like the sun could burn you, you know, you've taken that out of the equation.
So you've taken out things along the way that just strip everything down to
source, so very very quickly opens … so at the beginning you said there are
no people there, so instead of having a sense of loneliness it was the
opposite, I felt totally at one with my soul, you took the people out, you took
the sunburn out, you took any … it was all nature, there was nothing man
made there. You took everything out that could play with my thoughts –
everything was experiential and feeling, there wasn't one thing in there that
took me into a thought pattern. Which was great, because that's where we
wanted to be, we wanted to be at source, peaceful, you know, feeling that
pure love that we all have in our soul that is messed around with when we
allow other thoughts to come in. So that was the whole thing, there wasn't
one thing that took me away from my source. Yeah … that was powerful,
yeah.”
This moved attention away from defensive, contracted, self-destructive relating and
thought energy to give myself a much more sense of nurturing and heart
focus, which was going to make me feel better.”
When B enquired, using embodied focusing, into which practices had generated an
The humour which B gained from having a wider perspective contained the
'lightness' of relief at a release from “crazy thought patterns”. This visualisation was
remembered differently by each participant. B did not remember where the fire was
placed in the body, or how it was used to generate more heat in the heart. Instead,
she recalled the “bigness” of the fire which mirrored her thought patterns, and the
humour and relief at being able to detach herself from her constricting “head”. This
also engendered a sense of peacefulness. Visualising the fire made B aware of the
extent to which she had been dominated by the “noise” in her head:-
… I remember feeling quite surprised, when you actually said: 'no, just take
your head off'. [Laughter]
So, then this, erm, just like element of humour and its like, that was the
medicine I needed, I actually just needed to get my head off. And it was like,
almost as I'm feeling into it now the head, my head coming off and being
burnt in these flames, yet as I was witnessing it, I was still there witnessing it,
so that self is there witnessing, so it was as if like, by doing that there was
this real humour and sense of laughing at myself, yet a tremendous amount
of kind of peace, of 'thank god my head's off!' Or like, that that's stopped that
noise. And I could kind of see it burning in the fire, and almost could see it
for what it was, because it was my head, and I'm there witnessing, so there
was just a detachment, a healthy detachment from my crazy thought
patterns that were happening at the time, or the spirals of patterns. Erm,
yeah and it just really brought a 'lightness' to it because no matter what
was ... how intense I felt that my thoughts were, you know, when they were
off and burning in the fire with my head, it was kind of … I had to laugh at it
all! Because there was that, yeah I was there witnessing, so I could see,
yeah that this was all just in my head, it wasn't really happening to my true
being, or self. to it because no matter what was ... how intense I felt that my
thoughts were, you know, when they were off and burning in the fire with my
head, it was kind of … I had to laugh at it all!”
B described unnecessary parts of her mind being burnt away, leaving her with a
sense of clear mind.
“It was long ago, but erm, I'm getting a sense of, at the beginning I felt like I
had no head, because I was watching it burn and then as it was burning it
wasn't like I felt like I took that back and put it on in any kind of way, it felt like
what was burning was all the unnecessary parts of my mind. So there that
was clear, that sense of clear mind.”
For both participants, B and J3, in different ways, this visualisation brought about a
sense of 'lightness' and freedom from an enclosing self-aspect and finding a method
in which unhelpful thoughts could be used to benefit “the heart” or a “wider sense of
spirit”.
experience in therapy which gave her the greatest sense of 'lightness' and
'aliveness'. This resulted from finding a means of accessing, releasing and healing
T:-“ When I thought about the question the first thing that came to mind was
the practice that we used to do which involved going inside and finding a
place in your body and then giving … giving some kind of form to the pain
which, erm, one could then communicate with and I seem to remember
using a black dog, and then conversing with the dog which told me how
angry it was … about what I was doing job-wise and how I was
compromising my integrity … and then after having listened to the dog,
feeding the dog with nectar, so actually the kind of healing process as well,
and after. … and actually after that feeling a huge sense of relief that, that I
had a tool with which I could access my dark side, I suppose, and the anger,
and ... that I could also nurture it and heal it and somehow that this particular
practice gave me a sort of tool to release but also to heal, and it felt
empowering, it felt as if I … somehow had control and didn't need to be so
frightened of the pain and the anger. Yeah, so that's one of them…. And I
had a huge, somehow, it gave a huge sense of relief ... to be able, to able to
do that, and also to listen to it...”
This was empowering for T as she felt freed from the weight of dependency upon
“I think the thing is that I'm … I do find, um, crying hard, but to actually
dialogue somehow for me I can cope with that, but actually to sort of
physically sort of release a feeling of pain and suffering through tears is
hard. So, um, that actually ... that dialogue, some mechanism is much safer
for me...pause] Well what … what arises is that um, I ... I have a tool, I have
been given a tool to work with myself that means I can heal myself, I'm not
dependent on anybody else, I can ... I can go in there and do it myself, as a
daily practice and that felt ... good, just so, um, I suppose the... I say relief,
and joy, and empowerment, sort of, the feeling of just somehow being ... I
had the key to my kind of well-being.”
T described how this particular practice changed her by enabling her to transform
“And I do think it changed me, I think it made me much more confident in the
sense that in my tool box I had these magic tools... [laughter] to er, you
know, work with something if it really needed to come up, I could... I could
work with it, I knew how to do it, and I knew how to respect it and um give it
the love and nurturing that it really needs and not to be frightened of it. That's
what...that's the beauty of that particular practice, the nectar and the real
compassion of it, is having that compassion towards oneself and, and dark
deeds that one might have done or you know all that that's stored inside.”
213
The 'lightness' and 'aliveness' in this case resulted from the combination of “relief, joy
and empowerment” at being able to make changes to her own experiencing which
and 'aliveness'.
embodied answers and explanations to arising issues. Sessions would begin with
embodied enquiry, what aspects of their experience would most benefit from space
positive impact of Focusing. J described how Focusing clarified exactly what was
happening for her, bringing into her awareness significantly helpful images to
J1:-“It just clarifies exactly what is going on for me so to use that is always
really, really helpful to me, to figure out what exactly is going on in my body
and in my emotions. And the tail. I use the tail as well, that is something I
use and I sometimes I feel angel wings. But the tail was particularly
important in terms of who I am … Well I think what it was, there was
something I had injured in my back and you were guiding me through,
helping me to find where it was in the body and what it felt like and I think it
felt like it just wanted to grow and then keep growing into a thick dragon’s
tail. In Chinese astrology I am a dragon and I suppose I always quite liked
the idea of that and, um, and that, I know I can sometimes be a bit bossy
and I know the tail made me not be embarrassed about that. That it’s just a
part of me and it’s important for my balance. A tail can be important for
balance; I really feel it’s a part of who I am.”
Participants described how Focusing enabled them to trust that they had answers
inside themselves.
214
J2:- “I discovered that I could find answers from inside myself, from listening
to my heart. That was so helpful.”
Some participants described how Focusing helped them to realise that the mind and
M:- “I learnt that everything which came up from my body to my mind was
relevant … that they were interconnected. … I think at the beginning it was
kind of offered like this would be a good way to start, and then after that it
was suggested or, no, it was kind of up to me: 'how would you want to start
it?' And then to the point where I think I'd just come in and I'd just sort of
breathe and I'd feel: do I want deep breaths? What do I need right now? And
so that would be really good because I'd taken on those resources and
actually um … you know as I do in my daily life now, just feel into what is
needed right now, or what actually would be sometimes most beneficial right
now depending on what was arising at the moment.”
5.4. Generic visualisations: 'Cutting the Ties that Bind' and the Gestalt 'Empty
Chair' technique.
Two participants described finding the visualisation of 'Cutting the Ties that Bind'
helpful. J2, in his second interview, compared the 'Planet of Healing' visualisation
and the effects of the 'Cutting the Ties that Bind' exercise. His description conveys
finding the former more effective but reflects that may have been because he did not
do it repeatedly. He also reflected that the very image of cutting a cord brought up
and healing. He described his experience of this as being akin to wallowing in a bath,
which he related to the tie-cutting exercise. He believed that everyone would prefer
“I needed to know how to nurture myself in a self-loving way, and it's a bit
like having a bath or a shower. You know, a shower can be very practical
whereas a bath can be very … you can wallow in and nurture … And that
wallowing and nurturing is so much better than any medicine or even thought
patterns and I felt that for me that healing planet was a very simple but very
powerful thing to do because I can do it very easily, whereas I didn't find
cutting the cord was that easy because my mind was too involved.”
“Well I remember two … so, along with the healing planet there was, so the
cord cutting by way of a cord of light. [The healing planet was] more of an
energetic as opposed to maybe, sometimes what's described as a physical
cord cutting, and I remember, well just thinking now about it, how the two
really positioned themselves against each other and I found that the cord
cutting can work sometimes but for me it hasn't worked fully, and I've done it
many times um … because it, and it sounds a bit ironic this, but there's still
too many things attached. Even when one cuts a cord, it isn't as simple as
just visualising me and a break off of that person– Because one still carries a
lot of things either in one’s head or in one’s cellular memory. Um ... that said,
it wasn't a waste of time, because I think that it's a thing that if repeated it
can engender a sense of letting go. So, it can be a tool to train oneself to let
down and I think for some people, maybe it’s just me maybe I need to do it
more repeatedly, but it wasn't enough on its own. So, compared to that, the
healing planet was much more um … fruitful, because it allowed me to go
into a place of, you know, I guess physiological nurturing, which, you know,
and my physiology holds my energy.”
M1 described her sense of 'Cutting the Ties that Bind' as providing a relief from the
others:-
“We also did, I think we did like cutting of ties, as well, like that kind of work
… Yeah, I think like a figure eight, and since then I've done it with other
people and on my own, where I'm on one part of the round bit, the figure of
eight, and then they're in the other part. And oh yes, cutting ties to old
partners, we did that, and all of the fragments that I felt that I'd been left with,
or the heaviness from our encounters. I think I felt a relief, actually, and to do
the work for it felt really … felt like a strong, necessary ritualistic process …It
felt like it was, um, what's the word? Um … practical, yeah, a good practical
thing to do, on an etheric level.”
M1 also described finding the Gestalt 'Empty Chair' technique helpful, as the
experience of allowing herself to express her true feelings towards them was
“Yeah, and I remember also doing some visualisations of, you know, my
mother and father and that's maybe more of a Gestalt thing, but you know
and really speaking to them as if they were on the chair, and that stayed with
me. The usefulness of that.”
relation to specific issues. I will now briefly summarise the contribution of each
pathway:-
5.1. Deity Yoga was described by participants as being helpful for bridging
vulnerable and divine self-aspects, transcending beyond stuck and painful places in
5.2.
of “grounded but spacious” identity, finding new directions and new internal
territories, developing a trust in the coherence of life and the self, revitalising “heavy”
movement of attention from the mind to the body or the heart. It was also described
embodied equilibrium which helped participants to “hold onto life” at times of crisis
and overwhelm.
(b) Mantra was described by participants as helpful for the immediate cleansing and
sensations in the body, “pushing back” habitual anxieties and both “filling space” by
(c) (i) The 'Planet of Healing' visualisation was described by the participants as
comfort and nurture. The nuance of 'lightness' associated with this visualisation
heal. Vivid sensory description and experiencing provided relief from heavy and
'lightness' was associated with freedom from constriction. Liberation from this
there were other options other than being trapped in the “noise” of the “head.” This
attention were used. An element of humour was associated with this visualisation as
participants described the sudden awareness that fire could be purifying and that the
mind which had previously dominated attention could be used to generate energy for
(iii) The 'Feeding Your Demons' visualisation became a pathway to 'lightness' and
past and the present. This occurred by accessing, listening to and healing repressed
and previously denied self-aspects. A sense of 'aliveness' was also evident in the
participant’s description of “joy and empowerment” and a release from the “shackles”
'aliveness' in the body. A nuance of 'lightness' also emerged from the realisation that
the body’s intuitions could be accessed and trusted and that the mind and the body
could work together. Focusing also provided the creative 'aliveness' which resulted
from spontaneously arising images providing answers to both implicit and explicit
5.4. Generic visualisations included the 'Cutting the Ties that Bind' visualisation,
and the Gestalt 'Empty Chair' technique. The sense of 'lightness' associated with the
'Cutting the Ties that Bind' visualisation resulted from the release of the embodied
that this visualisation was most helpful if a period of time had elapsed since the
relationships.
The Gestalt 'Empty Chair' technique was described by one participant as providing a
To reiterate, this study revealed that there were five essential constituents to
now address these concerns more directly by focusing on three specific questions.
These are:-
In answering this question, I will first explore what my findings reveal in terms of my
I will then explore these phenomena in relation to how my findings affirm, challenge
wellbeing. I also felt they were the closest approximation I could achieve to a
had asked him how he could gauge, when he first woke up, how he was feeling
221
emotionally and having reflected for a few moments he replied that on good days he
Following this study, my initial sense of the value in using such experiential language
has been confirmed. Researching this phenomenon has provided descriptions which
are free from psychological jargon and which are trans-theoretical and trans-cultural.
Participants’ descriptions moved naturally from the personal (the province of the
West) to the transpersonal (the province of the East). 'Lightness' and 'aliveness' may
and 'aliveness' suggest an inherent buoyancy to the human condition. The words
Heideggarian (1971) sense, the words themselves call these states into existence.
participants may have responded if I had enquired into the phenomena of 'heaviness'
perhaps best identified in Martin Buber’s (1937) concept of I-Thou relating. Being
connected to wider fields, discarding previous identities for more liberated ones, also
charged by my own drive to authenticity to name my sense that these are enclosing
rather than expansive territories. My felt experience in so doing is akin to placing wild
Levinas (1961) and Martin Buber (1937) on the experience of ethical relating and
'Heaviness' as Pain
The first emotional territory identified in this study was that of obstructions to
understanding client’s pain has been identified by all the main theoretical traditions –
and fears. Without an awareness of the client’s experience of pain, empathy, trust,
need to understand and gain insight into their experience of pain (Timaluk 2007)
which in turn impacts upon meaning-making, and the depth of trust in the therapeutic
beneficial sessions of therapy began with experiences of pain, and that successful
223
sense of stuckness, and the search for meanings and understandings which could
participants’ descriptions resulting from embodied enquiry in this study revealed that
The importance of the therapeutic relationship, empathy and 'mirroring' was affirmed
specific social contexts, painful past experiences which had been overlooked
the point of being perceived by others. This supports the psychoanalytic hypothesis
that repressing pain reduces social ease and empowerment and activates defence
perceptions of others. Not being spiritually seen and met diminished client’s sense of
224
themselves and, overall, clients became more fully present when more of the self
was seen. The importance of being spiritually seen and met affirms Sperry’s (2012)
The power of being witnessed while in deep personal processing reduced previous
self-doubt, illuminating how the experience of being perceived by others can be self-
the perceiver. This finding resonates with Merleau-Ponty’s (1945) belief in the
quality to presence, the therapist’s confidence in the practices, her own perceived
presence, also added to the potency of being seen. This has resonances with Kunz’s
therapist:-
“Even without speaking, the client asks the therapist to use the freedom he
has invested in her to attend to him.” (2015, p. 228).
perceptions arising in any single moment, activating meanings and feelings. This is
“Each time I experience a sensation, I feel it concerns not my own being, the
one for which I am responsible and for which I make decisions, but another
self which has already sided with the world, which is already open to certain
of its aspects and synchronised with them.” (1948, p. 214-16).
component of suffering, the importance of sharing life narratives and themes, and of
a warm and secure holding frame. Descriptions identified the importance of stories
coming into the open, conveying a sense of the importance of 'airing' a story; of
bringing it into the space between therapist and client as much as to the therapist. A
225
need to trust in a forward moving and comprehending sense of being was explicated
emphasis on the self-concept as critical to well-being, and the need for a liberated,
therapist who was attuned to them and felt safe and was genuinely engaged with the
adapted Vajrayana practices being transmitted. Castonguay and Beutler list the
resources, an increasing at-homeness within the body and a trust in its forward
moving impulses. This is consistent with research findings on the power of the client
positive therapeutic outcome. This finding was also consistent with research studies
into Focusing (Hendricks 2002), which reveal the contribution that the client makes
by identifying felt shifts in the body which provide answers to positive therapeutic
move forward. The recurrent use of the word “presence” to describe freedom as
Ponty’s (1964) descriptions of the visible and invisible, a sense of being intertwined
Within the experience of freedom as independence was a nuance of relief from the
place” just as one is. Participants accessed an existential territory which felt lighter
and fuller than previously, the felt sense of “fullness” decreased feelings of isolation
and fear, and this resonates with Bradford’s (2009) description of a quality of an
unconditioned space, which can be evoked in therapy. This “zone of undoing” was
soothing, self-reliance, new meaning making, changed assumptions about life, self
“The contextual model posits that the specific ingredients not only create
expectations [...] but universally produce some salubrious actions. That is,
the therapist induces the patient to enact some healthy actions, whether that
may be thinking about the world in less maladaptive ways and relying less
on dysfunctional schemas (cognitive-behavioral treatments), improving
interpersonal relations (interpersonal psychotherapy and some dynamic
therapies), being more accepting of one's self (self-compassion therapies,
acceptance and commitment therapy), expressing difficult emotions
228
seen to function as a social skill, in addition to positively impacting upon the self-
positive impact upon others, enabling them to move into deeper states of “presence”
and “heart consciousness.” Maslow (1964), and Seligman (2006) and researchers
into the benefits of compassion practices have affirmed the importance of altruism
and caring for others to well-being and self-esteem. The emphasis which
Acceptance and Commitment (Hayes 2012) therapy has given to value-based living
“Our relationship to the true passes through others. Either we go towards the
true with them, or it is not towards the true that we are going.” (1970, p.31).
epistemological and ontological frame for the psychological therapies, one closer to
the reality of embodied experiencing and faithful to the lived experience of freedom
which, in these descriptions, has roots in the transpersonal. This would also provide
wider horizons of living and meaning, and the possibility of a different future which
associations with Jung’s (2011) definition of libido or life force energy as psychic,
forward moving energy. An increase in energy and sensory experiencing has also
involved a capacity to witness the self and a closer relationship to the rhythms of the
natural world. Another participant’s description of being both “fed and fertilised”
response to embodied focusing and two specific visualisation practices, Deity Yoga
and the 'Planet of Healing' . This nuance involved an increasing capacity to find
feeling excited before each session to see what might happen. This was evocative of
sense of trust in the inner and outer world, of being carried forward to a future which
felt open and potent with creative possibilities. This has resonances with Bradford’s
“It seems to me that the ontological and epistemological basis for a mature
Transpersonal Psychology must be the recognition that human experience is
quintessentially trans-, impermanent, a phenomenon of motility that cannot
be captured within the notion of a Self (or Other) as a static, encapsulated
entity. To maintain fidelity to transpersonal experience and experientially
based therapies,selfhood is best understood as a process that is both
intersubjective, embedded in and inseparable from the world of others and
otherness, and intentional, a meaning seeking project hurtling through a time
that it co-creates.” (2009, p.124).
It was again difficult within the psychological research literature to find detailed
Western psychological literature tends to focus upon the attaining states of normal
of Seligman (2006) and Maslow (1964) affirms what these findings suggest: that a
more expansive and more open sense of self generates an increasing sense of well-
being and happiness. Humanistic and existential theories explore what Maslow
(1965), developed exercises to open the senses, increase experiences of beauty and
awaken the higher transcendent elements of human functioning. Findings from this
particular study make visible the manner in which transcendent experiences can
infuse both day to day living and the most damaged aspects of the psyche.
more fully functioning person who emerges from therapy as someone open to new
began to identify a sense of self more existentially capable than had previously been
assumed. For some participants, this developed from a realisation of the possibility
of living from the “heart” or from the spiritual part of themselves. The descriptions of
the value of a new or improved sense of self and its links to feelings of 'lightness' and
were expressed, which resulted in more spontaneous and fearless relating and a
growing respect for the creative autonomy of the self. Carl Rogers (1958) described
this as a moving away from the pole of defensiveness to the pole of openness to
experience, and Bradford (2009 p.6) as resulting from a “freedom from the
The fourth constituent involved the integration of freedom and possibility into
participants’ daily lives. There was an organic sense of purpose, of being able to
mould and transform the self and surrounding concerns and engagements which
resonates with Western themes of agency and empowerment, without any loss of
sensitive responding.
This newly gained sense of self combined with a determination not to surrender
the wider world. This was linked to an increased emphasis on values and a
of presence into the wider community. A further nuance of this constituent was the
use of tools to maintain and develop the new sense of self. Participant T described
the relief of having a “key” to her own well-being. Other participants had similar
words for this experience: a “set of tools”, a “magic tool box”, a “set of keys”, a
“walking staff” to take with them and apply in challenging situations. These gave
narratives were reduced by moving attention from the fear or the specific situation to
this section, the use of tools relates to the process of clients’ experience of
component of integration was loss of fear. The freedom and vitality required to
creatively mould the self instead of passively absorbing experiences resulted from
233
experiences which made expansion exciting and safe rather than threatening.
Embodied Focusing and specific Vajrayana practices, such as Deity Yoga and the
The participants in this study came into therapy as a consequence of suffering from
what would be classified within the psychological literature as degrees of anxiety and
Ollendick write:-
The interventions used in this study can similarly be mapped to the above. However,
a considerable amount of the content of participants’ descriptions cannot be
psychologically mapped, as it makes reference to existential territories which are not
234
Bohart and Wade also conclude their analysis on the role of the client in
psychotherapeutic outcome. It has also made visible the subtle networks that form
relationships to others, to the body and to the natural world, and their contribution
both to well-being and to depression and anxiety. This study of the phenomena of
the felt experiences of heaviness and pain which bring clients into therapy, thereby
of knowing more about how these states are lived in personal and interpersonal
domains. Investigating the client’s experiences of 'lightness' and 'aliveness' has also
doing, it has made apparent that for these participants, freedom and identity had
deep roots in transpersonal experiencing. This study has therefore also affirmed the
need for a more expansive ontological and epistemological frame for psychological
research literature, one more inclusive of the manner in which the transpersonal
I will first explore the evidence from my findings in support of this theoretical
assumption, making links to relevant literature, before exploring factors which are
facilitative both of this integration and those which might present challenges.
The evidence from my findings which has most relevance to this question are
research has identified these meditations have distinctly different effects on the brain
236
separating Deity Yoga from breathing and mantra in their descriptions. Participants
also took from the adapted practices what they found particularly helpful to work with
My findings identified that using Deity Yoga combined with Focusing can result in a
reduction of the constriction of fixed identities. The sense of 'lightness' which then
depression and anxiety, whether these related to guilt, sadness or lack of self-love.
sense of the ‘limitless’ in terms of giving and healing, lovingness and self-healing.
I will now review descriptions of each deity described, to identify particular nuances
of experiencing and their relevance to psychotherapeutic efficacy.
of self-nurture, the manner in which she was described having adding to the power
237
feminine energy, facilitating feelings of love, nurture and openness to self and others.
understood and had compassion for women’s suffering. In this respect, she provided
both a role model for living and a secure internal base as a holding mother. The
archetypal element of Tara made her easier to reach out to than more abstract
aspect and one which experienced emotional pain, thereby providing a means of
resource which developed over time and became easier to access during stressful
situations. Further specific nuances relating to Tara Deity Yoga can be summarised
abundance, realising that the qualities of Tara were within themselves thereby
the Deity Yoga adapted practice of Tara was sometimes remembered in fragments
and mixed up with other practices such as Tonglen and the 'Planet of Healing'
visualisation, the themes of which also related to compassionate giving and ‘limitless’
receiving.
experiencing his qualities within, then believing oneself capable of manifesting those
238
energies. Further descriptions involved the purification of states of suffering and loss
Participants experienced increased interest and trust in the self, the future and the
outside world. They also experienced less negative rumination and affect relating to
Overall, Deity Yoga involving both Tara and Vajasattva enabled points of connection
and expansive fusion in which blocks to expansion could dissipate, whether they
involved issues relating to the opposite sex, family members, friends or with own
(2006) belief that Vajrayana practices work most effectively in contexts in which
can provide a profound release from early traumatic experiences. This finding also
lends support to Jedrczak’s (1985) study which found Deity Yoga to be effective with
clients experiencing shame-based inhibitions, which can result from the complexes
integration and agency is reminiscent of Ann Klein’s (1995) reflections that Tibetan
the visualisations and rich description inherent to Deity Yoga functioning from a
In terms of the impact upon the therapeutic relationship of using adapted Deity Yoga
was relevant to their own life-world as opposed to feeling they were simply absorbing
the therapists’ values and perspectives. Tjeltvieit (1997) has identified the inevitable
participants mentioned that the therapist’s confidence and belief in the Deity Yoga
Loizzo (2000, p 56), comparing meditation practices with psychotherapy, cites the
research studies of Cooper (1999) and Shapiro et al. (1998) and concludes:-
”The positive health bias of meditative therapies may heighten therapeutic
optimism, but meditative traditions recognise the depth of resistance and
base their optimism on depth-analytic methods and empathic skills that may
help correct the pathologizing bias of disease based conventional models .”
This study affirms the view that adapted Deity Yoga practices work effectively in
Breathing was identified by all of the participants in this study as giving rise to
identified as resulting from the sense breathing practices gave them of being
“grounded” in the body and of consequently noticing the present moment and its
equilibrium, providing a grounded sense of space and identity which they could
attach to, adding power to experiences of healing, enabling a shift in focus from the
“themselves”, feeling connected to others, and to life. Breathing also gave rise to the
Breathing techniques are now widely used as a treatment for stress reduction in
cognitive therapy (Segal et al. 2002). Yogic breathing, which has strong similarities
to the Vajrayana deep slow breathing applied in this study, has been shown to
Findings from my study reveal that both attention to normal breathing commonly
associated with Mindfulness practices and the deep slow breathing associated with
the same time as generating expansive feelings of pleasure and healing described
An unexpected finding was that two participants found hearing my own deep slow
distrust of primitive self-aspects and reminding them of areas of their own resistance.
iv) Mantra
'lightness' and 'aliveness' by two participants. Mantra had two specific components, a
visual description and the making of sounds. Mantra was described by participants
from 'heaviness' – a relief at being able to access another part of the self quickly and
easily, by filling the space and pushing back everything else, by cleansing, and by
242
providing tools to work with. Mantra was described as giving rise to experiences of
stuck energy, keeping kinaesthetic energy going, slowing down the rhythm of the
body and creating peace, as well as generating a felt sense of freedom and potency.
Research into the effectiveness of mantra is limited, but recent studies have
explored the impact of mantra on the nervous system and upon memory. Gurjar
(2009) has demonstrated the potential of mantra to have a positive effect upon
relaxation and healing, and Balaram et al. (2012) found mantra could improve
memory function. Gurjar concluded his research into the effects of mantra on the
From a psychotherapeutic perspective, mantra worked both visually and through the
experiences. This appears to have made immediate positive impact upon the self-
concept. Mantra was introduced as purifying body, speech and mind and was
dedicated to the benefit of all beings, which introduced the concepts of high
expectation combined with altruism before the mantra began. Gassman and Grawe
(2006) found that unsuccessful therapists focused on problems but neglected client
strengths and research into placebo effects, and Kirsch (2008) has demonstrated
that client expectation of change stimulates innate self-healing capacities. This may
also have contributed to the effectiveness of mantra for these participants. Feeling a
243
sense of control over the body and being able to instantaneously alter negative affect
together towards positive transformation and the benefit of others. Kunz writes:-
Guided visualisations
The three guided visualisations based on adapted Vajrayana practices, the 'Fire of
Purification', the 'Planet of Healing' and Lama Tsultrum Allione’s 'Feeding Your
Demons' practice, all elicited different responses from participants. The 'Planet of
linked to specific qualities. Participants named the fact that every breath was
cleansing, the taste of the nectar, being taken to a pure source, feeling both fed and
nurturing, lack of mental interference, being very easily accessible, and wallowing in
the breathing practice involved imagining breathing the suffering out of the world)
and high expectation of positive change which may have added to its effectiveness.
The power of imagery upon the body is well known (Simonton 1980), and this
combined with breathing practices will also have contributed to the impact of the
practice.
244
one does with one’s energy, liberation at being able to move from the head to the
heart. These had the psychological effects of empowerment, agency and renewed
creativity.
consequence of enabling the accessing, releasing and healing of her “dark side.”
The high expectation of healing and integration is likely to have added to the
practice’s effectiveness. This visualisation specifically works with split off, repressed
shadow elements of the self in a manner not dissimilar to object relations and
psychodynamic models. A particular difference here lies in the strong element of the
Castonguay writes:-
“Principles of technique usage are only of value if carried out within the
context of a good therapeutic relationship. Advantageous techniques directly
focus on presenting problems and concerns, a laissez faire approach to
therapy in which the therapist fails to confront the patient, fails to direct the
patients’ efforts or avoids raising the patients’ distress has limited effects.
Effective treatments directly focus on increasing adaptive way of feeling
[and] behaving.” (2006, p.114).
245
The creative, adaptive capacity of Asian meditations has been affirmed by research
linking them to so many different forms of therapy. Loizzo cites the research of
Lineham (1993), Snaith (1998), Teasdale (1995) and Kabat-Zinn (1985). Reviewing
“As I look to the future advancements of our field, I see research on the
diverse array of such integral practices-including Hindu and Buddhist
Tantra, Kundalini Yoga, TM Siddhi,Qi-gong, Cabbala, Christian mysticism
and Sufism-converging with research on the parasympathetic nervous
system. Stephen Porges’ ground breaking synthesis of the neuropsychology
of the vagal nerve has opened a new horizon for meditation research that
goes deeper than the increasingly accepted link between Mindfulness and
the prefrontal cortex and deeper than the emerging link between
compassion meditation and the limbic system, promising to help explain
how integral meditation may affect the primal centres of mind/body
regulation in the brain stream […] the fact that the smart vagus and its
related neuropeptides can modulate the defensive fight, flight, or freeze
reactions of the primitive sympathetic and vagal systems overlaps with
research on embodied cognition and fearless immobilisation states like
diving, hibernation and orgasm, clarifying one plausible basis for integral
movement and breath holding practices that induce seemingly paradoxical
states of profound physical relaxation and peak heart brain arousal.” (2013
p.67)
to the body and contains more points of connection to the transpersonal world.
Findings from this study suggest that the rich, celebratory, sensually and ethically
246
integrated territory of Vajrayana Buddhism may have something to offer both to this
This research has also, however, made me aware of the importance of respecting
the distinct codes and ethics of traditions, psychotherapy and Vajrayana Buddhism.
the West could equally apply to adapted Vajrayana practices. In respect to the
Buddhist tradition, I would recommend the adapted practices used in this study be
clients who come for psychotherapy often have an innate grasp of these principles,
which can be further developed if they are so interested. The United Kingdom Ethical
Framework for Psychotherapists’ emphasis upon working to the client’s agenda at all
times provided a valuable boundary which I feel needs to be firmly adhered to in this
area of work so that the client’s agenda remains dominant. Sensitivity and
attunement to the client was crucial in helping me to identify whether and when to
use these adapted practices and when to return to the clients’ experience in the body
or to simply listen. Research findings that spiritually orientated therapists are only
successful when they are highly flexible (Castonguay 2006) and do not hold a rigid
This study also showed me how easily spiritually by-passing areas of pain could
occur. I also feel that the flexibility required to use these practices can only come
from the confidence gained from one’s own experience. (This is also the Dalai
The adapted practices used in this study were integrated into Western
embodied depth at which buried sedimentary material could be met. I will now
explore the contribution which using Gendlin’s Focusing made to the particular
visualisations. I will then explore Gendlin’s views on crossing cultural boundaries and
its own as a particular method of embodied enquiry and when combined with
adapted practices. Focusing was implicit to all the psychotherapeutic work as the
techniques of Focusing were introduced in the first session and all subsequent
sessions then began with breathing and moving attention inside the body to notice
what might benefit from space and attention. Focusing as a stand-alone technique
'aliveness' in the following ways: by clarifying what was happening, bringing into
a trust that whatever occurred answers would be found either from the heart or the
body, realising that the mind and the body work together, that all sensations
emerging from the body were relevant to the mind, feeling increasingly enlivened
and losing fear of meeting experiences buried in the body. Participants’ descriptions
also conveyed that Focusing combined with attention to breath generated feelings of
me to be confident that I was not imposing religious experiences upon clients, that
spiritual by-passing was prevented and that participants would take whatever was
The method in which the adapted Vajrayana practices were applied in my study has
method for cancer patients with Focusing. Simonton’s original method involved
asking cancer patients to find an image of a shark and visualize it killing the cancer
body, then, forming an image of a shark, then letting that image generate a bodily
sense of being the shark, then exploring what sort of body sense emerged. Any
feelings which blocked the sequence of images would be worked with as they arose.
In relation to Deity Yoga visualisations, the area of client’s embodied pain was first
enquired into and met, then if the therapist had a felt sense of a particular deity or
visualisation being helpful or relevant, this would then be described to the client to
see how it resonated with their experience and the emerging feeling, whatsoever it
might be, would then be met and explored. Clients often experienced their own
began to be described, saw an angel which then started to move and change into
“The bodily quality is a felt sense. By attending to it as such, new steps are
possible. If the client asks the felt sense what it implicitly contains then it may
open […] after a Focusing step like this, if the image is allowed to come
spontaneously, it will have changed.” (Olsen and Gendlin 1970, p. 213).
Gendlin describes a conversation he had with Lazarus, who used images within
systematic desensitisation:-
“Lazarus told me [that] he often found more happening with imagery than the
method had planned […] He would suggest an image but the image which
the client had in response to his suggestion would be quite different. The
spontaneous image arising from the client would relate to what the client
needed to address and work with, the client’s process which no fixed
procedure can reveal.” (1996, p.214)
Gendlin also believes that the carrying forward aspect of imagery moved naturally to
generate solutions:-
“Images bring new and more intricate possibilities. Ordinary objects and
alternatives are poor and few compared to the vast number of strands that
cross in an image. But why is it that alternatives that come in images move
toward solutions? It is similar to the reason a wound heals, or why when we
are hungry we seem luckily to hit upon the idea of food.” (1996, p. 216).
In addition to Focusing’s capacity to act as a bridge between Deity Yoga and other
Gendlin has also articulated his sense of fluid and interconnecting strings existing
“What we all have in common exists only as variously carried forward, and
always still open for further carrying forward. The variety does not make a
bridgeless difference, because further carrying forward is not determined by
the present form. The implicit intricacy can open all the forms. If we can
speak of what is not fixed-formed but can be carried forward, we can say
how great is that which is shared – far greater than the differences. Then we
can celebrate our differences. The more different people we have known, the
more easily we understand the next new person, although that one is again
different. That is because understanding does not depend on a common
content. Rather, the new thing crosses with our implicit experiential mesh.
That is what makes us say, "Oh … I see …" Finally, see how terms in one of
my strings cross when they all work-in the … at the end of the string. On any
topic (including human nature) we can have (think, say, feel, be …) the …
which comes after the variety. After the string each is implicit in our
250
This study has demonstrated to me the richness which can emerge when Vajrayana-
adapted practices and Focusing techniques “cross and open” to each other. The
images of Deity Yoga and other adapted guided visualisations from the Vajrayana
tradition emerged from the deep implicit processing of teachers and reclusive
the challenges inherent to the human condition. The techniques they found
accelerate and expand upon normal processes of finding solutions. This study has
shown me how effectively these two distinctive keys to embodied enquiry work
Reflections on Methodology
The methodology used in this study involved practice based research, descriptive
this section, I will review what I learnt from using this methodology, including the
clients. I will first explore them together as they presented themselves to me, using
excerpts from my Focusing diary as illustrations. I will then identify points from my
My decision to use Focusing during interviewing, during the reduction and in the
meanings. As a therapist, I have also witnessed its capacity to liberate clients both
from their own interpretations of situations and from the transferential aspects of our
therapeutic relationship. It has facilitated shifts into new, fresh experiencing which
often surprised clients, but which contained such a degree of authenticity that more
for using Focusing is explored in the Methodology and Methods chapters in more
detail.
My experience from this study has been that applying Focusing in these ways can
fortunate that they were all extremely comfortable using this technique turning
able to speak from their present time experiences, sharing freshly arising implicit
Focusing to find ones which felt right. The reflective pace of silent enquiry followed
by a confident flow of speech also gave me a sense that we were finding the
that in the in the first interviews, particularly the first interview which I conducted, I
experienced relatively high levels of anxiety which took the form of repetitive
thoughts. These related to concerns that the tape recorder might have switched itself
off, and that we would be interrupted during the interview process in our college
room. When I moved my attention to the middle of my body to enquire into the root of
these anxious thoughts and increased heartbeat, I discovered two distinct fears: a
252
fear of failure and a fear of 'cheating'. I explored these in more depth after the
interview and found that the bottom of my stomach was saying:- “Well, this is the
feeling you asked for trying to practice non-attachment to whatever is said. It could
all go terribly, terribly wrong and you will look very silly trying to pretend that you
don’t care when it will be obvious that you do.” There was a sense of having lost
experience of therapy, and the potential risk involved was that my felt senses and
instincts could be utterly negated in this process. This made me reflect later on
could not deny this feeling, all I could do was explore it and allow it to move. The
other feeling at the root of my anxiety, when enquired into, said: - “You will
manipulate your ex-clients into saying what you want them to say and what you are
At this point, before my first interview actually began, I moved attention to my breath
and there was a felt shift, an exhilarated roller coaster type feeling saying:- “Whey-
hey-hey … I have bought the ticket, I can’t stop now, let’s trust the process and see
“The felt shifts of Focusing bring feelings of physical relief […] These are
bodily indications that what was said or recognised is meaningful or 'feels
right', equating therefore with a release of energy rather than the finding of
253
an ultimate truth […] its emergence – the step of finding – always brings
relief, like fresh air.”
There was for me something which strongly 'felt right' about what I was embarking
upon, despite my anxiety and this elicited a strong sense of relief. I was working
within my ethical frame, even if it was uncomfortably unsafe. I noticed when I later
listened to the tape of my first interview that my voice rose and fell at the beginning
and my words were too fast. At that point in the interview, it was very helpful to be
able to ask my first participant to turn attention inside and see what she noticed in
response to my question, as I could then also turn attention into my body where I
met a sense of peace and calmness. This helped to facilitate embodied presence
been at risk of, an unconscious pushing into the participant on an embodied level
what I might have wanted them to say. Part of me was dependant and invested in
what would be said, and I was meeting raw allegiance effects (Lubrosky 1999). The
layer of experiencing that followed my direct experience of this was anxiety and guilt,
which then shifted into excitement. I knew I had no control over this part in the
research process but that in itself was genuinely exciting and there was also an
emerging sense of cleanness inside, of the rightness of trusting and listening and
diary and did not find any other further similarity between my experience and
particularly high at the onset of the first interview, and transmitted themselves, or
254
simply that the first interviewee and I were having a similar experience as we
Prior to interviewing, I had been concerned that I would need to firmly bracket my
habitual, therapeutic response in order to meet the phenomena rather than the client.
The therapist’s horizons of intentionality are concerned with supporting and meeting,
intentionality, one in which I was not moving towards the client’s improvement or the
waiting for its emergence from any presenting gaps rather than filling them with
and I were meeting at a centre for education, and they had stories to tell me which I
could learn from, which changed the power dynamics. At certain points, if
and previous therapist criss-crossed. I was pleased when two participants named
that they had found my deep slow breathing unnerving as it reassured me that they
therapist. I was also pleased in a different way when a participant described at some
length how much more helpful he had found the Vajrayana-related 'Planet of Healing'
visualisation to the generic 'Cutting the Ties that Bind' visualisation. There was an
astonished aspect to this pleasure as I had prepared myself to expect that there
he had found helpful in therapy which he might otherwise not have named. It helped
me to keep the discipline of moving attention repeatedly back to enquiring into their
these arising phenomena without attaching to any position other than experiencing
the 'fresh air of finding', which had its own felt sense of rightness. Gendlin
comments:-
“A felt sense is already a datum […] When I have a conflict between this or
that, I check inside and I say I don’t have to get torn up between this or that
because I know what I want, I want the right thing.” (2012b, p. 86).
that I had become inadvertently habituated to my role as therapist to the extent that it
attention was habitually upon getting someone better, seeking and meeting suffering,
which involved various therapeutic engagements and techniques to the extent that
this intentional horizon had become a form of 'totalization' (Levinas 2000) based
inwards to find the truth of their experience and then spoke to me as people in
“Our perceptions are incomplete. Our comfort in feeling that we have “got it”
lulls us into a false sense of security, and more detrimentally, often leads us
into hubris […] Only when I am able to make room for not knowing, for
ambiguity and surrender, am I open to being surprised and find them in
always evolving newness.” (2015, p. 179).
256
clients. An interesting aspect of my research has therefore been that I will take the
reduction back into my client work, bracketing the quality of sameness, of being-in
role rather than being-under the client’s experience. I am now in a better position to
Focusing) before I identified specific meaning units and trusted the felt sense of
impulse to simplify, and create a broader holding frame which could then contain
detailed, textured descriptions of specific nuances. The embodied impulse came first
as a sense of overwhelm in the head which said: “Ahh too much …” I was helped by
participants’ rich descriptions, but there were times when I felt there was almost too
much experience to be contained and I was rather manically putting shared aspects
of descriptions in little boxes to form the general constituents. I realised that both the
descriptions and I felt constricted and required a more spacious philosophical frame.
At these points, Focusing helped me to stay calm and take it one step at a time,
trusting that clarity would come. I would, if doing this study again, leave more time to
variation. I was worried about how much time it was taking which led to an urge to
push forwards which said: “I don’t have time to witness anything, I have to produce
This study has affirmed my sense that Focusing has a significant contribution to
experiences of therapy which I would not otherwise have found out, and,
they had benefited from telling me the story of their post-therapy experience and felt
would be included.
A weakness of this study could be seen to be the purposive nature of my sample. All
participants were already in some way engaged in body work (yoga or reiki) or had
some experiences of meditation. They were therefore particularly open to the healing
ideology which they were presented with in the therapy. This may also have been a
like yoga are frequently utilised and Mindfulness courses are common. However,
work. As the evidence for the positive effects of Mindfulness and yoga continues,
that for the particular sample which I used, Vajrayana-adapted practices presented a
transparent as I have been capable of being about this process, and it has for me
258
been one of the most enriching aspects of this study, providing an opportunity to
view and monitor my own processes of attachment, moving into embodied senses of
openness and freedom and back again. Finlay describes how researchers need to
“manage subjectivity” (2014 p.125) rather than attempt to eliminate it. Dahlberg et al.
unpredicted and unexpected” (2008, p.98). I was surprised by the descriptions, but I
because doing this research has opened new horizons for me, both as a
The findings from this study could also be challenged on the grounds of client-
therapist deference (Rennie 1994), which could have led the participants to want to
please me with their descriptions of therapy. There was one long silence during an
interview which was not directly related to the participant using Focusing to find an
answer and had a quality which to me felt 'thin'. This silence could have indicated
the onset of the second interview what he remembered from the first. The quality of
the silence had a felt sense of someone seeking and not finding a memory and
feeling anxious about this. When I then began to read sections from his first interview
The high degree of reflexivity required in the reduction has therefore made a
recommend this in future research. However, it is also arguable that the nature of our
which may not have been possible without a strong sense of trust (Giorgi 2009). The
strengths of this study relate to its creativity and its potential contribution to
Conclusion
3. To answer the following three research questions that are enabled by pursuing the
above two aims:
In relation to these three aims, I have discovered that, in the process of exploring the
experiencing become visible. I have also been left with a sense of the value of
different horizons of living and being, whether they are external, relational, internal or
transpersonal. I have learnt a good deal about the breadth and depth of clients’
experiences within therapy and how these impact upon well-being and depression
a greater understanding regarding how states of pain are triggered and maintained in
'lightness' and 'aliveness' has generated insight into the processes involved in
positive change. This left me with a sense that freedom and the self-identity have
descriptions also went deeper and wider than the current ontological and
being faithful to the manner in which freedom and self-identity are experienced and
lived.
impact upon the client’s sense of self, this study suggests that experientially
satisfying and expansive experiences occurring within therapy do make impact upon
261
descriptions also relayed how accessing new sensory experiences associated with
expansion are central aspects of human experiencing which the profession may be
journey towards something which instantly, inherently felt better to the body and
contained more points of connection to the transpersonal world. Findings from this
study suggest that the rich, celebratory, sensually and ethically integrated territory of
Vajrayana Buddhism may have something to offer to this emerging discourse and to
experiencing is lived and therefore illustrating how actual experience can inform
theory.
I have been surprised by how effectively Vajrayana Buddhism and Focusing can
work together. The final potential contribution of this study is to advocate increasing
262
use of Focusing during phenomenological interviewing and within the reduction and
imaginative variation.
I have learnt a great deal in conducting this research, about my clients, about
phenomenology. On a personal level, I am left feeling more grateful to the body than
I was before. Despite the many challenges to authenticity and truth-telling, I am more
confident than I was that these processes are inherent to embodied experiencing.
263
References
Egendorf, A. & Jacobson, L. 1982. Teaching the very confused how to make sense:
an experiential approach to modular training with psychotics. Psychiatry, 45;4, pp.
336-350
Englander, M. 2012. The interview: Data collection in descriptive phenomenological
human scientific research. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 43, 13–35.
Epstein, M. , 2007: Psychotherapy without the Self: A Buddhist perspective.
Somerville Wisdom
Elkins, D. , 2009, The Medical Model in Medicine-its Limitations and Failures,
Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 49 (1): 66-84.
Ellis, A. ,1994 Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. NJ Carol Publishing Group.
Ellis, A. and Bernard, M.E. , 2006. Rational Emotive Behavioural Approaches to
Childhood Disorders. New York: Springer.
Erisman, S. M., & Roemer, L. 2010. A preliminary investigation of the effects of
experimentally induced Mindfulness on emotional responding to film clips. Emotion,
10, 72–82.
Evans, K. , and Finlay, L. , 2009. Relational-centred Research for Psychotherapists.
Oxford: John Wiley & Sons.
Farb, A. S. , 2007. Attending to the Present: Mindfulness Meditation reveals Distinct
Neural Modes of Self- Reference, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2,
no.4 313-322.
Farb, N. A. S., Anderson, A. K., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D., &
Segal, Z. V. 2010. Minding one’s emotions: Mindfulness training alters the neural
expression of sadness. Emotion, 10, 25–33. doi:10.1037/a0017151.supp
Fergusson, L. , 1993. Field independence, transcendental meditation, and
achievement in college art: a re- examination. Perception Motor skills.77. 1104-1176.
Finlay, L. , 2008. A dance between the reduction and reflexivity; Explicating the
phenomenological psychological attitude. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology,
39 (1), 1-32.
Finlay, L. ,2008. Transforming self and world: a phenomenological study of a
changing life-world following a cochlear implant. Medicine Health Care and
Philosophy, 09/2008.
Finlay, L. , 2011. Phenomenology for Therapists. Oxford: Blackwell.
Finlay, L. ,2014. Engaging phenomenological analysis. Qualitative Research in
Psychology, 11(2), pp.121-141.
Fischer, C. , 1984. A phenomenological study of being criminally victimised. Journal
of Social Issues, 40 (1), 161-77.
Follesdal, D. , 2006. Husserl’s reduction and the role they play in his
phenomenology in A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism. Hubert L.
Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall (eds) Published Online: 26 NOV 2007 Blackwell
Publishing Ltd.
Gendlin, E.T. ,1997. "Reply to Hatab." .In Levin, D.M., ed. Language Beyond post-
modernism: Thinking and Speaking in Gendlin's Philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern
University Press. p. 250.
Gendlin, E.T. , 2012a. Process generates structures: Structures alone don't generate
process. The Folio, 23 (1), 3-13.
Gendlin, E.T. , 2012b. Palpable existentialism. In Existential therapy ed. Barnett, L. ,
and Madison, G. , Routledge: New York.
Giorgi, A. , 1985. Sketch of a psychological phenomenological method. In A. Giorgi
ed. Phenomenology and psychological research (pp. 8-22). Pittsburgh, PA:
Duquesne University Press.
271
Johnson, J.A. , 1990. Factor analysis of world view inventories suggest two
fundamental ways of knowing. Unpublished manuscript. Pennsylvania State
University.
Kabat-Zinn, J. , 1990. Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and
Mind to Face Stress Pain and Illness. New York: Dell Publishing.
Katonah,D.G. , 2012. Research on Clearing A Space. The Folio. Vol.23. No.1 p138-
151.
Khenpo, N. , 1995. Natural Great Perfection. New York: Snow Lion
Kirsch, I. , Deacon, B.J. , Heudo-Medina, Tania, S. , Scoboria, A, Moore, T.J.
,Johnson, B.T. 2008. Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis
of Data Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. Feb 26. Journal PMED.
10.1371
274
Klagsbrun, J., Rappaport, L, Speiser, V.M., Post, P. Byers, J. Stepakoff, S., Karman,
S. 2005. Focusing and expressive arts therapy as a complementary treatment for
women with breast cancer. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 1, 107-137.
Klagsbrun, J. , Lennox, S.L. , Clearing A Space. 2012. An Evidenced-based
approach for enhancing quality of life in women with breast cancer. The Folio. Vol.23.
155-162.
Klein, A. , 1995. Meeting the Great Bliss Queen; Buddhists, Feminists and the Art of
the Self. Boston: Beacon Press.
Klein, J. , 1987. Our Need for Others and its Roots in Infancy. London: Tavistock
Publications.
Klein, M. H., Mathieu, P. L., Gendlin, E. T., & Kiesler, D. J. 1969. The experiencing
scale: a research and training manual. Madison, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Psychiatric
Institute.
Kleinman, S. and Copp, M. ,1993. Emotions and Fieldwork. London: Sage
Publications.
Komito, D. , 1983. Tibetan Buddhism and Psychotherapy: A Conversation with the
Dalai Lama. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 15 (1), 1-11.
Kozhevnikov, M. , Louchakova, O. , Josipovic, Z. , & Motes, M.A. ,2009. The
enhancement of visuospatial processing efficiency through Buddhist Deity
meditation. Psychological Science, 9, 645-53.
Kryka, K. , 2006. Thinking at the Edge. Where theory and practice meet to create
fresh understandings. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology. Vol.6. 1-10.
Kryka, K. , 2015. Psychotherapy for the Other. Duquesne University Press.
Pittsburgh. USA.
Krystal, P. ,1999. Cutting the Ties that Bind. Sri Sai Towers. PVT Ltd. Red Wheel:
London.
Kubota, S., & Ikemi, A.1991. The manner of experiencing and the perceived
relationship: A study of one-shot interviews. The Japanese Journal of Humanistic
Psychology, 9, 53–66.
Kunz, G. ,Weak Enough. 2015.In Psychotherapy for the Other ed. Krycka, K. , Kunz,
G. ,Sayre, G.G Duquesne University Press. 215-230.
Kvale, S. , 1996. Interviews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing,
Los Angeles: Sage.
275
Laird, T., 2005. The Story of Tibet; Conversations with the Dalai Lama, Routledge;
London
Langdridge, D. , 2007. Phenomenological Psychology: Theory, Research and
Method. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
Lambert, M. J., & Hill, C. E. 1994. Assessing psychotherapy outcomes and
processes. In A. E. Bergin & S. L. Garfield (Eds.), Handbook of Psychotherapy and
Behaviour Change (p. 94). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Le Beau, C. S. ,Therapeutic Impasse and the call to keep looking. 2015.In
Psychotherapy for the Other ed. Krycka, K. , Kunz, G. ,Sayre, G.G Duquesne
University Press. 175-186.
Levitt, H. ,M. , Williams, D. ,C. ,2010. Facilitating Client Change: Principles Based
upon the Experience of Eminent Psychotherapists. Psychological research 20/10
May;20 (3):337-52.
Lietaer, G., & Neirinck, M. 1986, November. Client and Therapist Perceptions of
Helping Processes in Client-Centered/Experiential Psychotherapy. Person-Cantered
Review, 1(4), 436–455.
Yasuo, Y. , 1987. The Body: Toward an Eastern Mindy-Body Therapy. Albany: State
University of New York Press
Yeshe, T. , 1987. Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire. Somerville,
Wisdom
Yeshe, T. , 1998. The Bliss of Inner Fire. Boston: Wisdom.
Yeshe, T. , 2003. Becoming the Compassion Buddha. Boston: Wisdom.
Zaner. R.M. , 1973. Examples and Possibilities. Research in phenomenology. Vol. 3
1973 pp 29-43.
Zahavi, D. (2005). Subjectivity and selfhood. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Zuroff, D.C. , Blatt, S.J., 2006. The therapeutic relationship in the brief treatment of
depression. Contributions to clinical improvement and enhanced adaptive capacities.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74, 130-140.
285
Appendix A
Dear ********
I am currently conducting some research with previous therapy clients to help me to
establish what is effective in therapy and I wondered if you might be interested in
participating.
The purpose of my study is to establish whether there were any significant moments
in therapy in which you may have experienced a greater sense of 'aliveness' or
'lightness' and a change in your sense of self.
This is to help me to understand both your experience of what made a difference to
you, and also to help me to establish if Gendlin’s Focusing techniques and adapted
Vajrayana Buddhist practices played any part in you getting what you wanted from
therapy or impacted you in either of the above ways. I would be very interested to
explore with you any responses you have to these questions.
Why have I been chosen?
You have been chosen because during our therapeutic work, Gendlin’s Focusing
technique (the manner in which we worked to engage your embodied felt sense of
what was best for you and to find answers to your questions from your body) and
Vajrayana Buddhist practices (breathing practices, physical or spatial movement and
guided visualisation techniques adapted from Buddhism) were utilised. Seven other
participants who have also been previous psychotherapy clients will also be
interviewed.
Do I have to take part?
No, there is no need for you to take part. It is your choice and will not affect in any
way our therapeutic relationship should you wish to return to therapy in the future.
What is the intervention being tested?
The intervention being tested is the use of specifically adapted Buddhist practices
used with Gendlin’s Focusing techniques on clients’ sense of self and their
experience of 'aliveness' or 'lightness' of being. I am also very interested in hearing
your individual experience regardless of whether you experienced these practices as
helpful.
What are the possible disadvantages and risks in taking part? What are the
possible benefits?
Disadvantages may be that the processing of being interviewed by your previous
therapist in this way could lead you to feel a shift in our therapeutic relationship and
may disincline you from returning to therapy in future. You may also feel
uncomfortable that information from your interview is presented, albeit anonymously,
to a wider community. You may feel a pressure to tell me only what you think I might
like to hear to support my academic interest.
A benefit you may experience could be a sense of satisfaction in contributing
to a deeper understanding of the potential Vajrayana practices and Gendlin’s
Focusing have in mental health. Even if you did not find these elements of the
therapy helpful, you may gain some satisfaction from knowing that you have
286
Appendix B
CONSENT FORM
Consent:
I understand that excerpts of the taped interview will be given in the researcher’s
final dissertation paper. The taped interview will not be shared by anybody other
that the researcher and the researcher’s supervisor of the study.
All excerpts of the taped interview given in the final dissertation paper will remain
anonymous and I will not be identified
I am not required to answer any specific questions if I chose not to and have the
option to withdraw at any time from the interview or study and the tape destroyed
The researcher will retain the taped interview until completion of the study, a
period of 36months and then it will be destroyed. The tape will be destroyed in
accordance with Data Protection and the Records Management Code of Practice
(DH, March, 2006).
The procedure and intended use of the taped interview have been explained to me
by
I understand that I will not be identified in the study and any information given
will be anonymous
Signature of Participant…………………………………….Date………………………
Signature of Researcher……………………………………Date…………………….…
289
Appendix C
her first interview. J1 was a 37 year old female who initially came to psychotherapy
with symptoms of anxiety due to acute family problems. She had recently remarried
and this marriage was very unpopular with her 15 year old eldest daughter who had
developed problems with anger management and alcohol. On one occasion she had
invited friends round to trash the house when her mother and new step father were
out; on another she physically attacked her mother, kicking her in the stomach.
These behaviours were putting J1’s new marriage under pressure and upsetting her
eight year old son from her second marriage. J1 felt emotionally pulled in different
directions. Her son had experienced major health problems and had a deteriorating
eye condition which gave him limited vision. She perceived the fathers of both her
children as inadequate and experienced herself as their sole responsible parent. Her
elder daughter’s father had been investigated for child abuse. J1’s new husband had
moved to the island to be with her but subsequently felt frustrated by his reduced
heavy drinking which he felt resulted from the stress of his new circumstances. J1’s
own father had a heart problem and her childhood had left her with low self-esteem
in regarding her own attractiveness to men. She felt this had resulted in two failed
marriages to men who she now perceived as inadequate. J1 was the main bread
winner who worked full time hours doing research for the Public Health department.
She often felt overwhelmed by exhaustion and guilt, feeling responsible for
everyone’s problems and caught in a double bind, unable to make one family
coming from her body. She had a sense of a clear light energy coming from the top
of her head and then moving down her arms to her fingers. She interpreted this as a
communication from her body that yes, there had been powerful changes in herself
which happened in stages through all the sessions we had. She had experienced
changes happening one stage at a time. Sometimes she notices how differently she
is responding to things now and she is pleased with how far she has come. It feels
like a long way in small steps. J1 felt that in different ways all the sessions helped
her. She felt that the therapist was very sensitive to what was going on in her which
enabled her to open up. She does not usually find it easy to open up, indeed, J1 had
been aware from the beginning of therapy that it has always been difficult for her to
trust enough to share personal material. Over the course of time in therapy,
however, she felt that her barriers came down. J1 also thought that perhaps at that
When J1 was first asked to focus her upon what made her feel lighter and more
alive during the therapy she identified two specific experiences. The first occurred
when the therapist named her sense of how some elements of J1’s relationship with
her father had impacted upon J1 when she was young. J1 experienced a real
physiological shift at this point, as if something in her recognised a truth which had
been seen by the therapist. J1 described this as liberating, as if, as if some sort of
cellular change had occurred. The second significant experience was related to
breathing, mantra and visualisation. This had really helped J1. She remembers first
doing a mantra practice a few sessions into the therapy. It had immediately appealed
to her because the therapist had introduced it as something which would slow things
down and help them to clear. J1 could experience a tangible change in her body
291
when she did the mantra practice. Things slowed down and became peaceful. It felt
J1’s memory of how the mantra practice was described to her during the therapy
was of first doing some breathing. The therapist then told J1 to make the sound Om
and to visualise white light at the top of the head, then red at the throat and the Ah
sound and then blue at the heart, Hum. Because J1 is s very visual person,
visualising colours at the chakras really spoke to her. She has not used the mantra
for a while but during the interview the body memory came back to her. It could be
done even if J1 only had five minutes to herself. J1 was experiencing a very stressful
home life at this time in the therapy as problems in her relationship with daughter
were particularly acute. J1 sometimes felt that the only way she could find to be
alone was to lock herself in the bedroom where her daughter could not force her way
in. J1 therefore found it very helpful to be able to just disappear upstairs, lock the
door and do the whole mantra. She felt an immediate benefit from doing this and had
a very positive reaction to the mantra. She described how she experienced a sense
of relief to have some sort of tools which she could immediately work with and she
started using it at home straight away. J1 found that making the sounds gave her
sense of almost being in a temple. That is something that she had never expressed
before.. The image of the temple arose because of the sound of the chanting, which
had reverberated in J1’s head and eyes. It felt almost like a memory to J1. She
imagined herself being a Buddhist monk in a temple. J1 had never used chanting
before the therapy although she had heard of it. Doing the chanting with the
visualisation unlocked something for J1. She found a real benefit doing through
doing this. She described how she had sensed that the mantra had pushed
everything back and filled the space. It did not so much focus her on anything as
292
much as become the totality of what she was doing, so that everything else was
pushed back. J1 experienced this as a relief. J1 found that the mantra pushed away
and dissipated her habitual inner dialogue related to other people and things that she
felt that she had to do. The mantra also gave J1 more of a sense of proportion and of
calmness, enabling her to see the humour in situations and alleviating her tendency
to worry. The whole thing was new to J1. She would take herself upstairs and do the
mantra two or three times and feel that she had been able to tune into herself, even
if it was only for a few minutes. This enabled J1 to access a very peaceful inner part
of herself. When she was in that space, she feels connected with everything. She
feels real and stronger, as if she is in control and can manage everything that she
Another practice, a Deity Yoga visualisation involving Tara, was also very beneficial
for J1. Her memory of the Tara practice begins with the therapist saying that when
we are healing ourselves we are also healing the world. At that point, J felt a sense
healing with the world. J experienced it as feeling like a cleansing and a connection.
J1 remembered looking at an image of Tara in the therapy and in the interview has
the image of a woman with dark hair and lots of vivid colours around her. She is just
being. She is seated cross legged. A peaceful, loving, knowing and very wise female
archetype. She remembers the Tara practice as beginning with visualising breathing
in blue light. Tara was giving out as much blue light as was needed. J1 thought that
the reason that the Tara visualisation appealed to her is because when she was
seventeen, one of the first meditations that she did was of visualising her
grandmother who had recently passed away feeding her blue light or blue medicine.
293
The visualisation of being healed by a female with this blue medicine or light which
contained whatever she needed to heal had stayed with her. During the practice
which we did in the therapy, J1 imagined a vivid character that was all knowing,
nurturing and motherly but not in a normal motherly way. She described her as
nurturing in the manner that a wise woman would be. The fact that J1 sensed that
Tara was understanding her and understood women’s suffering in particular was
also significant.J1 had found it a source of comfort to imagine Tara and her capacity
Using the Tara nectar visualisation gave J1 the sense that she was receiving from
an infinite source. J1 imagined that her body was filled with nectar and there was no
limit to what she could give out. She felt that there were two different elements
involved with this. One involved visualising a person opposite and sensing what was
needed. This could be J1 herself when she was younger or anyone she might be
having an issue with at the time. In relation to her daughter she imagined taking her
to her breast and letting her daughter take as much nectar as she needed. The other
element involved J1 having no limit to her physical body and of being able to give, to
Doing this enabled J1 to form a different perception of her situation and to see the
person visualised in a different light. She had a sense of having had a conversation
with that person on another level. This made a difference and also helped J1 with
some issues that she was having with her husband. With the nectar practice, J1 did
not have to worry about feeling depleted as it was feeding her as she was feeding
her daughter. This was important for J1 because when her daughter was very young
J1’s husband had wanted her to go on holiday with him. This had meant that J1 had
had to very suddenly stop breast feeding. This had caused J1 terrible suffering. She
294
had missed her daughter and knew that her daughter would also have missed her
Using the force of Tara and visualising the nectar from Tara feeding her and her
daughter gave J1 a nurturing feeling of being able to give. J1 actually spoke to her
daughter about her sense of being able to feed her nectar and having as much as
she needed to pass on. J1 thinks that her daughter could see that it made sense. A
feeling of being able to give at times when she just felt that she didn’t have any
energy to give anymore, physically, emotionally or even mentally. With the nectar
practice, J1 felt that she would have as much as she needed to pass on to her
daughter. That was what gave her a sense of peace. It did not matter if there was
any left for her. It was being able to give enough to her daughter that was very
important.
J1 has fairly recently used an adapted Deity Yoga practice of having no limit to her
physical body when she was having an issue with somebody and looking at them
from her nectar body or light body. She remembers dripping nectar but not Tara
coming into her body. J1 cannot remember exactly how she had used Tara to make
a bridge with female friends who had hurt her feelings in the session but does
remember the work. The difficult feelings shifted and that she was able to make a
bridge with friends and begin again. This felt very nice. J1 described this work as not
quite forgiveness, and not quite acceptance, although acceptance formed a part of it.
When asked to use embodied Focusing to enquire into the middle of her body and
to check if 'lightness' or 'aliveness' were the right words to identify this shift in her
experiencing, J1 found different words, relief and release. This release and relief
J1 had already been aware that holding onto suffering was not the best way of living;
however despite consciously knowing this, it was nonetheless habitual for her to hold
onto experiences. J1 felt that by doing a series of things like this visualisation
exercise, she is slowly beginning to let go of this habit of holding onto suffering. This
has not happened all at once, but she feels that she is moving towards it. On
occasion, something happens which enables J1 to see that she is reacting differently
now to how she might have done in the past. This makes J1 see that she has come
a long in small steps. J1 feels that she honours her own feelings more now and
understands herself better than when she first came to therapy. She can still be
reactive, but is less so than she was and now knows her patterns. J1 now has a
different relationship with herself. She no longer gets angry with herself and is more
accepting and understanding of herself and others. J1 also feels that she now has
more insight into why people behave as they do. She feels that it is a much healthier
perspective to see that they are suffering in their own ways and that much of their
behaviour is caused by fear. At times J1 can see this clearly. The old anger and lack
of self- acceptance is not completely gone, but J1 can see how she might have got
upset by certain things in the past but now does not. This, she feels, indicates
progress. J1 feels that she is now more able to stand up for herself and is quicker to
J1 also found doing the breathing at the beginning of sessions very helpful. The
breathing took J into a new space in which she could access what was really going
J1 remembered how the breathing practice was first described to her. She would
come in and get comfortable and the therapist would then ask her how she would
like to start and she would say breathing. Then the therapist would ask how many
296
minutes she would like for this. J1 is not sure whether the therapist said this to her or
whether she thought it to herself but she remembers words about breathing
peacefully and giving herself space to land, just to be present as this was her time
and to use breathing to see if anything was coming forward for attention
Doing the breathing enabled J1 to connect with herself. She would tend to prioritise
doing things for other people and then feel that she had no time to connect with
herself because these other things were more important. Doing the breathing would
recharge her. The breathing took J1 into a new space in which she could access
what was really going on for her. J1 found this very calming and comforting.
J1 also remembered the therapist suggesting that she use that sort of breathing on
one or two occasions when she was feeling something quite significant and her initial
reaction might have been to let it go or push it away. On these occasions the
therapist suggested that she used breathing to see if she could go deeper and if
When asked if she could use Focusing and enquire into the middle of her body to
see if there was anything else either about the experience of 'lightness' or 'aliveness'
or any other experience that her body wanted to say knowing that it would be
She had an image of the drawer which we used to open and to bring into the room
whatever was being implicitly held in the body. J has used this lot and finds it very
useful. It clarified for her exactly what was happening in her body and her emotions.
J1 also found Focusing very useful particularly at the beginning of the therapy. She
recalled that after she had said that something was happening in her body, she
would then breathe and visualise opening up the drawer of that part of the body to
J1 feels that she is a very visual person and is naturally able to see a symbol which
would match with a feeling in the body and find its meaning, either straight away or
later. J1 has always found pictures and imagery a useful way of clarifying what is
important. She describes this receptivity to imagery as an access point which could
arise because the body is not yet able to translate an experience into words or
because the body speaks in pictures. J1 feels that when she was using
the way that people would respond to her.J1 sometimes uses her sense of having a
tail in her everyday life which she first experienced when applying Focusing during
the therapy. Sometimes also feels angel wings. J1 felt that the tail image was
particularly important for her self-identity. The image of the tail first emerged from
when J1 had been injured in her back and the therapist was guiding her to find
where these sensations were in the body and what it felt like.. When J1 tuned into
this using Focusing techniques, she felt that the sensation in her back wanted to
grow into a thick dragon’s tale. J1 has always liked the fact that she is a dragon in
Chinese astrology. The tail helped to give her a sense of her own balance, that there
J used the visualisations to give her a sense of balance. She felt that her daughter
reacted to her very differently when she was visualising as if she could sense that
something was different even if she did not know what it was. This gave J1 a sense
J1 felt that the experience which she got from this sense of being balanced by a tail
was strength. It represented a part herself which was finally allowed to be revealed.
J1 was able to reveal new parts of herself through the therapy. She began to sing
and write new songs. She found that doing these things made her feel very alive as
298
they involved being seen as opposed to being hidden. J felt that working on the tail
When J1 was asked to go into the body one final time and use embodied Focusing
to explore whether there is anything else that she would like to say about the
that the was the therapy setting really worked for her .She described the setting as a
lovely with welcoming space, full of love and a sense of family. She liked the sense
of dogs and birds, the couch and the blanket and tea. This gave her a sense of
sessions. His second interview took place one year after his final therapy session.J3,
and change. He had begun to feel that divorce was the only answer to longstanding
marital difficulties despite having two very young children. He was living upstairs in a
large family property, his wife lived downstairs and his parents next door. He had
long term difficulties in his relationship with his mother who was constantly critical of
him, and telling him what to do and he perceived his wife as also both dependent
upon him and critical of him. He had a history of being bullied at school, and of
feeling that he did not fit in with others as a child. This sense of social isolation and
difference combined with constant challenge in his relationship with women had left
him with low self-esteem and lack of confidence in relationship. He was experiencing
feelings of anxiety and depression, worried about the effects of divorce upon his
children but increasingly sure that he needed to end his marriage for his own well-
299
being.J3 worked as a nutritionist at the time he first came to therapy and later trained
as a yoga teacher.
unsure about what actually happened in it or what the main theme of the session
was. Perhaps two or three days after the session, or possibly slightly longer, even a
acceptance of himself and where he was in that moment. J3 described this as being
akin to a sense of realisation which has remained with him until today. J3 came away
from his first session feeling he had had a very different experience to his previous
experience of therapy in which he felt that the spiritual part of him had not been met.
It had been intellectual and very mentally orientated. In his previous experiences of
therapy, J3 had left the sessions thinking ok I am just that person. After the first
session here he came back with a sense that this is a bit different, who have I been
to see? The difference he sensed was that this type of therapy would be about him
and his inner experiencing. This was important because he had been letting other
people’s ideas about him get right inside him and form him. Had become full of other
people’s projections. J3 had been surprised by how much the first session had
resonated with him afterwards. It had begun a transition in which J3 found himself
Bringing in the breathing practice in our therapy was the first step for J3 towards
regarding how the breathing practice was introduced in the therapy, J3 coughed and
remembered that the breath was held and released for a period of time. He found
that doing the meditations that we did in the therapy brought about a real sense of
300
stillness. He had never experienced this in psychotherapy before. This was very
significant for J3 because he had perceived himself as someone very much into his
head, a constant thinker. J3’s normal mode of escaping from this was yoga, but in
the therapy some kind of connection took place which moved J3 from his head to
his heart. On reflection, J3 feels that his problems start when he is focused in the
mind and cuts off from his heart. When this happens, he can be very harsh on
himself. During the therapy, J3 became empathic towards himself and this has, as a
general rule, stayed with him. J3 realised that it was not yoga that he needed as
much as meditation because it was by doing the breathing practice that he was able
to access this empathic place. Doing the breathing gave him a sense of stillness. J3
breathing at the beginning of each session in which attention was simply brought to
normal breathing to centre the self.J3 had found this type of breathing the most
helpful. He remembered that at the beginning the breathing was linked with some
visualisation and a sense of light. It was the centring breathing at the beginning
which gave him the greatest sense of leaving the chaotic outside world behind. He
took that practice away to use at home. J3 remembered that that type of breathing
was introduced by the therapist asking him to take a moment to feel into what was
going on in his body, as well as focusing on the breath. He thinks that it was the
combination of the breathing and the searching which gave him the sense of
centring. He may have come into the therapy session in an angry state but during
those moments of breathing and enquiring he would be able to find the bigger picture
In his birth family, J3 felt that there had been a great deal a lot of noise. He
perceived his mother as being very loud. The breathing enabled J3 to realise that it
301
is ok to be still and not doing anything. He started to realise that he was able to do
what he wanted. When asked to apply embodied focusing once again during the
interview to see if there was anything else that he wanted to share in response to the
research question , J3 felt that what was coming through to him related to the
concept of perfection. He had realised during the process of the therapy that he did
not need to be perfect. This related to his sense that the quality of space which
exactly where he was and as he was at that point in time. That had felt fine.
Previously, J3 has always had a sense that he was looking out through someone
else’s eyes. He was frequently preoccupied by what other people might think about
this or that. J3 feels that this has now shifted quite substantially. He also experiences
himself as being not nearly as judgemental as he used to be. He has become more
has definitely lifted. His sense is that it was this judgement which had limited what he
The experience which J3 had between sessions one and two, consisted of a sense
being a powerful experience. It was this that had made him feel that he had to
arrange another session in order to get back into that zone of experience. He wanted
to undo some more and the therapy had felt like a place of safety for him. He was
so much easier to be the person that you are than to be the person somebody else
wants you to be, or the person you expect them to expect you to be. He realised that
he had been projecting onto others expectations of him. This had been damaging.
302
Asked one final time to apply Focusing during the first interview to see if there was
anything he wanted to say in response to the research question, J3 said that he feels
there is still a piece which needs to be unravelled but overall he experiences a great
deal more lightness. Now when issues arise with his mother, he simply gets up and
leaves the table. He can just get up and walk away from her nonsensical
justifications. While he might still experience the initial angry reaction in his body,
straight afterwards he has the realisation that he does not have to listen. He has a
choice. It is having this choice which sets him free as regardless of the limitations of
his mother’s perspective he can still choose to move forwards. Therefore, despite the
challenge of sharing a house with his mother, J3 has been able to maintain a
boundary which feels right for him. J3 believes that one of the biggest benefits of the
therapy for him has been a sense of embodied empowerment in which he can feel
that the umbilical cord has been cut. For years he had felt that his mother had a
dependant emotional attachment to him. Now he feels that this umbilical cord has
not.
J3 described his experience of the head space as erratic, very busy and a space in
which he feels quite detached from himself and from others to the extent that it feels
quite hard and harsh. It is in the heart space that J3 can experience emotion. J3
thinks that before the therapy, he had never really cried. Now he can get to the
emotional space where he can cry. He finds this a much softer place to be. He feels
that what he calls the heart space is a much nicer place to come from but accessing
it does not happen automatically. He can find a way to the heart space by breathing;
taking time out and surfing enable him to connect with his heart and mind.
303
When asked using embodied Focusing once again if there is anything else which J3
experienced in the therapy which helped him to find the zone he had identified as so
important, J3 described the visualisation in which light was brought down in layers.
He remembered that it had begun with breath work and then light came through the
body. He also remembered the 'Planet of Healing' visualisation where every breath
was cleansing as being significant. During the second interview, when reminded of
the 'Planet of Healing' visualisation practice which he had referred to in his first
was akin to being both fed and fertilised. It contained an element of nurturing. J3
related this sense of being fed to a sense of being totally secure. It was both an
emotional and physical experience. To him, it was similar to food in that when you
feel fulfilled you feel both full and satisfied. Feeling comforted as if Gran has done
her cooking. J3 therefore took from the visualisation a homely and nurturing element.
J3 also recalled that we also used mantra during the 'Planet of Healing'
visualisation, but he cannot remember what the experience of doing this was like.
The healing process related to this visualisation had felt to J3 as if went on for much
longer than it had and as if it had not just happened in the therapy room, but had
with. His overwhelming sense of this was of light coming down into him which would
meet with each layer of his experience of that time, whatever was coming up in his
mind or heart and sit with it. J3 would normally do this at night or before going to bed
as an end of day practise of breaking things down. This would act as a filter, helping
him to prioritise what it was that he needed to work with. This also helped J3 to feel
empathic towards himself as he was feeling light and listening to and healing himself.
304
J3 found that the 'Planet of Healing' visualisation very healing. It functioned as pain
relief during his entire divorce process. He had got married at such a young age that
being married was all he could really remember. It was also important to J3 because
of the poor relationship he had with his mother. At that point in time J3 felt that his
relationships women were unmanageable. J3 used Focusing one final time during
the first interview and affirmed that light was definitely the right word for what he was
experiencing.
J3 found that the breathing and enquiring into the body gave the body and the self a
sense of space. By doing that, he was able to be directed to his heart. The direction
finding was made easier for him by the breathing. J3 used to do this while he was
going through the divorce process. He used breathing to check out his well-being,
moving attention to each organ, asking is this grief? Is it bereavement..? His work as
a nutritionist helped him with this. The breathing and the visualisation created
sufficient space for J3 to step back and to avoid judging himself. They were therefore
When asked one final time to use Focusing in his second interview to see if there
was anything else that he would like to say about his experience of 'lightness' or
'aliveness' or therapy in general, J3 said that the therapy really helped him with the
adrenal rush which he was experiencing at the time, the feeling of butterflies in his
body. That was a big physical experience for him. He had found that the breathing
and the therapy enabled him to take ownership of time and to investigate himself.
That was very important, giving himself time to invest in who he is. Prior to this, he
had been running around like a headless chicken looking after everyone else.
J3 said that he would become excited before each session in anticipation of what
would come up. It felt to him about growth and being open enough to welcome
305
whatever might happen. It gave him a sense that it was ok to be who and where he
was instead of feeling “oh my God!” J3 therefore felt that the therapy secured his
sense of self during a time of endings and new directions and allowed him to look
following the life event challenge of ending her marriage and forming a new
relationship while trying to support her 2 year old daughter. She was dealing with
profound experiences of guilt and loss combined with an overwhelming sense of the
rightness of the new relationship, despite a continuing love for her husband. She felt
unsure of which impulse she could trust and in conflict with herself. The situation was
further complicated by her best friend then becoming her ex-husband’s new partner.
B’s childhood experiencing involved an intense sense of jealousy and loss at the
arrival of her younger sister when B was two and a constantly challenging
relationship with her father. They never got on well and he died unexpectedly of a
heart attack when B was 18 immediately after they had had a major argument. B
also felt very challenged in relation to finding a career and establishing a lifestyle
which was in alignment with her spiritual values. She often experienced somatic
addition to raising her daughter, ran occasional dance workshops. B was in therapy
for 6 months and the therapy ended nine months prior to her being interviewed.
focusing to the research question during the first interview. The first one which she
mentioned was experiencing a response to the therapist using the metaphor that if
the house is on fire that it is ok to leave the room, just to walk away rather than
306
feeling you have to find a door. This gave B a sense of having permission to let go in
a way that she had not had before. B felt that she was causing a lot of drama and
intensity. She was aware that it wasn’t all coming from her, but nonetheless there
was a lot of emotion and B felt that she was involved in an inner battle fighting these
patterns. It was at that point that the therapist had said when something is on fire
instead of looking for a door you can just walk away. This gave B a greater sense of
choice. If she was trying to do something and it wasn’t working she could just do a
In the first interview B described how she had felt that she was in a very tight corner
and that she had to go deeper into it. Then she had realised that there was the
option that she could move into a different space without that being a denial of what
was happening. This shift in feeling resulted from a pattern arising related to very
intense behaviour which she experienced as too close to her to be pushed away.
This level of experiencing was not about a feeling or vision of what was there, but
instead involved a sense of 'lightness' and space and an awareness of a place that
was different and which could accommodate all of the inner battle .B used the words
surrender and expansion to describe this shift. This did not remain solid and embed
itself in B. B thinks that this is largely because she struggles with the discipline of
meditating regularly. She described this as something that she knows she needs to
B knows on both a heart and body level that the place of in which she experienced a
shift would become much more permanent if she continuously did her meditation
practice. It would enable her to breathe into that expanded level of awareness. B
feels that because she does not do this, she still goes into the battle field to try to find
a solution when she actually knows she really needs to come out of the battle field.
307
When asked if anything else happened in the therapy which gave B more of a sense
experiencing a real release of tears and emotion when the therapist pointed out to
her that she was not accepting her humanness or her inevitable attachments to the
people she loves or to be able to enter into something and then let it go.
B described that particular place of intensity in which she thrives on seeing what has
arisen as quite unhealthy. B has realised that creating this push-pull dynamic is a
form of detachment which protects her from accepting loving herself in that particular
human way. It is a defence mechanism for never getting too close. B described the
feeling of accepting her humanness as akin to sensing her being coming down and
being more embodied and more at rest, as a type of relief or an outbreath. Giving
herself permission to have human emotions has also significantly impacted upon B’s
relationships .While B can still feel the real vulnerable spaces when these emotions
come up, she feels that she is now able to explain them. She explains to the person
concerned what she is wanting to do and what she would normally do but that she is
When asked during the second interview to use embodied Focusing to expand
upon comments in her first interview made about feelings of 'lightness' and
'aliveness' relating to being more accepting of her humanness and being able to
move attention into places of surrender and expansion, B said that this still
resonates with her. She associates this now with taking more responsibility and
standing more in herself. She feels that her awareness is growing in that she can
remove herself or can just shift her energy and breath and stop being so reactive.
She can find ways or tools with a particular circumstance and take herself inside.
She reflected upon how the image of the door did really help, although B has to be
308
careful with this as her pattern has always been just to walk away. B is learning how
to walk out on that pattern rather than walk away from the challenging circumstance.
At that point in time, during her second interview, B felt very much that this is still
somewhat of a battle field between the high self and the human self. The issues
involved are a desire to feel everything and wanting both to always choose love and
to encompass everything that is going on. B is continually aware of the part of her
which still wants to battle, to be defensive and to take some part distance or control.
B thinks that she is still very much in the process of learning how to soften around
this and just walk away from it. B is able to witness and choose between different
aspects of herself, noticing that angry teenager inside and to choose not to allow the
teenager to lead. Instead of doing, this she can listen to that part and be kind, to be
in the wiser part of the self that doesn’t need to react to that anymore and can just
hold the angry teenager. This feels a very vulnerable experience to B but she is in a
place right now where she feels able to share this. The intensity is still there but
when it arises she is learning how to hold herself in that, to hold the inner part which
is in panic. She breathes with that and communicates what is going on.
Previously she would have pushed them away but now she has more of a sense of
surrender. She is not trying to hold it so tightly and the battlefield is still there so this
is a very fragile territory. She is learning that with someone she really trusts she can
articulate this sense and allow herself to be seen. This is a very new territory for B
B did find the breathing very helpful and she also noticed her reluctance to go into
that space, as if she would prefer to work it out another way. This relates to a sense
of trying to work out or get out of the body in some way and that feeling has
remained. B is aware that is where she would like to be feeling embodied and yet
309
she knows that there is definitely resistance to this, in a similar manner to there
being resistance to her practice. When asked by the therapist of what B remembers
of how the breathing exercises were presented to her using embodied Focusing B
experienced a sensation in her lower back, as if she is finding breathing very hard at
the moment.
B has a lot of resistance to breathing. She has a sense of both knowing what deep
into that aspect of letting go or letting it be .It is as if she wants to rise up into the
mind or into something akin to a kind of control. This is something which B is finding
very prominent in her life at the moment. She notices how much she is holding her
breath and then suddenly needs to gasp for oxygen. She is not breathing properly B
senses that where there is resistance, there is also a key to an inner place of
awareness or healing .B notices this with sleeping also. She tries to take some deep
breaths before going to sleep and her mind will tell her not to bother.
B is not sure exactly what her resistance to really going inside herself is. She feels
resistance when the therapist is introducing the breath and when she can hear the
therapist breathing. At this point she felt that would help and feels the motions of how
deep the therapist’s breath was. At the same time she would be annoyed by it,
feeling “I don’t want to go there, I don’t want to relax and let go.” B does not
understand what this response is about, but knows that she cannot connect with the
B thinks that it might be that when she tries to follow that sense of divine love all the
time she might then wake up feeling angry and hurt, feeling that she did not mean all
the practices which she did the night before. B does not yet know how to unclick this,
she is just not doing it and has not found her way through it yet. While B longs to be
310
in this place, she fears that she has had to put so much effort into grounding herself
and bringing her spirit into her body that she fears that if she enters that embodied
space she will not stay, but will experience a disconnection again. B knows in her
heart that this is not true and senses that the opposite is more likely to be true. B
describes this flipping from one position to another as neurotic behaviour and is now
trying to hold all of these elements in some way. At this point in the interview, B has
a sense of how much she is creating her life and is responsible for it. This brings B a
real sense of 'lightness' and freedom, to see and feel the authority of the self .B has
B feels that it is not as if she is completely at that point now, but even the awareness
of that truth brought with it a real lightness. She describes this as getting a real flicker
in your deepest being. She may be struggling with this, but when she perceives the
freedom and expansion which reality can become when this is seen, she no longer
feels as if she is the victim of circumstances, of whatever might be going on.. When
asked to use embodied focusing to see if any of the practices we used in the therapy
sessions to help integrate these two elements, such as using mantra or Deity Yoga
helped or whether she had also wanted to push these away. B said that she was
feeling a sense of expansion in her chest and heart and a real 'lightness' which she
B felt that these practices really did help her although there was definitely some
resistance, just as there was with the breathing but there was also real impact Two
things in particular came to mind. One particular practice which just kept coming to
mind was the visualisation of taking her head off and burning it on the fire.
B found this very liberating and also hilarious. It brought a real 'lightness' of humour
and a sense of something akin to relief, giving B a sense of that wider perspective
which really helped her. B cannot remember exactly what the therapist said to bring
about the feeling but remembers the feeling that the therapist was very aware that all
B’s energy was all in her head B remembered that the fire was in front of her. B did
not remember a landscape because she was really concentrating on the fire. It felt
B felt that the flames and the energy of that kind of burning was really matching the
thought patterns which were going on in her head. B became really aware that it was
all in her head and that she was completely in her head so when the therapist said
“no, just take off your head” she remember feeling quite surprised [laughter].
This provided an element of humour which was the medicine she needed, she
actually needed to just take her head off. As B feels into this during the interview she
remembers the combination of her head being off and in the flames and still being
there to witness it. By doing that there was a real humour and a sense of laughing at
herself and yet also a tremendous amount of peace, of “thank God my head’s off” or
like “that’s stopped, that noise”. When it was in the fire, B could see it for what it was,
so there was a detachment, a healthy detachment, from her crazy thought patterns
that were happening at the time, or the spirals of patterns. That really brought
'lightness' to it, because no matter how intense her thoughts were, when they were
off and burning in the fire with her head she had to laugh at it all. This was because
B could see, as she was there witnessing it, that it was all just in her head and
Asked what she experienced instead of her head when she could see it on the fire, B
could not initially remember but then got a sense that at the beginning it felt as if she
312
had no head because she was watching it burn and as it was burning she did not
feel as if she was going to take it back and out it on her head but rather that it was
all the unnecessary parts of her mind which were burning, which left a sense of clear
mind. When B was reminded of the actual adapted practice, in which the pyramid of
fire was at the base of the body, she remembered that was how it was but she had
related it to the way that she normally sees fire when she does shamanic work or
dances where she would normally see fire outside of herself. If B cannot access that
wider sense of spirit she just drifts off so the practices really helped her.
The particular practice which really, really helped involved B’s experience of a lot of
hurt and guilt and sadness about a situation, a good deal of entwined pain. She
remembers really praying for the jewelled lotus and taking it home and doing the
practice for a week or so and it feeling so beautiful. Asked what she could remember
of the second practice which she had described as helpful during her first interview,
B remembered how much it helped at that point in time. She remembered a real
sense of calling in the divine to the situation which showered it in purity and love and
acceptance. This was beyond what B could do because she felt that she couldn’t do
anymore. She remembered not being able to do anymore and feeling guilty. Feeling
things were in a mess and there was nothing more she could say. No more words or
anything could be scattered on that place. It really helped B to feel and really pray
B remembered the therapist talking about the jewelled lotus and B felt that it
for the healing of that from that really divine place. This was very healing for B
because that was all she could do and it was also the highest way of seeing the
situation and feeling it. This also brought a lot of surrender because that was the only
313
thing which she could do. Asked by the researcher if B had felt enabled to work with
the issue from a different part of herself, B said yes and described that part of the
self as the piece that is that divinity and connects with that. That part is neither hurt
nor shaken by the day to day pains of being human. B remembered the nectar
dripping from her heart like tears of healing, a healing balm down from her heart into
B described this as feeling beautiful and as if it was connecting the divinity within the
heart space, within the landscape of the heart and from there cleansing what is still a
very physical painful emotion or sensation in the body. This felt very healing and like
a bridge connecting two aspects which feel separate sometimes, that kind of divine
self and the human part which feels everything. B could then hold the pain but
without being so focused on it, instead being in the heart space with the nectar
dripping and soothing that place. The practice was therefore like a bridge.
When asked what the heart space meant to her, B described it as an all-
encompassing vast landscape inside the heart and a real sense of divinity. This is
B’s experience when she feels into her heart. There was nothing more she could do
as she had said all the words she could say and she really prayed from that place of
healing and gave it light and love. It was definitely a jewelled lotus which gathered up
all of B’s pain. There was dripping nectar and the memory of that still makes B’s
body shiver, and healing and the white nectar garland. B mainly used the heart
sense of that and some imagery and praying for healing and the removal of pain.
This freed B.
B described her sense of surrender as being releasing the clenching of fists which
to her symbolise holding and controlling. Surrender is the opening of fists, palms
come back to this place of surrender instead of pushing away. Learning to commit
When asked to enquire whether anything in her body resonated with the word
'aliveness' B had a sense of the word possibility. She had an image of getting back
into her car after a session, having previously gone into the session with a concern
regarding how to manifest herself and her purpose. This is stressful for B because
Suddenly, getting back into her car she was in touch with simplicity, 'lightness' and
possibility. She was in touch with the possibility that it might be possible to do what
she wanted to do here. The possibility felt almost like a certainty. B feels that this is
the main battle for her. That she is battling to do what she wanted to do in this life,
she is so determined to do it and yet at the same time she is not doing anything. B
cannot remember exactly when the sense of possibility came. It usually happens
when she is doing something simple and practical like being in touch with what she
is eating and drinking rather than with her dreams. Simple things like being in touch
with the day to day. When B got into her car after the session she had a sense that
what she was experiencing was perfectly normal and that she could get through it. B
had a sense that everyone experiences problems. It isn’t that everyone else is flying
and flowing through their lives and she is the only one that is stuck.
When asked one final time, during the first interview, to use embodied Focusing to
see if there was anything else which she wanted to share in response to the
question, B said that there was something coming from her body which she didn’t
B relates this feeling to her father. That something is left open regarding lots of
things which relate to her father. When these things came up in therapy and the
315
therapist pointed them out B would feel frustrated as she had s sense that she had
been working on these issues for years. In one session the therapist had said about
waiting. because until those issues are explored the tightness she experienced
would remain. At this point B felt a sense of intrigue and possibility surrounding
end of a two year relationship, in which he had been very emotionally invested. He is
the youngest of seven children and felt that he had never received much attention
from his mother. With five brothers and one sister, J2 had grown up in a household
biased towards the masculine, a factor which he felt accentuated his vulnerability in
relationships. His recent relationship had ended dramatically at his sister’s wedding
when his partner had a accused him of prioritising his family instead of her. She was
unable to give him any reason for this accusation that he was able to understand and
despite every attempt on his part to apologise and continue the relationship, she was
adamant that it was over. The fact that there was a difference in cultural background
intense grief reaction with symptoms of acute somatic pain and sleeplessness. He
was able to maintain working as a financial consultant but outside of working hours
he was finding it very difficult to engage with friends and leave his apartment.
J2 was in therapy for 3 months, and was interviewed 18 months after his final
therapy session. He came to his first session with a Cognitive Analytic map of his
thoughts which he had created during a few sessions he had previously had with a
J2 remembered that during the aftermath of his relationship break up we did quite a
few healing practices on the self. One practice in particular came to mind strongly
using light. The cord cutting was an energetic experience to J2 rather than a physical
one. He has found that that visualisation can work sometimes, but has not
completely worked for him. He has done it many times and while it feels ironic for
him to say this, there are still too many elements of attachment for it to be really
effective. J2 reflected that even when one visualises cutting a cord, it was not as
simple as visualising the end of an actual relationship. Many things are still carried
has found that it can engender a sense of letting go and therefore was not a waste of
time. Overall, J2 experienced the guided visualisation of the healing planet as more
fruitful. He believes that this was because it enabled him to access a place of
physiological nurturing. This was important to J2, as he senses that his energy is
located in his physiology. J2 found that during the healing planet visualisation his
physiology could be nurtured separately and he could detach himself from any
mental interference or blame. That was much more nourishing for J2 because at that
point in time he not need to so much understand why the relationship had ended as
between the 'Cutting the Ties that Bind' exercise and the 'Planet of Healing' exercise
as being akin to the differences between having a bath and having a shower. While a
317
shower can be very practical, a bath can be wallowed in and makes one feel
nurtured. J2 found the experience of wallowing and nurturing afforded by the 'Planet
taking medicine.
A main feature of this visualisation for J2 was that it gave him a sense that he
could have compassion for himself and nurture his soul and his emotions. The
visualisation helped him to see that he had a choice as to whether he suffered or not
and to move away from blaming himself for the end of his relationship. Initially J2
had felt the end of the relationship was his own fault, but the visualisation helped him
to see that by taking responsibility and having compassion for himself, an attitude of
blame can be transformed into a healing. Another factor which made the 'Planet of
Healing' visualisation effective was he could do it easily. This made it very simple
and very powerful. He did not find the cutting the cord exercise so easy because his
mind was too involved. J2’s memory of the 'Planet of Healing' visualisation being
described to him was of the therapist talking at some length about light and colour
and temperature and nature. He found all those elements to be very energetic and
almost visceral in their impact. They can be experienced very quickly without much
effort. By contrast, the cutting the cord exercise takes more effort to do as there are
so many attachments around the cutting a cord. J2 felt that nothing like that is
required when journeying to a nice place. The skilful way in which the 'Planet of
Healing' was described, using colour and energy and visualisation was also a factor
in making it very easy for him to be there. Colour, energy and temperature were all
easily accessible to him from his own experience and it therefore required no effort
visualisation repeated by the therapist during the interview, he described how his
318
overall sense was that the vivid and repeated description had taken him to an energy
which he associated with his pure soul or source. J2 found that the use of colour and
the removal of potential threats such as the use of limiting thoughts or a sun that
can burn, or other people or loneliness from the equation gave him a sense of
feeling completely at one with his soul. There was nothing man made on the 'Planet
of Healing' and nothing which could play with his thoughts. Everything was
experiential and feeling and nothing activated a thought pattern. J2 felt that the
reason this was so beneficial was because everyone innately wants to be at source,
peaceful, where there is a sense of the kind of pure love which is uncontaminated by
thoughts. It was a significantly powerful experience for J2 that nothing took him away
J2 found accessing this healing easiest during the therapy session, but he did learn
this as the heart space. J2 described how doing this this would allow everything to
settle down for short periods of time. He feels that discovering this quality of space
has been an incredible gift. He felt that although he had always had this gift inside
himself he had not known how to access it. J2 described this gift as learning to be
it to be one of the most valuable gifts he got out of therapy. J2 further described what
unconditional love and no ego. There are no attachments or needs in this place,
instead there is a sense of an infinite space and of a pure love which is warm and
tingly. It also has peacefulness and 'lightness' to it. J2 saw colours when he was in
the heart space, green or gold or blue, colours which felt appropriate and relevant to
319
his experience. He described sensing stillness and purity, a place of refuge which
J2 feels excited at the prospect that the more he does this practice, the more it will
pervade his whole being. He feels this need to be done every day. It can be a gentle
journey rather than a battle. J2’s main life goal has now become experiencing this all
the time. He also believes experiencing the heart space to be essential for him to
have a sense of his own authenticity or truth. He has learnt to manage moving from
the mind to the heart.J2 finds that experiencing this quality of the heart space has
also improved the quality of his relationships. He believes that they have become
deeper, more connected and more heartfelt. He is confident that the heart space is
the right place to be. It feels authentically right to him. J2 describes this experience
further as feeling connected to his own soul and the purity of his own inner truth. This
has now become the driving force for him instead of overusing his brain.J2 feels that
it is not always easy to be motivated by the heart, body and the soul instead of the
brain, especially if you are male. However, once this has happened, it can be used
as a place of peace and truth. J2 feels that he has now been using the heart and
soul as the conductor of his life for about a year and he wishes he had been taught
this at school. He feels this would have reduced anxiety for him and others.
J2 feels that sometimes he does get lost in anxiety and then suffering begins. When
he moves back into his heart he finds that there is only peace there and no suffering.
He feels that the intention in his heart is to be peace.J2 wants to have more
conversations with his heart and sometimes finds talking to people who are mainly in
their heads very limiting. He hopes that by spending more time in his heart he will
J2 found the visualisation practice we did of placing his head of the pyramid of fire at
the base of his body one of the easiest practices he did in therapy. He described it
as being clear and easy and he feels he will use it for a long time. When J2 was
asked what he could remember of the actual description of the head purification
visualisation and whether there was anything going on in his life or in the therapy at
the time which made it particularly relevant for him, J2 said that it was very simple
because it demonstrated to him that the head is full of thoughts which cause him
trouble and strife and struggle. When J2 detached his brain in the visualisation he
just saw it as a computer- hard drive which he could transform into pure energy. At
that point J2 sensed that from his neck down was where there existed pureness,
simplicity of energy and a sense of well-being. Love and all those other feelings
came from there. It was therefore a relief for J2 to take his head off and to transform
it into pure heart energy. Remembering this practice made him laugh.
This visualisation was helped by the fact that we had previously worked in the
therapy on oxygenating the fire underneath the heart without actually visualising
J2 remembered that we always started off with slow breathing and often focused the
breathing on the heart space as a way of experiencing the heart. He felt that doing
the deeper breathing was essential to move attention out of his head and towards a
deeper sense of self. While J2 had practised Reiki and other energy healing in the
past, he feels that without the centeredness and the depth of the breathing which
experiencing.
When asked to apply Focusing techniques one final time in his second interview to
ascertain whether there was any particular experience in the therapy which gave J2
321
a real sense of the embodied change which he had referred to in his first interview,
J2 remembered working with a goddess, although he could not remember her name.
The interviewer asked if it might have been Tara and J2 said yes it was Tara. Since
doing that practice, J2 has worked more with his masculine side but he remembers
finding the Deity Yoga practice we did using Tara being very powerful at the time he
experienced the manner in which the therapist described Tara to him, asking him to
embody her whole being and absorb her into his body as very powerful . The
nurturing feminine energy was what he had needed at that point. J2 also found the
practices we did about embodying masculine practices and intentions very helpful. it.
He felt that with all the practices we did, it was important to step out into the world
and do something from one’s body, to feel alive. That is what makes therapy
manifest to J2. The essential and valuable part of the therapy for him was to go away
At this point in the interview, J2 also remembered the therapist facilitating him
having conversations with his heart. That was significant for J2 because it was the
first time that he had learnt to trust that the answers he needed really were
accessible inside him. That was the beginning of J2 having a relationship with his
heart and treating it almost like a loved one. That was very beneficial, gentle and
compassionate and also very self-empowering for J2, to discover that the answers
J2 felt glad to have had the opportunity to summarise and reflect on his experiences
in therapy, as the process had brought these experiences back into his current
awareness. J2 described his sense of realising how powerful his experiences had
been. As he looks back he can see that they have been very, very effective.
322
by a work related issue work which had highlighted for her wider issues regarding
relationships in general. She had reported what she had perceived to be a breach of
boundaries between a staff member and resident at the Care home in which she
S had a general sense of confusion around how to be in contact with others, either
in intimate relationships, at work or with her peers. This had its origins in her mother
having a borderline personality disorder and having been frequently unable to care
properly for S and her sister. On one occasion, both children were admitted to a
that she seemed very drawn to damaged or very vulnerable partners who she would
try to help, mediating between them and the world as she had done with her mother.
When they did not seem to learn, she would feel betrayed and disassociated,
despairing of ever finding coherence between her inner and interpersonal worlds.
S worked as a carer for people with learning difficulties. She was a talented singer
and a trained yoga teacher. She aimed to bring these gifts into the community of her
Sacha was in therapy for 18 months. Her first interview took place 12 months after
S initially responded to the interview question by exploring where the impact of the
therapy was felt in her body. She described it as not very tangible and S does not
323
think that we have an easy language for these experiences. S then noticed in herself
in response to the question a feeling of expansion and described how, even if the
human emotions are quite raw at the time of therapy, there can be almost
pleasantness to meeting both the feeling and the expansion. S described how this
would give her a tingly feeling. This feeling almost reminded S of the Spring, as she
feels that both a sense of growth and spring share an almost innocent cheekiness to
them. S then went on to liken this feeling to a childlike joy and sense of intrigue. She
finds it quite interesting to notice the presence of these factors when she is
anything else had caused this Spring like feeling, S named the breath and the sound,
which she called the seed sounds (mantra.) She described them as adding a bit of
sweetness, enabling her to be present to the challenge. S identified that through the
breath practice, she gained a sense of presence in which she was able to notice that
S described the breath as enabling her to become more present in her body. This
helped her to access a more integrated sense of self and to notice her state of being
and what actually needs to exorcise itself or be heard. S described how, when she
had become familiar with using breath and sound, an awareness developed in S that
she was not just thought and not just emotion. S feels that it would seem to be
bizarre for her now not to explore those elements of the self, the breath and the
S does not feel comfortable with the word spiritual but she felt that the spiritual
aspects of the therapy were very helpful to her. S then defined her sense of spiritual
aspects as things which encourage a sense of being, which S feels is very important
for integration, enabling S to meet herself in challenging times and not only from
324
places of suffering or confusion. S described her sense that the breath and the
mantra facilitated a movement into another part of herself, a part which she sensed
she had implicitly known, as being not just a truth to her, but a very big embedded
Truth. During her second interview, in response to the researcher asking S if there
was anything else she wanted to say about mantra and breathing, S said that she
feels that the vibration of the sound, the cellular movement, created a clearing. This
means that she no longer deny this part of her, because she can hear it and feel it.
This is very strengthening for S. S feels most confident when she is aware of this
part of herself as she feels she can be very misled by her head and her thinking. S
feels that while the head and the soul are linked and are ultimately non separable,
until integration happens, these parts of the self-experience things in different ways.
S described how the head thinks one thing and then there is the depth of the self-
experience which feels calm. When S is in this place which she has always implicitly
known and is experiencing it, she is then able to recognise it in others. S thinks that
this can also positively change relationships and interactions. On a personal level, it
has helped S to find a state of trust either in the other person or in her own instinct,
creating an authentic monitor which enables her to feel that she can apply a part of
the self which she quite trusts even if another part of herself is anxious or unsure of
its coherence. S feels that communicating from that part of herself also enables other
unconscious invitation which also has a subconscious tangibility to it. When asked if
S found communications with others more successful when she was in the more
expansive part of her S said that there was more chance of this happening, although
it would also depend a great deal on the other person and their ability or desire to
notice that capacity in themselves and others. Regardless of this, whenever S did
325
manage to communicate from her sense of presence she was never regretful or
disappointed in herself. Instead she feels peaceful and integrated. Even if someone
does not agree with S, she manages to accept this peacefully. As a general rule, S
thinks that when she is able to be in that presence it has a very powerful effect on
others. S has also noticed that when she is not using practices like these regularly,
S described, during her second interview, how she has recently felt she has been
recently .This is a much less comfortable experience for S. When she is with
someone in presence it can be a very beautiful, possibly very intense and vulnerable
experience. S described her ability to notice when other people have a sense of
presence or are starting out on a journey .S describes there being many different
faces to presence, in some ways it is similar to a 360 degree circle. Since having
had therapy, S feels that she is more able to perceive an auric field rather than
described how integration can actually feel quite raw and uncomfortable. S notices
that when she feels very contracted it is because she is trying to ignore a discomfort.
She feels that when she does this, she can never be congruent with herself because
constrictions or obstructions within the body itself, so in taking a breath she would
bring awareness to those blocks so they can be shifted. This would often facilitated
by the therapist asking “What does that feel like in your body?”
326
S thinks a combination of things which happened in the therapy gave her a greater
sense of presence. It was also multiple complexities which had brought her into
therapy. Essentially self-esteem had been a very challenging territory for her. The
ability to explore her low self-esteem in a safe place and the subtle affirming which
was woven into the therapy helped to give S a greater sense of her own presence.
This was coupled with the spiritual aspect of the therapy. S feels that her spirituality
is a huge part of herself, which she needs to recognise and experience. Otherwise, S
feels that it would be like trying to make herself whole while staring at only one third
of her. S feels that it would be absolutely impossible for her to do this. All of the
aspects and the ability to bring in practices like breath work have helped S. Even if
she and the therapist were just sitting in silence, it enabled S to tap into positive
resources or body memories of kinds of practice which she had experienced outside
of therapy.
S has taken the breath work and mantra which we utilised in the therapy into her
life. She described breath as being for her a metaphor for life, taking things in and
giving them out, symbolising the evenness of the in and out movement of breath
In contrast, S uses mantra more cathartically. She thinks that she experiences the
world in quite a kinaesthetic way and sound gives S a sense that she can transform
something which feels stuck in her, or something which she has experienced which
does not belong to her. The sound or mantra facilitates a sense of movement,
enabling her to feel that she is somehow jangling her soul clean. In time, if the sound
This result from S not feeling bogged down but instead able to keep her kinaesthetic
energy going
327
The practices, the breathing and the sound, also help S to notice what she is feeling
in her body. This is important because of S’s sense that if she was to stay in her
head, she would not be able to release into this expansiveness. That feeling of being
able to expand herself does not come to S from her mind. It comes from her sense of
self and the edge of the unknown or known quality that we seem to have. This feels
like a very personal experience to S. It has also made S aware of a greater sense of
connection.
Purely from a therapeutic point of view, at points S has felt very challenged and she
can feel very alone. This can cause a good deal of additional suffering. At these
moments S gets an intrinsic sense of comfort from the practices. S then clarified that
the word comfort sounded almost too reactive or too needy, as the experience she is
describing precedes that and is more like a form of implicit knowing that she is
S took time to feel into the middle of her body using embodied Focusing in response
to the researcher’s enquiry into whether the feelings she was describing related to a
shift from heaviness to lightness. Having done this, she then described that when
she experiences presence she can feel quite a potency of space. The space
becomes pregnant with possibility. Just being or just awareness is not necessarily
either light or heavy. Rather, it tangibly feels, as if there is a weight to it, but it is not
heavy. S feels that she can best understand this process in terms of a contraction.
pressure. What S experiences has more of an etheric quality which then meets a
This does not necessarily feel light to S either. S describes how while there is a light
to her experience, she knows other people who incorporate these practices into their
328
lives and who always talk about light and ascension. S described herself as feeling a
bit twitchy whenever this happens. When asked by the therapist if the word
'lightness' has associations with a sanitised 'lightness' S agrees that this happens.
On the occasions when S has really experienced meeting herself in these practices
she does not feel suddenly unearthly. This gives her a sense that people are making
a mistake. It is almost as though they want to escape from the physical realm.
Instead, S thinks that this quality can be realised in our most dark and challenging
aspects, that we can absolutely find this etheric expansion in those places. In
meeting these aspects so fully and not resisting them there is no actual sense of
wanting something else .S feels that people do often resist what is uncomfortable or
frightening. Sometimes she resists going into herself. S feels that the way forward is
to utilise these practices to meet and accept what is happening very fully. When fully
experience of it and then a dissolving of the initial feeling. She might feel the imprint
of it for a little while. S habitually experiences first a very physical body awareness
and then an awareness of a more finite energy .S notices it dissolving from the
physical body and then from her energy field. At that point it is completely gone. S
thinks that this results from utterly meeting what is there without resisting. Alternately
it could be that she has allowed herself to go through the process of resisting
whatever is there.
What strikes S most about the practices is that they help her to feel a subtle
strength. This which gives her an ability to feel support when she goes into things
which might previously have felt too frightening. Previously S would not have known
what to do if she went there. This subtle strength which she got from the practices
S reflected that even If she was just sitting on her own as opposed to being
interviewed this would be clear to her. The practices gave her a walking staff. S
feels that the ultimate value would be to take them out of the therapeutic
had the support and the witnessing which occurs in the sessions.
For S the allowing of experiences and the witnessing of them in the presence of
someone else has been a very important part of the therapy. S has experienced
other practices and trainings but for her these were not integrated because they
themselves. This gave S sensory information, was very powerful for her.
To have the courage to allow herself to be seen in that utter presence, is in a way,
the most powerful experience. This is because it is difficult for her to know what is a
real experience. She has an active and analytical mind which she feels can be very
useful. However this can also be damaging to herself. She feels that it is very easy to
have strong experiences on her own and then wonder if she is simply deluding
herself. She wonders if the experience could just have been some throw back to
when she was 17 and experimented with drugs. When asked by the researcher if S
wanted to say any more during the second interview about the importance of being
witnessed in the therapy she said that she had found it both obvious and wonderful
when a friend of hers had said that it was because she had had no good witness
when she got traumatised in the first place. Being witnessed also validates new
positive experiences, preventing self-doubt from getting hold of them, the doubting-
Thomas part of the mind is therefore contained. S also described how she had found
that having her distress witnessed in the therapy by someone who was positively
330
something had been exorcized. S feels that this results from these internalised
experience taking up negative space within the body. By allowing them to come
through then the space is clear. There is then just space. The sense of having new
space after having met raw emotions is very important to S. If she feels blocked up
expanded state. Each thought and emotion has to be able to express itself before S
can access this sense of space. S senses that there are many parts of the self which
need to be tending to these thoughts and emotions, her mind, her being, her soul.
Being busy prevents the momentary pause required to open out and integrate them
and also perhaps something in their nature seems to separate them out S described
how it was as if she saw in herself all these circular water vibrations. The meeting of
a feeling is akin to the first ripple from the outer layer .As she went on to meet herself
more and more and go more into the core, this changes .There can be a bitter
sweetness even within a very traumatic meeting of the self. The pain becomes
miniscule without being diminished. As she goes more and more to the centre the
original feeling may no longer exist. S speculated that this may be because she has
When the researcher asked if this was similar to a different perspective coming
through, S said yes, absolutely and perhaps is able to feel less consumed by that
aspect of her experience. S feels that within the breathing or mantra, cellular
memory comes through. She described this as being like little threads. This is a very
real experience for her. S feels that this experience also results from enquiring into
her body. It is almost as if, when she does this, she can feel her brain going down
331
inside her body. Then it is as if the inside of her body opens up into an entirely
different realm. S described this as if the brain coming into the heart space and the
brain is working for the heart when this happens. Trying to do this the other way
around is always slightly uncomfortable for S. When enquiring into the body S feels
that her brain has something to do in a different sense to its habitual mode of
working. S feels her brain becomes useful to her rather than just dragging the rest of
Being witnessed brings a quality of presence to S which she wanted to explore in the
words heaviness and lightness. When S is being seen, being met and being invited,
her sense is that the etheric quality meets with the very human physical realm. For S
that comes from the heart. S thinks that holding a space from this heart energy is
something that the therapist did particularly well. It is not sympathy but a genuine
flower bed rather than appreciating it from the outside. When asked to take time to
enquire once more into the middle of her body to see if there was anything else any
part of her wished to express S was silent and then said that her body was saying
that it needed to wee. On her return from the College toilets, S then returned to
She feels that once this presence has been experienced, sympathy has an
unintentional aspect of being patronising. When the slightly more qualitative space or
This enabled her to reorganise things in a way which feels more real. Through the
practices S notices that she is suddenly engaging with herself. There is this
presence, expansion, potency. If S falls away from that, she notices how superficially
332
she is talking to herself. S thinks that the therapist must do practices herself to
enable her to offer this quality of presence. . By contrast other communications can
seem superficial. When asked by the interviewer if she can feel any of this now as
she talks about it S describes feeling a very alert kind of mind body feeling in the
interview.
S commented that it can feel a bit frightening to be in that utter presence, to notice
that she can move her fingers and that is actually an awesome thing in itself. To be
present and to be witnessed can feel both exhilarating and weird. S clarified that
these feelings are interesting, alive and hopeful. The practices lead to a
reprioritisation for S, in that the aliveness, potency and spring quality tells her that
there is always some sort of hope, some sort of “ its ok” feeling. Without applying
these qualities, S believes that it is very easy to feel quite desperate. She does not
think that this occurs only in people who are prepared to put their hands up to say
She believes this can saturate us if we are not really inviting presence and noticing
breath. If S is in that sense of utter presence, she cannot notice her breath anymore.
It is as if the breath is happening to her, as if she has become the actual thing she
was focusing upon. Nothing else necessarily exists apart from that. S thinks that
after experiencing that, it is hard to relate to her problems in the same way.
When asked one final time to apply Focusing at the end of the first interview to see
what else may want to be said, S described how she noticed that she was tired but
had also had had lots of coffee so she had a tired-wired kind of feeling. This gave S
a jingly tension which she is feeling in her body. The sense of right- now- ness, of the
immediacy of this, makes S want to shout with joy from the rooftops. To be able say
333
“This feeling is ok!” S feels that it would be wonderful if everyone was actually able
express this and have it met. That in itself felt sufficient to S. There is no need for
S then reflected that even a discomfort can create a sense of elation but from a
grounded place. A sense of liberation, but to S, it’s as if it’s almost coming from
behind. This is what S experiences when she goes into her body and listens in a
present way to what is going on behind the initial emotions and her sense of
physicality. S described how an aspect of herself, prior to the therapy, had felt much
more recessed as if it was sitting a lot further back. Not so much a back seat driver,
more akin to being at the back of a double decker bus. Now through the process of
therapy, S can gradually come further and further forward in herself, to the extent
she can fairly quickly have a sense of “there I am”. The “I am” therefore becomes
Biographical detail
M2, female aged 49 presented for psychotherapy having been signed off work for 3
months with anxiety and depression. M2 had retrained as a primary school teacher
later in life as a second career and had loved her work. She was struggling to come
to terms with her lack of confidence and anxiety. M2’s anxiety and depression had
been in part triggered by stressful situations in the classroom. She had several
students with severe emotional and behavioural problems and her teaching assistant
had also gone off long term sick. These life event stressors had activated a profound
334
sense of worthlessness which related to her sense of rejection from her father as a
child. M2 experienced profound grief, failure and abandonment during the therapy.
Her first interview occurred 18 months after her final psychotherapy session. She
M2’s first response to the interview’s request that she turn attention into her body
'aliveness' was to notice the her body wanted to yawn. She then sensed that her
centre was alive to the question. M2 recalled that in either the first or the second
therapy session that the therapist did a guided meditation. This involved the image of
It was difficult to M2 to differentiate between what the therapist had said and created
for M2 during the visualisation and what M2 had imagined at that point in time, as
the two have become blended together in M2’s mind. M2 was clear that the therapist
began the process through the guided visualisation and that had brought M2 a good
deal of light.
M2 remembered feeling very upset at one point and her body had felt tight and hurt.
The therapist then created something whereby somebody, possibly an angel, which
was going to love her at that moment and gather up all the pain which she was
M2 reflected that she cannot be sure if the therapist described the angel or if M2 just
saw it. When asked to describe the experiences of the practices named by her in the
first interview which she had named as a guided visualisation, M2 remembered that
the therapist had asked her to go into her heart. She had then seen a light in front of
her which may even have become a feather.These words, light and angel, were not
335
the words which the therapist had given her instead these images emerged
It was very small and in the distance, but light was radiating from it. The angel was
very beautiful and completely compassionate. M2 felt that the angel was taking
everything that M2 was able to give her and receiving it with loving kindness
unconditional love. M2 recalled that then there was a beautiful moment of allowing
Then the therapist and M2 began talking about the pyramid underneath. A vision
appeared in front of M2’s head which was quite small at first like an egg. It was very
light and bright it was black at the bottom but not jet black and as she and the
therapist began to talk about it the pyramid became white like a quartz crystal. White
light was coming from it enabling M2 to see right through it. She could see quartz
and could see that the tip of the pyramid was light.
M2 could see a light coming from it both during the guided meditation and during the
following week when in her vision it descended and began to change its colours.
At one point it became completely white, the whole of it becoming like a quartz
crystal.
M2 experienced this as very, very lovely and described it as strongly grounding her
during the course of the week. M2 felt this strongly in the body as well as visualising
the image.
When asked by the researcher if this experience of the pyramid which she found so
helpful during the week had occurred as a result of deliberately meditating upon it,
M2 did not think that this was the case. She described how she would simply be
doing a task at home and she would find herself feeling suddenly shaky and needing
336
to root herself. As a consequence of the image being there like a talisman, M2 was
able to go back and look at the pyramid, remind herself about the pyramid in the
Whenever M2 found herself experiencing a difficulty that week, she would visualise
the pyramid at the base of her body. M2 described this as incredibly useful, as it
grounded her and whenever she was anxious or nervous it was there like a
touchstone.
It stayed with M2 for 2 or 3 weeks and then it was either not needed or another
touchstone replaced it .As far as the angel was concerned, M2 cannot really
remember thinking about her other than feeling very grateful towards her.
When M2 needed a touchstone it was the pyramid that she returned to. The pyramid
was grounded in the body, in the lower abdomen. Possibly even lower than that, in
the base chakra. M2’s sense was that the angel, by contrast, was very much from
her heart and the pyramid was very much from the base. While these visualisations
were occurring, M2 had had the idea in her heart that because both her heart and
body were very dark at this time these images represented the beginning of a slow,
graduated process of changing from darker to lighter colours over a period of time
The colours changed in time from very dark jet back to the slightly paler 'lightness'
which came from the dark purple to the tip of like quartz, so it was almost like an
amethyst at the top and then graduating down. It went through shades of purple but
the base was always darker than the tip. The pyramid tip was always experienced by
M2 clarified that the light she was describing was not the sort of light one can read a
book by but rather 'lightness' in terms of colour, 'lightness' noticed in shade. It was
337
also not as if a light coming from the pyramid was shining at her but rather that the
In M2’s opinion, it was this experience which began M2’s personal sense of a
transformation into light. The image of the pyramid and the angel began the process
for M2. She did not think that she had realised at the time quite how tense she was
at that point.
M2 described how the whole business about breathing had really come home to her
during the summer holidays after the therapy had finished. While at that point the
therapist and M2 had talked about the breathing, M2 felt that she had not completely
sorted it out.
This was because she was still processing and even now she is aware that she is
not 100%.
M2 found it interesting to look at this during the interview, as she can still feel now
some of the tension that she had then. That felt fine because as far as M2 is
concerned it is also part of the process and so much that has been beneficial has
M2 then wanted to talk about the breathing before talking any more about these
beneficial off shoots of her period of vulnerability and depression. M2 explained that
during the holidays, after the therapy had finished, her teeth were grinding and
grinding away at night. M2 had never experienced this before. She kept asking
herself, why is this happening to me? Things had got better for her and she had
found a new job. So she went to the dentist and the dentist gave her a mouth guard
After trying that for just one night, M2 decided that she was not going to mess
around with that any longer. She then just told herself that for a few days she was
338
not going to grind her teeth anymore. M2 then realised breath was the answer to this
problem! Because when she breathed into her belly it relaxed the jaw to help it open
up and stop the grinding. When asked during her second interview if she had felt that
the breathing was directly for stopping the grinding of her teeth she said yes. It was
breathing into her belly which had done this. Also M2 thinks that because we had
talked so much about the pyramid her focus came back into her belly and reminded
M2 that was where her strength was, her grounding at that point in the body. When
asked to take time to move attention into the middle of her body and see if there was
anything else which she wanted to say about her experience of 'lightness' and
'aliveness' towards the end of the first interview, M2 was silent for one minute and
then said that she sensed that it was all about breathing and how important
breathing had been. M2 described how when she had first come to therapy she had
thought that she knew how to breathe. She had learnt this when she went to
transcendental meditation. M2 was therefore irritated when the therapist had first
suggested that we breathe. When we did the first breath M2 found that her body was
Therefore M went home and wrote down exactly what the therapist had said
“Breathe M. Breathe, breathe, breathe, hold, hold, hold, release, release, release”.
M2 had not been breathing in that manner of really taking it in in the whole body and
releasing it slowly, which she then demonstrated in the interview. M2 now finds this
easy to do. It feels light and it brings her energy therefore she does it every day.
This has really, really helped her In her second interview, M2 described the
breathing as having been incredibly significant for her because she had not realised
that she had stopped breathing properly. She had forgotten how to breathe deeply.
M2 felt that her breathing had become very shallow because her neck was
339
constricted and her shoulders were tight. M2 remembered the therapist telling her
about a form of breathing which would allow her to access the power of her
This was the breathing method of breathing in and holding and then releasing
breath as slowly as you can.M2 felt that that form of breathing was probably the most
significant thing which she and the therapist had done together. She remembered
going home and writing it down in a book. This book was on her table for 8 weeks of
perhaps even 3 to 4 months. It was there for a long period of time. It was therefore
right in front of her:- “Remember to breathe.” Of all the things we did in the therapy it
was undoubtedly the breath which was the most important thing for her. When asked
by the interviewer during the second interview if this breathing helped her to feel
more alive M2 laughed and repeated the question rhetorically to herself. She then
clarified that it really helped her to hold onto life.M2 described how the way she is
feeling now, at the time of the second interview, is incredibly alive. Her life has been
M2 reflected that she would not have said alive then because it was more of a
process of healing, a gradual healing. She described a healing through breath and a
very gradual return to normality. During her first interview, M2 described how the last
few months had been a process of getting back into a sense of grounding, a sense
of earth.
She described herself as feeling much, much better but feels that sometimes it is
good to be reminded of the process that she has been through. She has not lost the
awareness, has not forgotten how precious life is and how very grateful she is for it.
M2 reflected upon how she had thought that when she had gone back to her new
school she would want to have her own class and her ego would come in. This had
340
turned out not to be the case at all, a fact which made M2 laugh. Instead, M2 had
found that she is was very happy doing what she is doing now, working four days a
The reason for this happiness because she can experience a sense of being.
It has been an inward journey for M2, to be. This is what M2 is currently working on,
the sense that what is important is not in the future. Instead the journey is always
onwards, and involves being in presence and bringing it into the world, with her
community.
M2 has a sense of wholeness arising from bringing consciousness into the world.
Therefore, while M2 may not be going to save a child in Africa and or doing an
outwardly big thing that does not matter because her purpose is being in presence.
M2 described presence and beingness as something which does not have thought
and does not have a name. It has a quality of stillness and it is this which tells M2
that it is something other than ego. Instead it is simply the joy of being in community.
Presence comes when she is with other people who can also be present, when she
dances, when she is listening, when she meditates and every time she brings herself
back to the present and brings herself back to breath. M2 feels that breath and
presence are related, breath bringing in a sense of presence which impacts upon the
time.
M2 described how her hands feel so much lighter than they were. Previously she
had been unaware of how much pain there had been in her hands and now they feel
so much lighter.
M2 explained that she had brought her journal with her because the researcher had
wanted to talk about lightness. She had kept a journal during that very painful time.
341
One day she had come home after a therapy session and had wanted to draw and
the colours she chose were yellows and blues. M2 had chosen the yellows first
because they symbolised lightness. This yellow represented both the colour which
M2 wanted to bring into her life and the feeling of transformation and changing.
When the researcher commented that she thought she could see pain in the picture
as well as beauty and colour, M2 agreed that there was pain there and that she
M2 has learnt and is learning that to surrender to pain is not such a bad thing.
What is helpful is to transform pain and if she is safe and she is held then pain will
not be dangerous. M2 has learnt that pain has to be acknowledged, there cannot be
a quick fix. Neither is time fixed. When asked by the researcher if the image of the
angel and receiving love from something external to her had stayed with her, M2
M2 explained that during the past few years Buddhism has become an important
part of her life but she had seemed to need something extra such as a person or a
This is not there in Buddhism or at least not in sotto Zen practice. M2 wanted
something greater than herself in order to be able to lean into it, to be nurtured by it,
to allow it to love me and that love to be an unconditional love. She had wanted this
and feels that she is now able to find it. M2 needed to find something else and also
to keep her integrity to her committed path, not to mix things up. Now M2 is quite
happy to talk about the stillness within and God and also to have Buddhism.
When asked by the therapist if this is because she feels that she is big enough to
integrate them both M2 agreed. During the summer, M2 had gone to Findhorn and
342
had experienced the chanting there as wonderful. She also experienced a sense of
stillness and God. They were together and that was fine.
When asked if she had anything to say from her body which resonated with the
M2 remembered coming to therapy one day feeling very shaky. The wind was
blowing and it was raining. This was making her very anxious. M2 felt that the
therapist saw this and said to her “ Its ok, the roof isn’t going to blow off.”
At this point M2 realised that she really was holding that level of fear. She felt so
unsafe in her body and in the world. She felt very vulnerable. Something about this
being seen had enabled M2 to see this also.M2 described how she used to talk so
much about very powerful raw, painful things and then she would go home and sleep
and sleep. When she woke there would be peace and light as if the pain and
darkness had all been a dream. It was gone. This helped M2 gain a sense of
'aliveness'. M2 thinks that other people also benefitted from the process she went
through. Her husband has also gone through something. She had not realised how
loved she was. Now she feels that she can see him more. M2 senses that he is also
changing. He came into her room the other morning and asked if M2 wanted a cup of
M2 does not think he would have done this before. The process of transformation
which M2 went through helped her both to see and to receive love in her life. She
would not have known before this journey how loved she was. At first she was so
M2 recalled that one day the therapist told her to dance a dance of transformation of
the old to the new.M2 had thought that she had to do it that week and she had tried
to do so but it had felt slow and awkward. Now she dances a lot and feels a great
343
deal of energy. She feels very light but also very grounded. They are not separate
experiences to her. She can move the light which comes down to her head to the
M2 has just completed a 5 rhythms dance workshop and this was a wonderful
experience for her. M2 is no longer in one class anymore at school instead, she
moves from room to room. As she does this, all the children are pleased to see her
as she is new to them. She comes and goes and the children look forward to it.
M2 used to have so much fear being in one class and she also feared losing her
class.
Now she can see how much her ego was causing this fear and can choose just to
her sense of self.She no longer feels alone anymore because this energy which she
feels and expresses belongs to everyone. The work which we did in the therapy and
some other things which M2 did out of therapy helped her to see this.
M2 also remembered that she had felt no colour and the therapist had said to her
She also remembered how grey and cold those winter months were and how much
she missed the sun and the therapist had said something about how in the winter
she used the fire to find that heat and light. That helped M2 to see it in the fire.
M2 felt there was a link between warmth and colour and fire and aliveness.
When asked to check one final time using embodied focusing to see if there was
anything else which she wanted to express, M2 said that it just felt good to revisit
this and to notice how much she had changed. She had been anxious at first about
revisiting this material and picking up her journal which she had looked at last night,
but she had also wanted to come to contribute to this work moving forward.
344
It has been very helpful to M2, she can now sense the benefit. She feels that
everyone should have this chance to look back and notice how far they have come
During her second interview M2 described her experience of something in her soul
having been lost, which she missed greatly and the need therefore to find her way
back to a place of creative flow. The therapy enabled M2 to have the space to really
see things which were happening, providing a mirror. It was this which brought about
what M2 called a sense of being in presence. M2 knew that when she was in this
place of presence then she was also engaged in a process of healing. When she is
in that mode, she feels that it benefits not only her but all other beings. M2 is has no
doubt as she looks back that this is 100 percent where she is now, not all of the time,
but most of the time. That is a real joy to her, and looking back M2 feels that she
must have known somewhere in herself that this was the kind of healing that she
When asked if she wanted to say more about the importance of self-nurture which
she described as being very important in her first interview M2 said that this is now
M2 recalled that she had forgotten about loving herself. There was a part of her
which she had no control over and she wonders now if this was an element of a
mental illness. When she hears about other people’s situations and the paranoia
which can occur to them M2 realises that she was paranoid at that point in time. That
was a very dark area, the paranoia which she could not control, even if it was
relatively minor in comparison with what other people who are desperately ill
experience.
345
In order to soften and reduce, the paranoia needed to become so small that it was
almost invisible, like a chia seed. Envisaging it as a chia seed during the second
interview suddenly gave M2 a sense of joy because chia is such a healthy, giving
thing.
At that time M2 had forgotten how to love herself and was very critical of herself. The
self-nurture resulted from the guidance of the therapist because M2 had recognised
that the angel in the guided visualisation was part of herself, self-nurturing, being
kind and having unconditional love and compassion for herself. It had taken the
Biographical detail.
T, a 52 year old woman working in the finance industry, first came to therapy due to
feelings of depression and guilt. She had two children, both teenagers and was
worried about her 14 year old daughter who was drinking heavily and presenting
problems at school. Her daughter was also very critical towards T and seemed to be
happier staying with her father and step mother. This gave T a real sense of anxiety
and failure. T’s childhood had also given her a sense of inadequacy as she had
always felt very different to the rest of her birth family. When she became a single
parent, T’s own family had been very judgemental, communicating clearly that she
could not accept any financial help from them. T’s ex-partner and father of her
children had also been consistently critical of her. He had been a much more
materialistically and conventionally orientated person than T and had left T with the
sense that she could not be true to herself and in any intimate relationship. At the
346
time of therapy, T had also been unhappy in her job. It was meaningless to her and
took up time which she would have preferred to spend with her children or
deepening her spiritual enquiry. T was a Zen Buddhist who had attended several
retreats at the time therapy began. Some elements of her spiritual beliefs, combined
with her parents’ moral values led to self-critical and restrictive thoughts while other
elements of her spirituality gave her a real sense of freedom and excitement.
T was in therapy for 8 months. Her first interview took place 18 months after her final
psychotherapy session.
T expressed that when she thought about the research question the first thing which
came to her mind was the practice which we had done which involved going inside
and finding a place in her body and giving some kind of form to the pain, enabling
her to communicate with it. T remembered using a black dog and conversing with a
black dog. The dog had expressed to T how angry it was with what she was doing
job wise. It was angry with her because she was compromising her integrity.
After having listened to the dog, T remembered feeding the dog with nectar. This
made it also a healing process. After this, T experienced a huge sense of relief that
she had a tool with which she could access her dark side and meet the anger which
was there and also nurture and heal it. Therefore, this particular practice gave T a
This felt empowering to T. It made her feel as if she had some form of control and
did not need to be so frightened of the pain and anger. T remembered the 'Feeding
Your Demons' practice which this experience had emerged from, when the
researcher described it to her. She could not remember if, within the practice, the
dog became her friend but she did remember that she had encountered that
347
particular dog before. He had appeared her many years ago in a previous therapy
scenario. It had been many years since she had had any communication with the
dog. Then, suddenly, the dog cropped up again. It had given T a huge sense of
T explained that she finds it hard to cry. She can cope with dialogue but to actually
physically release a feeling of pain and suffering through tears is more challenging
for her. A mechanism through which to dialogue was therefore much safer for T and
did not feel threatening for her, or humiliating as T sometimes experiences crying.
experience of relief T noticed that she has a tool to work with which means that she
can heal herself. This means that she is not dependant on anyone else. Instead, she
can go in there herself and do this as a daily practice. This felt good to T. She used
the words relief, joy and empowerment to describe her sense of having a key to her
own well-being. That she alone had the key was significant to her, no one else but T
had been given it. T did not have to take any medication for depression. T described
how depression is part of something which she has been grappling with all her life
and while the meditation practice which T does provided her with mental stability,
somehow she needed to be able to go into the darkness and actually release. It was
important for T to have a mechanism which enabled her to do that, rather than being
T described how that particular 'Feeding Your Demons' technique which T had
learnt was the one thing which she had really needed to move forward. It enabled
her to release anything that came up from the pit of suffering of her past. T does not
feel as if she has been seriously depressed since then and she continued to work
348
with variations of the model. Sometimes T will just use crayons and allow an image
to arise. She is not using Focusing in the sense of going into a particular part of her
body but she is allowing an image to form. She then reflects upon what it might be
trying to communicate to her and then speaks and says what she is feeling. T feels
the shape of the being she has just created and it somehow forms an outlet for
whatever T notices when she explores inside herself. When asked by the therapist if
she would like to take a moment in the interview to use embodied Focusing to see if
there was anything present at that point in the interview which might want to
communicate itself, T noticed that what immediately came up for her was that she
needed to be listened to and that particular part of herself does not get listened to.
T speculated that this might be because life is so busy and the processing of pain is
not given priority. She does feel, however, that things which have caused pain do
need to be voiced, even if this is only to be able to release them and put them behind
her. As a general rule T tends to just put the lid on them and then, every once in a
while she has a chance to process something. Therapy provided the space for T to
She could just go into the therapy room and allow these feelings to arise. Normally
there is just too much for T to do in life. The other thing that T wanted to say at this
point was that generally she finds it very hard to release emotion. If she goes on
retreat it takes her about 3 days to be able to let emotions arise and release. It had
felt as though what we had done in the therapy was taking quite a big short cut. She
feels that she was lucky to be able to achieve what she did because there are so
Usually, one hour is not enough for T to actually get through all the defensive layers
which she experiences. When asked by the researcher whether there was anything
349
else which enabled her to cut through the defences, apart from that particular
practice and the space offered in the therapy, T once again emphasised the value of
Although T has used the drawing space which she described earlier in the interview
occasionally, she does not feel she uses it as much as she could. In the therapeutic
This was because the therapeutic space had enabled her to feel held spiritually and
emotionally, enabling her to do the practice without feeling threatened, and sensing
that it is ok to just go with the practice. When asked if she had felt that this process
arising naturally which wanted to come out, T said yes, absolutely. As T explored her
answers to these questions she felt that she is experiencing the same quality of
space that she used to be in during the therapy. T thinks that the therapy changed
her. She feels that it made her much more confident. This is because if she wanted
to work with something in herself which really needed to come up, she felt that she
could do so. She knew how to do it; and how to respect it and give it the love and
nurturing that it really needs and not be frightened of it. This is the beauty of that
particular practice for T, the nectar and the real compassion of it and having that
compassion towards oneself and the dark deeds which one might have done or
When asked to apply embodied Focusing to see if there was anything else which
resonated with her experience of 'lightness' or 'aliveness' in the therapy which she
wanted to name, T mentioned the guided visualisation of the Golden Light. T then
described how this used to make her feel almost transcendent, giving her a feeling
that that part of her consciousness was opening up. This certainly did give her a
350
feeling of 'lightness' and compassion for the universe and the release of suffering for
all beings. She described this as really being a kind of plea which definitely gave rise
to a sense of lightness. The practices which involved visualising light, the simple
use of golden light, and of blue light were described by T as certainly made her feel
lighter.
When asked to describe what she remembered specifically about this in more detail,
T said that it had felt as if she was accessing that energy in herself and giving it its
movement, releasing the stuckness. She remembered feeling thick and sticky and
stuck energy-wise. The golden light somehow gave this a little bit of momentum and
then working with the light turned it into nectar. When asked how this experience of
light impacted upon the depressive felt sense which had brought her into therapy, T
said that the light was really something which she could wrap around the darkness
and feed the darkness with it. It then somehow became loose and could move and
dissipate. It helped to somehow hold the darkness and by feeding it, it had felt as if
there would be an exchange. T remembered that we also did another practice which
she described as breathing in light energy and breathing out dark energy. She
could not remember the details exactly, but she thinks doing that helped her. She
also named discussing Vajasattva and doing the mantra as practices which would
also have helped her. T then remembered another practice which she did a bit of
work with and remembers discussing with a friend of hers. This involved breathing in
suffering and then releasing it up. Then she recalled the light coming down so that
there was a sense in which she was channelling the suffering, either from another
being or from a part of herself, and then using the golden light to heal. She has not
When asked by the researcher if doing any of these things had impacted upon her
self-concept, T said that she had gone on to continue practising Zen and had had
lay ordination. She felt that her decision that this was the direction in which she
wanted her life to go was very much helped along by the therapy and also by the
conversations which she had had with her dark side which reinforced her sense that
she did not have to do a job which she did not feel in her heart was doing good for
the world. T felt that she had the strength to realign her life and to actually truly be
the person that she is. To have the confidence to know that she can work with
everything that she has done and is without being frightened. When asked in the
second interview if she wanted to say any more about the experience which she had
described in the first interview which related to having the strength to realign her life,
T said that that particular shift in her life feels very important and related to non-
compliance. She defined this further as having the internal strength inside to say no
to resist those pressures and to have the strength to take the harder route, knowing
that she could survive it and be true to herself. Prior to this, T had felt that particularly
as an unmarried single parent she had received a great deal of criticism. She was
under pressure to work full time to be financially independent and to prove herself in
ways which actually involved compromising her integrity by means of doing a job
which she did not want to do simply because it was well paid. Then this changed to T
thinking that this was wrong, and that the way that she felt about her life mattered.
When asked in the second interview if this experience was linked at all to any sense
of more 'aliveness' T said yes, definitely because she had felt so trapped before.
This had taken her into a heavy and oppressed mental state. Taking off the shackles
When asked to apply embodied Focusing one further time to see if there was
anything else which her body wanted to say in response to the research question, T
wanted to endorse that working with the different colours of light was important T
does not really understand this, but she felt that it worked without her really knowing
She vaguely remembered being asked to go into different parts of the body and to
find the part of the body which was holding pain or where there was something which
needed to come out. The colour which T experienced when finding pain in the body
was the same colour as the demon. Something about working with colour felt right to
T. It was helpful and working with colour had communicated something in its own
right in a manner that was beyond language. Asked by the researcher if she had
and said that she could just have drawn a black dog and with the colours and by
giving it shape T felt that she could have communicated what she needed to say.
T has recently been on an art therapy course and if she cannot articulate what she
wants to say, which is often the case when she is not in therapy, she finds it easier
just to make an image and then to do something with colour than to speak about it or
write words. T explained that she has her colours at home and while she is aware of
the fact that she does not use them very often, she likes to have them there. She
has booked herself on another art therapy course. T is currently, at the time of
interview, thinking of doing some more regular art therapy. There is a Buddhist that
she knows who offers art therapy and T quite likes the idea of a combination of the
two.
When asked by the researcher if she can sense the dog which she described
around her T said that he has been around for many years but he does not get
353
listened to very often. When asked if she would like to enquire into the body and see
if the black dog wants to speak T took time to enquire and then said that she sensed
that the dog was interested. She felt as if she could see the dog and had an image of
both a black and a white dog. Both dogs were asleep, but the black dogs’ ears had
pricked up and his eyes were open. When asked to describe how this feels, T said
that the fact that both dogs were resting under a tree and that they are not looking
defensive or particularly angry and they were physically in quite good shape was
significant. T sensed that the dog is interested in doing more work, but is not jumping
up and demanding to be listened to. When asked by the researcher what the dogs
represent to her, T said that what came up in response was that they symbolised
her conscious and her unconscious. The white dog is her conscious self and the side
of her which makes judgements and the black dog is the repressed part. The black
dog feels in some ways stronger more robust. He is a bit scarier and to T, he is the
unconscious repressed energy. T likes the fact that they are there and that they both
feel like her friends. In response to the researcher’s question as to whether having
the light dog made it easier for T to listen to the dark dog said yes, the dogs could
talk to each other and she could have written a dialogue between the two of them.
When asked to apply embodied focusing one final time and see if anything in her
which would still like to respond to the question, or whether she has said everything
that her body wants to say, T noticed one last thing. She described this not a direct
response to the question but more of an aside which has arisen and would like to
speak. She can remember doing deep breathing with the therapist and being
fascinated by the therapists’ deep breathing. T described this as being really deep
breathing. The depth that the therapist went to within herself sounded like quite
primitive deep breathing, almost cat like. T used to find this slightly unnerving. It
354
made T think is there a really deep primitive part of me? Does that frighten me a little
bit? T is curious about her response to that and thinks that perhaps there is
something that she is not 100 percent comfortable about accessing. Perhaps a very
deep, primitive kind of energy associated with a very primitive and animalistic level of
being in the world which is reactive rather than reflective, an anger which can be
very destructive.
The breathing touched that side of her. T feels that she does need to explore this
because she felt a bit unnerved by it. She senses that there is something there
definitely on the black dog side. She feels that she is now in her fifties and has now
been working with things for a while but that there is still further work to be done.
the tape of her first interview. She had been thinking that she may not remember
what she said in the first interview. The researcher the offered the transcript of the
first interview to T to read if she needed to refresh her memory. When asked how T
had experienced the feeling of relief at being able to accept and listen to the darker
side of the self which she had described in her first interview and what had brought it
about, T described that what came up first in response to that question was her
In that environment, the darker side of the self is something that you do look at but
you can confess on a regular basis. The way in which T was brought up was by
going and telling her sins or the darker side of herself to the priest and then receiving
penance. This was therefore about cleansing herself. T had found it empowering to
deal with this process on her rather than via an intermediary like a priest.
When asked during her second interview if she could use embodied focusing to
describe any further her experience of the golden light visualisation which she had
355
compassion surging up within her. It was difficult for her to describe the light energy.
There was the heart opening feeling and at the same time…. something else. It was
easier for T to explain it as the opposite of the heavy stuck energy. Somehow, at the
other end of the spectrum there is a very loose, light energy which for T relates to the
When asked during the second interview to use embodied enquiry to see if T would
like to say any more relating to her description in her first interview of finding the
tools to release and also to heal, T described the major tool as being able to feel
experiences and give them a form, a body which they could speak from. T had gone
on to take forms into some art practice. This is still a tool for her. She has been on a
workshop where the clay is allowed to take a shape and speak and she is that
shape. T feels that this is exactly the same practice as we did in sessions.
When asked if she would like to say any more about her first interview description of
what facilitated T’s sense of “channelling the suffering” during a Vajasattva practice
and what that experience had been like for her, T described her sense of this as
gathering the suffering and surrounding it with positive pure healing energy which
can then help to disperse it. When asked if this was a collective or a personal sense
of suffering, T described it as her own suffering rather than the collective. Asked if
she wanted to say any more about her experience of feeling held spiritually and
emotionally T said that what immediately came up was the significance of having a
spiritual parent. Although she has spiritual friends, there was no one else with whom
While T’s exchanges with her spiritual friends do involve some kind of release, the
therapy provided a very structured place to let things arise. Therapy therefore
356
facilitated a very accepting and healing energy, with a forward movement at the end.
how she was at the end of the sessions. For T, this enabled the gaps between
sessions to get wider. Towards the end we were meeting only every 6 weeks
because T felt that all she needed was to release and refuel.
When asked, using embodied enquiry to describe how her sense of being listened
to, which she had described as giving rise to a sense of 'lightness' and 'aliveness' in
her first interview, had worked for T she described how she had realised that while
others are important, she matters too. T thinks that within Buddhist practice there is a
good deal of emphasis upon the welfare of others and while T feels that that is
wonderful, it is also important to take stock of where she is at and what is good for
her. When asked one final time if there was any more she wanted to say about her
experience of 'lightness' and 'aliveness' or anything else at all about the therapy, T
said that a week would be preferable for her to an hour. This is because T feels that
people bring a good deal of compacted suffering to therapy which needs to be heard.
slower pace for the work, as it is not easy to go from a place where people feel quite
tender and then suddenly go back out there into the world again.
piece of clay work she could do so, at the same time as being in a nurturing, healing