by Mary Jennings
May 2025
Bruce Gibbs, a student of Gene Gendlin, taught Focusing by a method he calls ‘instances’ rather than through Gene’s better known six steps. He would start his first class by asking how they might react to seeing the flashing lights of a police car right behind them in the rear-view mirror. Straight away, everyone was able to identify the visceral body-feel and the feeling-feeling of that! They recognised that sense of ‘something’ that was not, as yet, quite clear: a felt sense was forming.
He would start by first helping them elicit a felt sense, as in the example above, then support them to explore further as they became more aware of their own capacity to sense more. They were learning Focusing by exploring something that they already knew, rather than starting by having to learn some unfamiliar technique such as the Gendlin six steps.
Lessons from Bruce Gibbs’ approach
Suppose we were to follow Bruce’s example and, in everyday conversations, be in there with the notion that felt-sensing is frequently, but not always, in play and if it is not, it can be encouraged. In other words our default mode is, ‘people are felt-sensing beings - let’s treat them like that.’
You might recognise that people are in this felt-sensing mode by noticing hesitations, uncertainties (a fuzzy edge)… they may pause…. they might use phrases like, “it’s like that time when,” or use metaphors or similes – “it’s like a fly you can’t catch – that kind of feeling…”. They are searching for the felt sense of what this is all about.
In this situation, you know they are in what philosopher and Focusing teaching, Greg Walkerden, calls ‘experiential depth;’ in effect they are felt-sensing, using this innate capacity of human beings quite naturally. If it feels right, you might use some of the following ‘steps’ as gentle invitations to them explore their felt sense. These include:
Six things you can do or say to support the felt sense to unfold in others:
- “Can you say more about that….”
(when you are noticing some hesitation)
- “It’s like a fly you can’t catch…”
(Saying back the key feeling/sensing/crux words in reflective listening)
- “In the example/story you are speaking about, it is a kind of … flexibility.. you are hoping for – something like that or…?”
(giving your best guess – knowing you are correctable).
- “Have you seen that kind of flexibility you are speaking about in other situations?”
(looking for more examples or instances of what they are pointing to; this helps to allow a felt sense to come more into focus and brings greater clarity)
- “What would you like this word –‘ flexible’ - to mean here?”
(knowing words are in context and they can carry many meanings – you are allowing the person to mean what they say, here, in this situation)
- “What comes to me about all this is….
( tentatively offer something that comes from your felt sense of the situation they are describing – how their experience lands with you: It’s not advice, not suggestions, definitely not ‘let me tell you my story’! Instead, you are offering an empathic moment, one human being in interaction with another, and the person may go deeper…)
Of course, you would not use all of these ‘steps’ in any one conversation. They are offered here as a way to experiment with bringing a focusing-orientation into everyday conversations, particularly when you have the clear sense that the other person in the conversation is in a natural, ‘felt-sensing mode’ or at some level of ‘experiential depth.’
It may support them to go deeper, or to facilitate them to pause, to spend time with an often-elusive ‘felt sense of all that,’ all the while having a natural conversation.
It becomes easier when we have felt-sensing as part of our way of being. This is not about being performative or trying too hard. It has to be natural – and that comes with time and practice.
At times, this approach may be totally inappropriate or confusing for the other person. It has to come from a place of deep presence and deep listening. Below are some guidelines to help you consider when to use/not use these ‘six steps.’
A framework to guide you
Greg Walkerden has some good advice on how to go about bringing these ‘steps’ into a conversation. A summary of the framework he has developed is below:
- Wait to see if something that seems helpful comes from your felt sense
- Be tentative, make it easy for the person to NOT follow your lead
- If they don’t, relax into appreciating that it seemed like a helpful suggestion, but it’s ok if it is not
- If you feel a soft 'no' to something you are doing or are about to do, pause, back up, and freshly consider a way forward
The final word: try it, experiment, you might find your conversations become a lot more interesting!
Mary's 3 week course was well received recently with The International Focusing Institute
