Although the classic stages of grieving delineated by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross over 40 years ago are well known and widely accepted, more current research shows that grieving does not follow such a tidy, linear formula but comes more in waves or in a spiral pattern unique to each person, and to the particular loss they are grieving. To heal from grief is now seen as less about letting go and moving on, and more about finding constructive ways to hold on to what was meaningful about the person or thing they have lost.

The classic stages of grief, from Death and Dying, the 1969 ground-breaking book by Kubler Ross are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. All of these may be present in the grief process, but then again, may not. And if they are present, they do not necessarily appear in that order. More often, people experience waves of grief that diminish in intensity over time, but do not go away altogether.

According to John Jordan (2006), a psychotherapist and teacher who specializes in grief counselling says, “Grief is much more heterogeneous than we thought. There are no universal five stages. We all grieve differently.”

A surprising study that looked at the mood states of older people whose spouse had died found that almost half of the respondents did not feel worse immediately after the death or at any time within five years of losing their spouse. Only 11 percent displayed the classic pattern one might expect: of becoming depressed after the death, and in time, recovering back to normal. Almost as many people (10 percent) actually had improved mood after their spouse died.

The findings were based on analyses of data from the Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC) study, a rare prospective survey of a random community-based sample of 1,532 married men and women age 65 and older conducted by the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR), the world’s largest academic survey and research institution. The results have been published in the book Spousal Bereavement in Late Life (2005). While they focus on a specific population, one can still look at these results and draw the general conclusion that not everyone goes through a long, involved grief process, and some appear not to grieve at all.

Jordan describes grief as “a whole-person response to the actual or threatened loss of anything to which they are psychologically attached.” He says grief is felt in our bodies, and somatic responses are common in those who are grieving. Grief is expected when a person loses a loved one, but there are many other losses that can bring grief: loss of a pet, a role or identity, a spiritual belief, the end of a relationship, physical decline — basically the loss of anything that a person truly valued has the potential to plunge them into mourning.

There are many factors that influence how a person will respond to a major loss. As counsellors, it’s important to understand the risk factors for difficult or ‘complicated grief’, a new category in the DSM-V, which is still a work in progress. Jordan says that, “All grief is normal grief.” He sees the role of grief counsellors as similar to that of a midwife facilitating a natural process, and like a midwife, “we may need to intervene more actively if the process gets stuck.”

According to research by Selby Jacobs one of the team members working on the new DSM-V criteria, there are four types of complicated mourning:

avoidant or inhibited, where there is no apparent grief response;

masked mourning, where the grief goes underground, yet affects functioning (somaticized grief, addiction) and the person does not make the connection;

distorted mourning, where one aspect of grief looms large, but the others are absent (for example intense yearning at the suicide of a loved one, but no anger, a classic response to death by suicide); and

chronic mourning, where the bereaved person is still emotionally raw about the loss after years have passed.

As clinicians, it’s important to understand that while most people can manage their own grief process instinctively and well, there are risk factors that predispose people for a more complicated grief process where support of a counsellor would be truly helpful. These factors include: previous history of depression or anxiety; experience of a loss that is sudden or violent; loss of a child (at any age), especially for mothers; multiple losses; and losses that are seen by the bereaved as preventable or ambiguous.

Factors that may make the grief process easier include prior exposure to loss (as long as it wasn’t too much loss too early in life); high self esteem; secure attachments; a spiritual orientation; and a leave-taking that allowed the bereaved to say good-bye in a way that felt right to them. Contrary to popular belief, it does not appear in current research that a conflicted relationship with the deceased makes mourning more protracted — in fact, the opposite can often be the case.

While there are guidelines, there is simply no standard formula for grieving, and we, as counsellors must allow our clients to be the guides and experts in this process, which can be lifelong. According to Jordan, we North Americans generally have a ‘flu model’ of grief, where you get sick, go downhill to the bottom fairly quickly and then gradually get better and resume functioning. “Grief is generally understood as a temporary disruption, like an illness. But, when you lose someone to death, your world permanently changes.”

Kauffman (2002) has developed a useful way of thinking about the grief process. We all have what he calls “assumptive worlds,” our basic understanding of how the world works based on our upbringing and life experience — things like, ‘The world is a safe place; people can be trusted; kids outlive their parents; bad things don’t happen to good people.” A sudden loss can shatter a person’s assumptive world view, and grief work can be seen as the process of rebuilding it, or adjusting to the new world where nothing is as it was. It can be very disorienting.

Jordan says much of grief work is about adjusting of our ‘assumptive world view’ to the new reality. We need more, repeated data to let go of the old view of the world. Even though we know in our mind that a loved one has died, it takes time and exposure to contradictory data for our unconscious to accept the new reality. As Freud said, “The unconscious does not believe in death.”

Instructive in this process is how children cognitively understand death. They tend to learn and understand about death, in this order: first they need to understand fatality, the fact that people (and animals) do die; second, that once they’re dead, people can’t come back to life; and third, that death is universal and will happen to everyone, even themselves.

Children cognitively master all three ideas at about age 6, but getting it emotionally takes a lot longer. “I’m still working on universality. It’s a lifelong developmental task to make our own mortality more psychologically real,” says Jordan. “We all have the child-like mind-set in us that says, ‘Death happens to other people, but it’s not going to happen to me.’”

Grief work travels along these same developmental steps — at first the bereaved can’t believe the person is really dead. Then they work on accepting that the dead are not coming back. And finally they begin to look at their own and universal mortality. These steps are more intense and marked in sudden and unexpected death. A long illness prepares one more gradually for death and grief work takes place along the way.

Neimeyer (2001) offers some concrete steps on how to reconstruct life meaning after a major loss. He sees grief work as happening in stages. The first stage may be similar to trauma work in that you don’t want to expose someone to too much too soon. But as they’re ready, ask the questions that no one else wants to ask: where they were when they got the diagnosis, when they realized it was terminal, and when the person died. Ask about the funeral, and about what they might have done differently if that were possible.

Once the initial processing of the death is winding down, it’s a good time to ask about the deceased, explore the history of the relationship, bring stories and photos. This moves the client from a reactive to a more reflective stance, and brings up the core question of grief therapy: what have I lost? What is it I have to let go of, and equally important, what do I have to hold on to? This is where grief rituals can be the most helpful, enacting meaningful, concrete steps that bring the mourner into relationship with the dead in some way. This can mean visiting the grave, creating a shrine or altar, or coming up with something completely unique that feels right for the bereaved person.

In the later stages of grief therapy, you can start to challenge avoidance of issues where this is present and address ways the person is still stuck. For some people, this may involve taking on practical new tasks and skills that were previously handled by a spouse. At this stage, it’s not uncommon for people to re-order priorities, make major life changes and develop a new identity. The good news is that the grieving process generally makes people stronger. Processing a major loss helps people grow, deepens them emotionally and spiritually, and can be a source of awakening and transformation.

References

Carr, Deborah, Nesse, Randolph, and Wortman, Camille B. (Eds.) (2006) Spousal Bereavement in Late Life. New York: Springer Publishing Company.

Jacobs, Selby (1999) Traumatic Grief: Diagnosis, Treatment and Prevention. Philadelphia, PA: Brunner/Mazel.

Jordan, John. R. (2006) American Academy of Bereavement presentation: Grief Counselling and Clinical Practice.

Kauffman, Jeffrey (2002). Loss of the Assumptive World: A Theory of Traumatic Loss. New York, NY: Brunner/Routledge.

Neimeyer, Robert A. (2001) Meaning Reconstruction and the Experience of Loss. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Over the next 15 years, Gendlin and his colleagues at the University of Chicago (including founder of the client-centered school of therapy, Carl Rogers) conducted a series of studies that concluded something surprising about psychotherapy: the key element to success is not the skill of the therapist, nor their methodology, but the therapy client’s own inner process.

Gendlin and his colleagues studied thousands of therapy sessions and soon were able to tell by watching just a few minutes of the first session or two whether or not the therapy was going to be successful. They could tell by the way the client spoke: a groping, tentative, but forward-moving sort of dialogue clients had with themselves that ultimately led to a easing or tangible shift in their whole sense of what had been a troubling situation. Gendlin was intrigued by the experiential process these rare, successful clients were engaged in and wondered whether it was something that could be replicated and taught. He broke it down into steps and called it ‘focusing.’ It is now being practiced and taught worldwide.

The Origins of Focusing

It is now commonly accepted that immediacy of experience is a key element of successful therapy, but Gendlin’s ideas were ahead of their time. He arrived at the University of Chicago in the mid 1950s and was intrigued by the work of Carl Rogers who, at the time, was laying the foundation for what became the person-centred school of psychotherapy. Focusing has retained many elements of person-centred therapy, notably the primacy of the client’s own experience, and the methods of reflective listening and empathy.
However, Gendlin diverged from Rogers in some important ways. Rogers’ emphasis was on the qualities of the therapist: he saw empathy, acceptance and genuineness as the keys to facilitating therapeutic success. He was disappointed by the results of the study with Gendlin that showed much of the onus for success lies with the client (Purton, 2004). Gendlin was intrigued and pursued ways to replicate what the successful clients were doing.

The Basics of Focusing

The basic steps of focusing were developed as a guide so that anyone interested in the process could learn and teach it. Gendlin does not take credit for inventing focusing, but he coined the term, has gone on to develop an entire philosophy around it and has written books on how to apply it both to psychotherapy (1996) and to working with dreams (1986). Because focusing is such an experiential method, it is easier to understand by doing, and difficult to describe. According to Gendlin, “General descriptions do not convey focusing. It differs from the usual attention we pay to feelings because it begins with the body and occurs in the zone between the conscious and the unconscious” (Gendlin, 1996, p.1).
Gendlin sees therapeutic change as possible when we approach an issue from an unclear felt sense about the whole of it. As we stay with it, the next step naturally comes. If we start from what we already know, we will travel the same well-worn paths. Focusing asks us to sense into what is present, complex, and implicit, like the feeling we get from a piece of art that stirs up far more than we can immediately say about it.
“Every experience and event contains implicit further movement. To find it one must sense its unclear edge,” (Gendlin, 1996, p. 15). He says small steps of change can come at these edges, and many small steps add up to real, lasting change. Gendlin has written extensively about the practice and philosophy of focusing — more than one can do justice to in the scope of an article. The Focusing Institute is a repository for his writings, as well as a source for focusing books, courses and focusing practitioners and trainers worldwide (www.focusing.org).

Other Approaches to Focusing

Many others have taken focusing and made further contributions to its theory and practice. Ann Weiser-Cornell, for example, with her linguistics background, has taken a strong interest in developing language that facilitates the focusing process. For example, when a focuser says, “I’m scared,” she would suggest the therapist rephrase this, “You’re sensing something in you that feels scared,” (2005, p. 51).This is a way of providing greater distance from what is sensed, to help the focuser to stop identifying with the fear.
Focusing teaches one to find the right distance from a felt experience: not so far away that it is intellectualization, and not so close that one is immersed in the feelings, but just the right distance to be in contact with whatever comes. This makes it possible for focusers to work with anything that might come up for them, even if it at first appears difficult or frightening.
Vancouver-based therapist Shirley Turcotte has become a well-known expert in the use of focusing for trauma. She has added several variations to the original process to make it safe and effective. She stresses the tendency for trauma survivors to experience flashbacks and regression while focusing. She also applies focusing to intergenerational and vicarious trauma, and has developed unique and profound ways to understand and treat these issues based on her aboriginal heritage, her own experience of healing from trauma and from decades of treating trauma survivors. (Her DVDs are available from The Focusing Institute.)

In conclusion

I have worked with focusing for more than a decade and now teach this skill to therapists based on Turcotte’s trauma-sensitive method. I have found focusing especially helpful for working with trauma and stuck places, but definitely not limited to these. It can apply to any issue and be used in conjunction with any methodology. When a client enters deeply into their experience of a seemingly intractable problem and can sit with this in open, curious way, something stirs and shifts inside, changing the way the body holds the issue. After this shift, focusers often experience a flood of insights, but what’s interesting is that these can be the very same insights the client expressed before. Without the bodily-felt shift, insights simply do not ‘land’ in the same way — they are mere ideas, intellectualizations. After focusing, clients often report that while the problem itself has not changed, they are different in it, freer and now feel more able to move forward.

Leslie Ellis, MA, RCC, is a focusing-oriented therapist in private practice and a Certifying Coordinator with The Focusing Institute. She welcomes questions about focusing and can be reached at lae@telus.net , (604) 787-6430 or www.leslieellis.ca.

From BCACC Insights Magazine, April 2010

By Leslie Ellis, MA, RCC

References

Gendlin, E.T. (1978/1981) Focusing. New York: Bantam Books.

Gendlin, E.T. (1986) Let Your Body Interpret Your Dreams. Wilmette, Illinois: Chiron Publications.

Gendlin, E.T. (1996) Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method. New York:The Guildford Press.

Purton, C, (2004) Person-Centred Therapy: The Focusing-Oriented Approach. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Weiser Cornell, A. (2005) The Radical Acceptance of Everything: Living a Focusing Life. Berkeley: Caluna Press.

Depression is by far the most common mental illness, and it is far more prevalent in women than in men. It is also rarely diagnosed and treated. According to American Psychological Association (APA) statistics, just one in five women who suffer from depression get the treatment they need. Most simply live with it, mask it with other symptoms such as alcoholism, overeating or perfectionism and carry with them a tremendous burden of guilt about their own lack of self-control or self-worth.

While there are many faces of depression, APA lists nine criteria that are the most common symptoms. If you have five or more of the following symptoms for two weeks or more, you fit the criteria for clinical depression, and should consult your doctor immediately. The symptoms include: depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day; markedly diminished interest in or pleasure in most activities; significant weight loss or gain; insomnia or excessive need for sleep; physical agitation or retardation; fatigue; feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt; diminished ability to concentrate or make decisions; and recurrent thoughts of death. Anxiety often accompanies depression as well.

There are many causes of depression, including loss or abandonment, sexual and physical abuse, genetic factors, poverty, infertility – even marriage and children. According to APA, mothers of small children are very vulnerable to depression, and the more children a woman has, the more likely she is to be depressed. A common denominator for most of these causes is a lack of control over one’s life. As women, we are often burdened with the weight of so many expectations from without and within: to be perfect partners, parents and career women, and to do it all with a smile on our faces.

What I have found in my counselling practice is that many women lose a sense of their true selves as they struggle to be everything for everyone else around them. While things are changing for women, there are still strong cultural messages to women that we must serve and support, that if we do things just for ourselves we are being selfish. Depression is a signal from our inner self that something is wrong, that we are neglecting ourselves in a fundamental way.

Judith Duerk says, in her book Circle of Stones: “Depression comes as a gift wrenching one fom the comfort of the collective to the isolation of one’s own feeling values, from the safety of the wide gate and broad way to the doubts and fears of one’s own umarked, rocky footpath… a gift: for hidden in the seeming safety of the broad way was stagnation and illness – death to the possibility of becoming oneself… Depression serves a woman as it presses down on her, forcing her to leave behind that which was not herself, which had influenced her to live a life alien to her own nature. Her suffering, now substantial, insists that she no longer deny its truth.”

As Duerk suggests, one way out of the depths of depression is to cast aside the expectations of the world and take the “unmarked, rocky path” to one’s true self. In therapy, this is often slow, painful but highly rewarding work. As part of the healing process, women will probably experience both grief and anger as they come to terms with compromises they have made in the past, and develop the strength to stop making them in the future.

Therapy is one way to help lift depression. Medication is another. Studies show that a combination of the two is the most effective. Anti-depressants should be taken with caution, and with the advice of a doctor or psychiatrist. They don’t work for everyone, and can have side effects, but they have also brought tremendous relief to people who suffer from depression.

There are also many things women can do for themselves. Aerobic exercise is a great, natural mood-lifter. Although it may be very difficult to put on those running shoes and head out the door when you’re feeling depressed, you will feel better having done it. Getting involved in group activities and social events, or keeping in touch with close friends may also help, although, again, you will have to overcome your own resistance. Depressed women tend to want to isolate themselves, often increasing their feelings of despair.

Gina has her own words of advice for women who are depressed. What she says helped her was to take the pressure off herself, to be kind to herself and let it be okay that she was not always performing up to her exacting standards for herself. She let herself really sink into her depression, absorb its message.

In the end, Gina says, depression was indeed a gift. She found that working through it enabled her to make important changes that have made her life truly her own. She says depression still threatens to visit her at times. She sees it as a warning sign to look within for areas of her life where she is not being true to herself, and to make the necessary, sometimes difficult, changes.

Gina’s story may not fit yours exactly — there are times in life when depression hits us even when we are leading the lives we want to be leading. Situational depression after the loss of a loved one or a major life trauma is normal. However, if your depression refuses to move on, pay attention to it. There are many things you can do about it, and in the process, you may find yourself making changes that more truly reflect the woman you are.

Theories abound, but no one is sure. We do know that everybody dreams, even animals, and that if we are deprived of the sleep we need for dreaming, we quickly lose our sanity. So dreaming may be a necessary bodily function, whether we choose to work with our dreams or not. However, if we do delve more deeply into the fascinating world of our dreams, we are often rewarded.

Throughout the history of mankind, dreams have held special significance as prophetic, meaningful messages from the gods. It was Sigmund Freud who first brought dreamwork into the mainstream clinical setting and ascribed personal meaning to our nocturnal journeying. Carl Jung took dreamwork a few steps further, and through his own dreamwork, conceived of the collective unconscious and most of the psychological theories he is famous for today.

Dreams are an innate process that I believe moves us toward integration and healing. They speak in a symbolic language that has a logic and time-line very different from that of our waking consciousness. But they impart wisdom and knowledge that often seems greater than we ordinarily possess. If we can understand, appreciate and experience them, dreams bring us new insight, help and healing.

If all of the answers to our life’s problems were obvious, there would be no need for counselling or dreamwork. However, many of our issues return again and again, despite our best efforts to do what is best for us. That’s because unconscious forces are at work within us, and these, by their very nature, operate outside of our awareness. They drive our addictions, choice of partners, and relationship patterns, even to our detriment.

Making the unconscious conscious is the goal of therapy, according to Jung. This process, achieved mainly through dreamwork and active imagination to access the unconscious, teaches us about our true selves, and ultimately frees us from compulsions that drive us without our knowledge or conscious will. We can use our dreams to point to what is most important for us to know about ourselves at any given moment. They can also bring incredible gifts of creativity, insight and purpose.

Leslie Ellis recently presented a talk on focusing and dreamwork. The following is an abridged version of the handout for workshop participants:

Focusing and Dreamwork:
Are you working on your dreams, or are they working on you?

When should we analyze a dream for its comment on our personal ego stance in our lives, and when should we simply enter into the reverie of the dream and let it play out in our psyche?

Jung suggests that dreams often send new information to the ego to compensate for one-sided positions in real life. When you are inflated, they take you down a peg. When you are too hard on yourself, they lift you up. Dreams present a counter-weight, as an honest, good friend — though sometimes what they have to say is hard to hear. And then there are archetypal dreams that touch on themes so much larger than our personal ego and its development that it would be hubris to suggest we read them as a comment on our own personal world.

Preparing for this talk has got me wondering about the true purpose of dreaming, and I have not been able to settle on an answer. It’s not either/or, but and/and. I think a dream can be read in many ways, and its meaning can change as we progress through our lives. Big dreams can be visited again and again, and as long as they are living dreams, will keep informing us and enlarging our perspective.

Ultimately, their true nature is unknown, in the same way that the spiritual realm is ultimately a mystery. However, I believe that’s all the more reason to play with dreams, reflect on them and experience their deeper meaning. What appears at first to be nonsensical, often turns out to be a nugget of wisdom for the dreamer, and sometimes something much larger and transformational.

There is also a slate of advanced courses for those who have taken the introductory workshop or who are proficient in focusing-oriented therapy. Topics covered include working with complex trauma, dreams and deepening your practice of focusing.

For more information, go to Learning Focusing.

Exercise is critical
One of the very best natural anti-depressants is exercise, especially regular aerobic exercise. It’s also great for your health in so many other ways, and boosts your energy levels and your self esteem. If you do nothing else to treat your depression, try to get out and get moving. Set up a regular exercise date with a friend; if you can afford it, hire a personal trainer; or sign up for a class and pay for it up front — use every trick you can think of to provide the motivation you need to get started. Make it sacred. Make it a regular habit. Like the Nike ad says, JUST DO IT!

Don’t believe your inner critic
Everyone has one: an inner critical voice that says we’re useless, lazy, stupid or whatever other nasty traits we might, at times, imagine we possess. If you’re depressed, the inner critic can be extremely harsh and unrelenting. Remember that this voice in your head is not the voice of truth or reason. It’s a symptom of depression. It’s your mind’s misguided attempt to motivate you to change, but it can have the opposite effect, making you feel worse. Don’t buy into it. Try to understand that if you’re depressed, everything in the world will seem to be colored grey — darker and gloomier than it really is.

Be kind to yourself
Depression can hit us for so many different reasons, including current life losses or problems, past trauma, hormonal or biological causes or for no apparent reason at all. Depression is common and so often goes untreated or undertreated. That’s because people often view depression as their fault or evidence of some deep character flaw, something they can’t change or fix. It’s not. It’s an illness like any other and it responds well to treatment. In the meantime, once you recognize you are in a depression, make allowances for it, and make sure you do the things you need to help you heal from it. Psychic illnesses are not visible on the surface like physical ones, but they are no less real, no less deserving of care and compassion.

If you’re depressed, you will not be as clear-headed, productive or outgoing as usual. You will have days when you feel hopeless, lethargic, completely unmotivated. You may feel like this is never going to change. That’s the depression talking. Maybe it’s there because you need to slow down, make a major life change, resolve difficult feelings or grieve a loss. Maybe you need a break or to put yourself first. Find out what you need to do for yourself, and then do it.

You can recover from depression. It may feel like there is nothing you can do, but there is a lot! Start being kind and compassionate to yourself. Get support and get moving.

If you have any questions about what else you can do to alleviate depression, or specific areas you would like to know more about, let me know! I’d love to hear from you.

Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method, Eugene Gendlin, The Guildford Press, 1996.

The Radical Acceptance of Everything: Living a Focusing Life, Ann Weiser Cornell, Caluna Press, 2005.

Person-Centred Therapy: The Focusing-Oriented Approach, Campbell Purton, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Focusing-Oriented Therapy (FOT), Neil Friedman, Ph.D., (self published), 2007.

Shirley Turcotte’s Focusing and Trauma DVD’s are available from The Focusing Institute web site.

Web sites and courses

The Focusing Institute offers a wealth of focusing information, including an on-line library of Genlin’s articles, as well as listings of focusing trainers and therapists. Go to www.focusing.org

Leslie Ellis offers ongoing introductory and in-depth focusing training for counsellors, psychologists, social workers and other healing professionals.

The Justice Institute of BC offers focusing courses taught by Shirley Turcotte. These courses are designed for the aboriginal community but open to all.

Ann Weiser Cornell offers various levels of focusing courses, mostly aimed at individuals wanting to learn focusing for themselves, at www.focusingresources.com

Focusing-oriented therapy is about looking inside — slowing down enough to listen to that ‘still small voice’ inside of yourself that really knows, from a very deep place, what is best for you right now. I believe everyone has an innate drive toward wholeness, and that each individual is ultimately his or her own best guide to what is helpful or healing.

I also know that finding this deep place and staying with it is much more difficult to do alone than it is with a companion or guide. It is helpful and powerful to have a witness to your journey towards happiness, peaceful relationships, success in work… or whatever your current goals are. It is also healing to have a witness to your pain and the stuck places that prevent you from reaching your fullest potential.

Counselling clients can expect to find a calm, open-minded companion in their inner journey. Focusing-oriented therapy is gentle and safe, and has been found to be an excellent therapy for trauma, PTSD, anxiety and depression. I see my role as one of support, active listening and as a focusing guide — facilitating deeper connection with your authentic self.

Focusing offers concrete steps that work for everyone — and for many it comes naturally. It begins with sensing into your body, but in a more meditative, detached and curious way than you might if you were sensing whether or not you’re hungry, tired, or some other, more surface-level feeling. It’s more of an ‘asking in’ to see how you are doing, really, underneath the mind’s chatter and your habitual worries or stresses. If you’ve ever known something ‘in your bones’ or had a strong ‘gut feeling’ about something, you already have a sense of focusing. I’d be happy to show you more.

For therapists, counsellors, psychologists and other healing professionals, I offer a range of courses in focusing-oriented therapy, all the way from introductory workshops to full-year programs leading to certification with the international Focusing Institute in New York, NY. Feel free to explore the section on Focusing Training for more information.

It doesn’t have to be that way. You can change your inner landscape so that it supports you in all that you do. So that no matter what is happening on the outside, your inner world feels safe and supportive, like a good friend.

Befriending the Inner Critic

One of the most important steps to take to improve your inner landscape is to develop a better relationship with your inner critic. Everyone I’ve met has one: an inner voice that is constantly critical, demanding, even punishing at times. Generally, the more trauma and abuse one has suffered, the louder and nastier their inner critic.

The first thing to know about this inner voice is that it is not the voice of ‘Truth’ with a capital ‘T’. You do not have to take it seriously. Chances are, its message is repetitive and unhelpful. If you can, take a few steps back, figuratively, and just notice the messages coming from this critical place. Do they sound familiar? They often have aspects of our parents and other figures of authority in our lives. But they are harsher versions of these, and they seem to know exactly how to exploit the place where we feel most vulnerable.

Our inner critics can call us things like ugly, fat, lazy, stupid. They will jump on our latest accomplishments before we’ve even had a chance to rest on our laurels and inform us about the many ways we could have done it better. They will drag us again and again through any particularly embarrassing or foolish thing we’ve done, making us suffer through it repeatedly. Our critic can be found in the times we tell ourselves, “How can I have been such an idiot?” or various versions of this sentiment.

You can gain some distance from your inner critic when you start to see it a little apart from yourself, when you learn to take a step back from it and observe it from a distance. (Focusers and meditators both know how to find their ‘observer’ self.) From a safe distance, you can also start to wonder what the purpose of your inner critic might be. Why on earth would we want to have this voice in our heads that constantly berates us?

I believe the critic is formed when we’re children trying to make sense of the world. If our parents or other authority figures are critical towards us, we may naturally see ourselves as flawed. It is easier to do this than to be consciously aware of deep flaws in the people we rely on for our most basic physical and emotional needs. This explains why the intensity of the inner critic is greater in a more abusive or neglectful atmosphere.

The critic may also be partly the voice of our conscience, what Freud would call our superego, the part that warns us when we’re doing something morally wrong. In other words, the message the inner critic is delivering may, at times, contain the seeds of something useful. But this often gets lost because of the harsh way the message gets delivered.

Another way to gain some distance from your inner critic is to stand back and dispassionately try to figure out what this voice is wanting. Behind the attack, there may be fear that you are not being all you can be in this life. There may be a desire to protect you, to motivate you, to encourage you to make some sort of change.

If you can relate to any of this, you might start to listen to your inner critic differently. Turn the volume down a little and try to read between the lines. Be as curious and detached as possible. Watch for patterns. Think of your critic as a cranky but important person in your life — someone you need to learn to keep a safe distance from, but also someone with whom having a better relationship would be of great benefit to your inner equilibrium.

Your questions and comments are always welcome!!