Myself and Kay talking about outcomes of our training course and a discussion around felt-sense as an essential component to healing
Eugene Gendlin was the psychotherapist who first used the term “felt-sense” in terms of focussed therapy. It is the of bringing awareness inside the body) to a person’s ever-changing sensory/energetic/emotional landscape. It is used extensively in focussed therapies like Somatic Experiencing to help client’s to become aware of the inner physical sensations which are not only indicators of traumatic memory, but can create a close relationship with the sensory messages present in the body. Staying aware of the physical sensations in the body is how we begin to experience felt sense. It is interoception, that part of perception dealing with our inner experiences that we have talked about earlier. While felt sense, may not at first sight be easy to translate into words, nevertheless we can use language on our sensations to improve our facility to experience felt sense: Hot, Cold, Prickly, Sharp, Dull, Fidgety, Still. Felt sense is a tool, not only does it shift and moves in the body, but the act of bringing awareness to that body can change our inner experience and help us to manage the arousal of adverse events by staying in the physical. Felt sense also allows us access and relax tissues, and thus release the tension held there. In these Breathwork sessions, and with an awareness of tension and constriction in various areas associated with Reich’s belts of tension allows specific awareness, focus, breath and touch to employed to assists release and movement.
Finally felt sense allows us as individuals to understand how patterns of tension are held within our bodies, it’s relation to our childhood and provides us with the opportunity to change our patterns and so live a freer life.
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