LETTING IT SINK IN.

.....................................by Stanley
.....In the early days the picture of the counsellor repeating, parrot like, every word the client had just said was the butt of much ridicule. It was called ‘reflecting the client’s feelings’. It was a practice initiated by Carl Rogers and was the subject of much misinterpretation that Rogers endlessly tried to clarify. It seems to have passed into the mythology of the naïve beginnings of counselling that no one these days gives much real thought to.
.....Gendlin wrote about this: ‘When I think back to the struggle that Carl had with non-directive reflecting, always trying to drop whatever it was he had written, to re-establish the reality of the contact (with the client)... First he had the method of reflecting, then he said: "No that’s not it, it’s the attitude”’. 1
.....Late 1980 Rogers wrote, ‘Puzzling over this matter I have come to a double insight. From my point of view as a therapist, I am not trying to “reflect feelings.” I am trying to determine whether my understanding of the client’s inner world is correct – whether I am seeing it as he or she is experiencing it at this moment. Each response of mine contains the unspoken question, “Is this the way it is in you? Am I catching just the colour and texture and flavour of the personal meaning you are experiencing right now? If not, I wish to bring my perception in line with yours”. On the other hand, I know that from the client’s point of view we are holding up a mirror of his or her current experiencing. The feeling and personal meanings seem sharper when seen through the eyes of another, when they are reflected.’ 2
.....I think there are two important points here. Firstly, is Rogers’ absolute grasp of how important it is that the client’s meaning is exactly understood. And secondly, how easy it is not to exactly understand it.
.....He had this sharp and vivid appreciation of the absolute specificity of the client’s meaning and of how different it always is to the workings of his own apprehension. For me, above all, is overcoming the assumption that precise understanding of another person is easy. When it feels easy and I am too confident it is usually a projection of my own ideas.
.....But it is Roger’s last point that I would like to mine into a little bit. He said that personal feelings seem sharper when they are reflected. This is true, but there is a subtle twist behind it. It is often the case that the client may not really hear what they have just said. This is especially true when it is new and out of line with their usual thinking; it’s then easy for the client to blur the moment, to not really take it in. I think we overlook the fact that a client just saying something is often not enough because having said it, they miss it. Or they pass over it so quickly they don’t quite hear what they have just this moment said.
.....A client, who was generally quiet and moderate in expression, suddenly and surprisingly says:
.....‘I must have been really terrified of Mum – followed by a long silence.
.....I go along with the silence for a while and then very slowly I say: ‘You must have been really terrified of Mum.
.....I’m reflecting it as though I’m still meditating on it – which I am.
.....Another long silence.
.....But now I revert to the first person, which was exactly his mode, and I say softly, ‘I .. must ..have .. been .. really .. terrified .. of Mum.
.....I say it as though to myself, as though I’m still pondering it – which I am.
.....The silence continues for quite a while longer.
.....Three times I do this during the long period of silence.
.....The clarity of it is striking. Each time I reflect it I am hearing myself say it for the first time – and so is the client.
.....I’m pondering it – we’re both pondering it – letting it sink in.

.....The thing is, ‘I must have been really terrified of Mum is an interesting way to put it. Why ‘must have been’? This indicates that what he has just got is not quite experiential – ‘must have been’ is a deduction. If it was a direct experience he would have simply said ‘I was terrified of Mum. Being a deduction it can easily slip away as just a probability. As it was, by reflecting, pondering and letting it sink in for both of us, he got closer to experiencing it and thus could move forward on it.

[1] Gendin E.T. The Small Steps of the Therapy Process. In the Gendlin OnLine Library
http://www.focusing.org/gendlin/gol_all_index.asp
[1] The Carl Rogers Reader. Edited by Howard Kirschenbaum and Valery Land Henderson, Houton Mufflin, 1989