To understand the change-steps of the therapy process we must consider them from inside. We examine the patient's process and we postpone discussion of therapist interventions.

The view from inside may be unfamiliar to some readers. It is the standpoint of the person sensing, coping, and struggling with an outer and an inner field of experiencing. There we find thoughts and perceptions, and along with them there is also some directly sensed bodily experience. The bodily experience becomes more distinct if attention is paid to it.

 

Something can emerge from the unconscious without one's being able to sense its source. For example, one may recall a dream, a thought may come, an image may "pop in," strong emotions may suddenly well up. Actions and role play may arise spontaneously. It is commonly assumed that these come from "unconscious levels" so deep that one cannot sense their source. But it is also possible (at various depths) to sense the source directly. There can be a direct awareness of the "border zone" between the conscious and the unconscious. For example, if one cries, one can turn one's attention inward and sense "the crying place" from which [Page 17] the tears are welling up. Or if a strong emotion comes, one can focus on the inward sense of which that emotion is a part. An image that "pops in" need not remain only visual but can be accompanied by a physical sense, a quality perhaps, an aura. Such an image is not purely puzzling and incomprehensible or explainable only by interpretation. There will also be an inward understanding that is not conceptual and cannot be spoken. The image can lead to its own direct sense of significance.

Even in simple conversation an individual can attend inwardly so that something directly sensed can come in. One can stop and sense the place that one is trying to "get at," the place that one is speaking from. This sense is always much richer than what one says in words, and one cannot know all that it is or could be in it. This is what I mean by "the implicit."

Without such direct sensing of the source the client can experience only what has emerged. Then one can only add interpretations to it. The client has no direct experience of the source and no direct impetus to further steps. There is only the material and the therapist's interpretations.

Instead we will see here that the source of what emerges can be directly sensed. It will turn out that this can make very important differences in therapy and in the development of a person. In what follows I will try to describe the characteristics of this direct sensing.

The direct sense of the implicit source is always unclear at first: vague, fuzzy, not recognizable as a distinct emotion or a familiar feeling. Nevertheless it is sensed distinctly.

To experience something that is as yet unclear differs from experiencing an emotion; we know clearly that we are angry, or sad, or joyful. It also differs from familiar "feelings" even when these do not fall into universal categories. "How I feel when . . ." may be quite familiar. What one senses at the "border zone" is unclear, in that one does not know what to say or how to characterize it. Yet it is definite in that one senses unmistakably that it has its own unique quality. One cannot be talked out of this unique, unnamed quality, and one cannot be talked into feeling it as something else. In that respect it is very definite.

Consider a person who tells you about a problem. After 20 minutes perhaps the person stops. Everything that can be said about it seems to have been said—and yet . . . . . the problem is felt as more than that. The edge is felt but it is unclear. At the moment the person may not have been able to enter further into that edge, but it is there. The discomfort of the problem is the edge; it is more than could be said. The person may now fill the time with talk because remaining quiet is uncomfortable. During such talking the person may lose the bodily sense of that edge.[Page 18]