Helen asks about the felt sense. Dr. Eugene Gendlin says that the Parts we find are not the felt-sense.

‘Could you expand on this or say what the link between parts and a felt-sense is?’

A part is usually taken to be a shorthand way of describing a pattern of thought, behaviour, belief or feelings that generate a recognisable response within the personality. A felt sense is the body’s response to something, so you can have a felt sense of a part.

How do you know when you are experiencing a part, and when is it a felt sense? What characterises each?

You might experience a part, or partial self, as some aspect of you that shows up at specific times and in recognisable ways. It’s very much a part of you and it might feel like it is you. For instance, I may have a bossy, pushy part that is worried that if it doesn’t push me around, nothing will get done. And the counterpart will be something in me that doesn’t like being pushed. It may dig its heals in and refuse to do anything. The pushy part may call it lazy, but it’s not lazy from its point of view. It also wants to get things done, but in its own time and its own way, perhaps slowing down to take account of body pains. It has less drive, but it also wants to get off the hamster wheel to smell the roses.

They each have a valid point of view, and these points of view may conflict, creating ‘tangles’, (Barbara McGavin and Ann Weiser Cornell), or ‘configurations of the self’ (Dave Mearns and Brian Thorn).

The parts, or partial selves are not always static or fixed. They may change like an eddy in a river. If certain conditions arise in life, the parts may habitually arise in response to that situation.

What is a felt sense? A felt sense is D. Eugene Gendlin’s term for what he observed and described during listening to 1000s of hours of psychotherapy sessions. In the research, he discovered that if people took the time to slow down and check exactly how they were feeling; searching for the right word to describe the feeling precisely, something more would come from that. There would be a shift, or a small step of actual change would happen, all by itself.

A felt sense is something that arises in your experiencing of yourself that you may not have words for yet. There is definitely something there, and yet at first you don’t know what it is. It is the body’s response to something. You can feel it, and experience it, by ‘touching’ it lightly, by bringing your attention to it. It’s subtle, and it takes some practice to be aware to it. Some people find it easy to get in touch with it, and others find it is more elusive, and it takes some practice.

How do you recognise when you have a felt sense? It often comes in the body, or as a feeling around the body, in your energy field. It may be unclear at first, just a general feeling of something being there, that you can’t quite put your finger on. It’s undefined, and yet it’s definitely something.

If you stay with it, with interested curiosity, something more will come from it. You can describe how it feels; what shape, colour or texture it has. There may be an image or some words that capture its qualities. And when your description is exactly right and you have been able to symbolise it accurately, it will open, shift and release.