Principles
Principles
What guides me. And what you’re welcome to remind me of.
Most of this work isn’t about skill; it’s about attitude. That attitude fits in a few sentences. The real practice is sticking to it when things get tough. They may seem “simple,” yet they have a profound impact. It takes time to grow into them — putting them into practice in our own lives is a lifelong process.
Eight of those principles I have taken from Ray Castellino. He wrote them for accompanying babies, children and their families, and for working with adults in small groups. Here they are in my own words; the original is linked below.
I want to always be guided by these principles; in groups, they serve as a mutual agreement.
Welcome
You are welcome exactly as you arrive today. That includes the parts of you that would rather not have come here. The exhaustion, the anger, the skepticism, the confusion, the overwhelm, that which feels impossible to bear. Even the parts that hide and don’t want to show themselves at all. I don’t cherry-pick the pleasant sides and work with those. You don’t have to bring an “intention” with you either. You can. We don’t even have to talk while you’re here.
Being welcome is not a courtesy. It is something we all need from the very beginning. And something many of us did not get.
Mutual support
We both look after ourselves, and after each other. This is not a trade and not a competition. I do not help you at my own expense, and you do not have to pull yourself together for my sake. If it stops being right for either of us, it is not right for the session.
Choice
You decide. About the pace, about the direction, about every touch (in case you want to work with touch!). That takes enough time to even notice what you want — which is why we go slowly.
‘No’ is a complete answer. ‘Maybe’ or ‘I don’t know’ are too. A no is as welcome to me as a yes, and often more important: many of us learned as children that our no did not count. That it counts here is part of the work.
Pausing
Stop at any time, without having to explain why. When you pause, I stop too, and yet I remain present: I don’t keep speaking or touching. The pause ends when you say it ends. The point of the guiding principle “Pausing” is not for the other person to pause or stop doing something. It is about me taking a pause for myself.
Processing happens during the pauses, not while I’m doing something.
Self care
Eating, drinking, sleeping, going to the toilet, fresh air. That sounds trivial and it is not: someone who is hungry, thirsty or short of sleep cannot process anything. Say when you need something. I look after myself during the session too — that is part of it.
Brief, frequent eye contact
Glancing over now and then to see whether the other person is still there. Not staring. If we go a while without looking at each other, the distance grows and we start inventing stories about one another — usually old ones.
At the same time, eye contact can be too much. Then we leave it out and find something else.
Touch and attention
For most adults, touch and attention are tied together: wherever the hand rests, the attention is too. Small children respond to the two separately. So do adults, they just notice it less often.
I ask for consent before touch. And I can uncouple my attention from my hands: sometimes it is exactly right for a hand to rest, and the attention to be elsewhere, because both together would be too much.
Confidentiality
What you tell me stays with me. I speak freely about my own experience, but not about your story. If I would like to talk about it, I ask you first.
What my hands do. And what they do not.
The second part comes from biodynamic craniosacral work, and from what Charles Ridley made of it and calls “post-biodynamic”. Both are rich in technical vocabulary and in grand words. I will try without:
I do not treat anything. I do not establish what is wrong with you in order to then put it right. There is no diagnosis and no goal for the session. If I approach your body with an intention, I am working against it rather than with it.
My hands rest. They do not push, do not pull, do not adjust anything. Mostly they simply stay where we put them, and for longer than you expect. From the outside it looks like very little.
It is not a technique. I have not learned holds to apply in a particular order. What I have learned is to be there and do nothing. That is considerably harder.
Your body sets the pace. Not me, and no plan either. Your body is doing something of its own accord the whole time anyway. My job is not to butt in.
“Touch”, not “therapy”. The word therapy assumes there is a problem for someone to find and fix. See also: Why I am not a Heilpraktiker or psychotherapist.
I invite you to give it a try. Literally — the first session is free of charge.
The Primacy of Human Presence
From The Small Steps of the Therapy Process
by Eugene Gendlin
I want to start with the most important thing I have to say: The essence of working with another person is to be present as a living being. And that is lucky, because if we had to be smart, or good, or mature, or wise, then we would probably be in trouble. But, what matters is not that. What matters is to be a human being with another human being, to recognize the other person as another being in there. Even if it is a cat or a bird, if you are trying to help a wounded bird, the first thing you have to know is that there is somebody in there, and that you have to wait for that “person,” that being in there, to be in contact with you. That seems to me to be the most important thing.
So, when I sit down with someone, I take my troubles and feelings and I put them over here, on one side, close, because I might need them. I might want to go in there and see something. And I take all the things that I have learnt — client-centered therapy, reflection, focusing, Gestalt, psychoanalytic concepts and everything else (I wish I had even more) — and I put them over here, on my other side, close. Then I am just here, with my eyes, and there is this other being. If they happen to look into my eyes, they will see that I am just a shaky being. I have to tolerate that. They may not look. But if they do, they will see that. They will see the slightly shy, slightly withdrawing, insecure existence that I am, I have learnt that that is O.K.
I do not need to be emotionally secure and firmly present. I just need to be present. There are no qualifications for the kind of person I must be. What is wanted for the big therapy process, the big development process is a person who will be present. And so I have gradually become convinced that even I can be that. Even though I have my doubts when I am by myself, in some objective sense I know I am a person.
The eight principles from Castellino Training
Charles Ridley: Dynamic Stillness
Focusing Institute: Eugene Gendlin: The Primacy of Human Presence
