2.4.5. Exercise: Analyzing Self-Aspects
To get a first-hand feeling for different self-aspects and their
dialectic relationships to one another, try listening a therapy session which
is predominantly exploratory or which involves Two Chair Work. It could be a session in which you were
the therapist, or not. As you
listen, pay particular attention to times when the client is describing or
expressing particular emotional states (for example, angry/critical,
small/panicky, or puzzled, but also numb or jokey/entertaining). (These are called “emotion episodes”;
Greenberg & Korman, 1993.) As
you hear them on the tape, take notes on these emotional states. Use emotion words, but also words that
describe felt qualities, such as “small,” “light,” or “sinking.” After you’ve finished listening to the
tape, make a list of the main ones, the emotional states that occur repeatedly
or for much of the session. Pay
particular attention to ones that seem to be in conflict or somehow related to
one another (for example “suspicious” vs. “trusting”). Try to put into words the felt quality
of the relationship between the opposing emotion responses, such as “implacably
hostile,”“distrustful,” “tentatively tolerant,” or “cautiously cooperative.”
Materials designed to
accompany the book Learning Emotion-Focused Therapy: The
Process-Experiential Approach to Change from APA Books.
©2003 Robert Elliott, Jeanne Watson, Rhonda Goldman, and Leslie Greenberg
http://www.process-experiential.org/learning