9.1. Case Example: Eddie:
Accessing and Allowing Experiencing
Eddie is
a 40-year-old man with depression and a history of work problems whose therapy
involved many of the tasks in this chapter and the next. In particular, his therapy illustrates
the power of specialized tasks for accessing and symbolizing experiencing in
order to bring about significant therapeutic change. During the first three sessions of therapy, Eddie traces his
chronic anger towards authorities to unresolved anger with his physically- and
emotionally-abusive sister, who is 19 years older than he. He spends much of the fourth session
working on unresolved feelings toward his sister. However, because it is early in therapy and because the
client’s anger with his sister is so intense, the therapist first encourages
Eddie to explore the different facets of his experience of his sister (Empathic
Exploration, see Chapter 7), rather than Empty Chair Work; then, Eddie tells several
vivid stories of hurtful or traumatic things that she has done or said to him
(see Trauma Narrative task, Chapter 10).
At times, he seems to be protesting the unfairness that, after all that
she had done to him, the sister appears to be more successful in her life than
Eddie is: She has a family,
children, a house, and a job, and Eddie has none of these things. With the therapist’s help, Eddie
re-visits some of the traumatic episodes and explores his cherished belief that
people who deliberately cause others pain should be punished by having a
miserable life (see Meaning Creation task, Chapter 10).
Finally,
when Eddie reports still feeling stuck in his anger toward his sister, the
therapist asks him to pay attention to the place in his body where he carries
his anger toward his sister (Space Clearing task). She then helps him to moderate the intensity of the anger so
that it is neither too strong nor too contained. This allows him to stay with the anger as it passes through
a series of transformations, eventually enabling him to symbolize his
experience of his sister as simultaneously encompassing both heat and cold
(Focusing task). This
symbolization, in turn, leads him to see her as a damaged person incapable of
loving others, who merits pity more than anger and jealousy. At post-therapy and follow-up
interviews, Eddie reports that he has found the process of attending to his
internal bodily feelings so useful that he has begun practicing it on his own
to help him deal with a variety of problems in his life, and even creative
activities such as painting.
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