How can certain therapeutic approaches facilitate divorce mediation? And how can divorcing folks utilize therapeutic tools to move their divorce forward? Focusing Oriented Therapy offers many concepts and tools that can be practiced by anyone to help navigate complex relationships and challenging circumstances. This series of articles looks at three principles and practices of focusing and applies them to mediating divorce.
While much may depend upon a skilled mediator, the clients’ roles in their divorces cannot be overestimated. Clients who are willing to introspect and explore novel ways of approaching their situation, and one another, create more options for resolution. Focusing offers many helpful approaches that mediation clients can explore. When followed, these avenues can lead to better relating and better results.
The following are three focusing concepts, and attendant tools, for clients negotiating their divorce:
- The one in there.
- The right distance.
- Take nothing literally.
Each of these needs explanation and application. This article examines “the one in there.”
PART 1: The One in There
Focusing, a modality of therapy developed by philosopher Eugene Gendlin includes a fundamental concept called the one in there. I understand it as the aspect of the self that is indispensable and unchanging.
The one in there is the place in us that is always there, regardless of our age or circumstances. The one in there is the essential place in each of us that resides in everyone. It is our humanity, our commonality, our universality. It is something very young but also timeless. The one in there is the one that loves, grieves, and rejoices.
In focus-oriented therapy, the therapist aims to be on the side of the one in there, to make space for and relate to it. To help the client recognize, keep company with, and care for this self of selves. This instruction is grounding for a therapist when a client is at his worst, struggling against treatment, perhaps triggering the therapist’s countertransference. When the therapist seeks out the client’s one in there, the therapist fosters a kind of relating that can generate healing.
How does this relate to divorcing couples?
In divorce, people are often at their worst (angry, disappointed, hurt, and afraid) while tasked with behaving at their best (analyzing complex scenarios, prioritizing the best interests of others, long-term decision-making). Adding to the difficulty, parties must continue to interact -- and interact effectively -- with the very person to whom they attribute their painful feelings. How can this be done? Or done better? By keeping in mind the one in there. Your own one in there that recoils at the shrapnel of hostile words, and the one in there of the other, the ex-spouse-to-be, who is possibly firing blistering words because of how frightened and desperate she feels.
To the extent we can return to a gentler, kinder regard for the little one who resides within each of us, who is always there, no matter how worldly and mature we might otherwise be, we can find a way toward a resolution together. It is, as with most things in divorce, a tall order, and, as with most difficult things, worthwhile. Holding this attitude with an adversary can help turn him into a collaborator.
What is the attitude towards the one in there? It is an approach of listening that holds the other lightly and gently, sans judgment, eye-rolling, and ax-grinding.
When we are approached with respect and kindness, we tend to thrive. When met with curiosity and interest, we light up. Conversely, when attacked, all our energies are exhausted by defending and protecting ourselves; we have nothing available for the thoughtful co-creating required in divorce mediation.
The approach of looking for the one in there can pertain to how we approach all things -- our own needs as well as those of our ex-spouse. Looking for the one in there, whether or not you locate it, fosters an intention of curiosity and thoughtfulness. The one in there is not the part that is acting out, but the deeper one that is the cause of the acting out. Not the temper tantrum, but the little one tantruming because he’s frightened and does not have another way to express the distress overwhelming his little system. While our automatic reaction to the tantrum might, understandably, be irritation and impatience, we must nevertheless repeatedly aim to overcome this; the frightened one calls for tenderness. The art is in listening. Listening with the intent to hear the rustle, the breath of the shaky one, beneath the thundering of the yelling one.
In divorce, people thunder. Listening for the whispers, even when you fail to hear them, changes everything. The intent to listen as you would to someone dear, in need, without language, shapes the interaction so that cooperation can take seed.
In divorce, you are often in an adversarial position with the other whose cooperation you need. You may be at war with the one on whom you depend. Looking for the one in there while under attack is a Herculean challenge. It is a practice. If you can keep the tender underbelly of the other in mind and continue to be in relation to that one, commonality and possibility form. Even when you can hardly look at the other, you may be able to hold the hand of the other’s one in there. This handholding is needed in a divorce where there are no single-handed solutions.
You need not fully understand the other person’s inner self to practice listening for the one in there. You merely need to bring a willingness to listen for it.
This simple approach may be a shorthand towards compassion: remember that each of us has had some experiences of receiving what we needed, and many experiences of not. When this is foremost in mind, empathy for anyone can follow.
Choose your presumptions well in advance. The default is fault. Make presumptions in favor of being on the side of the one in there — yours and the others.'
Focusing & Divorce: The Right Distance – Part 2
The right distance is the second Focusing concept we are exploring as it relates to divorcing couples.
By the right distance, we mean getting some space between the client and the issue he is up against. Of course, this is not literal mileage, but simply a way of approaching and working with an issue that helps make overwhelming or triggering matters manageable.
In divorce, parties must delve into many topics that can be upsetting and threatening - custody, support, reentering the workforce, moving, and so on. These issues can upend the foundations upon which lives and identities are built and rattle even the basic security upon which we depend.
Rather than steeling ourselves and diving headfirst into unknown, turbulent waters, setting the right distance can make the work of divorce less traumatic and more viable.
What is the right distance?
The right distance is an individual measure for each person. It is the place where you can be with a concern without re-experiencing it, or re-enacting its effects — address a past trauma, for example, without being retraumatized. The right distance approach prioritizes safety; it is a way to proceed with caution. A way to attend to a difficult issue, without being transported into an unwanted place by it.
Gene Gendlin said, and I paraphrase, "You want to smell the soup. You don't want to submerge your head in the soup." In this simple, brilliant analogy, it is clear: the chef must be at the right distance, in the right relationship with the soup in order to cook, season, taste, and prepare it.
Walking through New York City, you may be standing beside a building, but unable to appreciate anything about it as a whole structure. From an adjacent point of view, you can usually only see a few details, panels or even your own reflection. Its height, dimensions, architecture cannot be gleaned while you are abutting it. A different distance from the structure is required in order to understand and contextualize what you are seeing.
How do we take figurative distance?
Here are some actionable ways to experiment with the right distance:
- Take a few moments with the issue at hand before launching into it. Can you back up a few paces? Would an aerial view be helpful? Even asking these questions can provide a bit of spaciousness and relieve some intensity.
- Slow down and find the words that precisely describe the issue. Defining exactly what you are up against creates parameters around it, clarifying and containing it. Demanding issues tend to roost in sweeping generalities and flood other matters making everything into an impossible tangle of indistinguishable emergencies. Taking the time to be specific puts you in command.
- Once you have identified the issue, stay with only that one issue — it will want to move into many overlapping issues, (see above) but continue to return to the main one (the other things can be taken up in turn).
- Check in with your body regularly. Is your stomach tightening? Throat constricting? Limbs feeling light? Jaw clenching? These are good indicators that you might have fallen into the problem and need to readjust your distance from it. Remember, you cannot taste the soup if you are the soup. Take some breaths, stand up, stretch your legs, take a break.
- Use your imagination. Take a walk around the issue to view it from different angles. What does the back of the issue look like? Describe the issue in all its dimensions — does it have a color, scent, sound? If there is a strong feeling that comes with it, describe that. Check where you would need to stand or orient yourself in order to be able to stay with the issue and feel secure and at ease. Where should you be in relation to the issue so that you are larger than it? In all of this, your felt sense is the guide. Continue to adjust. Ll
- Consider these questions: How can I work with this issue and be separate from it/ feel okay while working with it? What do I need in order to be able to work with this in a friendly way? A peaceful way?
Taking literal distance is always available
You may need to table something, take time to reflect, or just step away for a bit. Even taking a few good breaths can help you reset.
It’s worth mentioning that there are times when achieving the right distance necessitates moving closer to an issue. You might be looking at things too remotely or too theoretically, and need to approach the issue from a more proximate vantage point while still maintaining safety. Know that you do not need to suffer dysregulation in order to deal with all that is required of you. You are entitled to repeatedly return to a resting place, to regroup, and recharge before continuing. These focusing approaches offer some ways to help make difficult things more manageable.
Focusing & Divorce: Take Nothing Literally (Part 3)
Our series of three articles examines how several Focusing concepts lend themselves to navigating conflicted relationships and informing divorce mediation. Article 1 examined the one in there and Article 2 concerned the right distance. Article, 3 of the series, explores how “taking nothing literally” can transform communications and create options where none are apparent.
Focusing Oriented Therapy concentrates on how change occurs. A desire to change is the reason people seek treatment, and the inability to change is why treatment fails. Many other therapeutic approaches concentrate on insight, analysis, and causation, and though this often results in clients gaining an understanding of what went wrong, it offers no clear way forward — no transformation, no way to live differently. The intellectualizing of issues and identification of their origins does not automatically, alone, result in resolution. Clients are often left with insight but without relief. Focusing operationalizes a process required for change. Not just theoretically, but in real-time. Therefore, it is interesting to apply a focusing approach to the challenges of divorce mediation and explore what help focusing can offer.
PART 3: Take Nothing Literally
One focusing application, taking nothing literally, invites us to relate differently to everything. It calls for listening carefully to communications but adds that we expand listening so as to hear the essence, poetry, and unuttered expression beyond the words. Listening to what another is saying is vital in the process of relating. Holding space while listening, for more than is being said — for what is being implied, indicated — is the beginning of taking nothing literally. The approach is particularly important for complex communications about crucial matters, especially when emotions are inflamed.
Perhaps we take up listening with the same ears we use when attending a symphony — observer ears. Perhaps we read an email with the eyes used to read a novella — open, discovering, integrating eyes. These different ways of approaching interactions shift the conflict dynamic from attack, defend, deflect, and shut down, to interest. This approach ameliorates the threat and our automated responses to fear.
The usefulness of taking nothing literally is best illustrated through examples. Fortunately/unfortunately divorce provides no shortage of examples. One spouse might threaten another with, “If you go through with this, you will get nothing!” Taking this literally to mean that your divorce settlement and support will be zero, can lead to a rush of anger and alarm. How can one meaningfully and reasonably address such a declaration?
If taken at face value, and engaged with literally, both people are now backed against walls with no room for movement into the realm of possibilities. If the recipient of the above were to instead allow for the threat to land without taking the actual meaning of the words as the only information being transmitted, the recipient steps away from the wall and makes room for a multitude of options. The recipient can consider that perhaps this outburst is:
- An expression of rage, frustration, perceived powerlessness, overwhelm of loss, or desperation.
- An attempt to maneuver the other back into line through fear or dominance.
- An outcry of conflicted, wrenching emotions that do not have a better way to be expressed
- An indication that the speaker is not in a place for rational conversation and needs to have some time to calm down
If the words are taken literally, the contagion of fear would spread to the recipient and an escalating battle would ensue. If the words are taken more as a brush stroke of a larger portrait, or chords in a song, the recipient can call upon her creativity and bring her larger understanding to bear. The recipient hears the words but is not limited to responding [at all, of course] to the words alone.
And then the speaker has the benefit of expressing something without it being taken up as fact; it is instead given space to linger and ultimately settle, often to be reabsorbed into the atmosphere without causing lasting disturbance.
Taking things literally is limiting. It's like just dealing with the very tip of the iceberg without appreciating that the portion requiring more significant attention is its vastness that lies out of sight, beneath the surface. There is almost always much more that can be gleaned; when taken non-literally, fuller meaning has the opportunity to emerge.
When we are regarding one another, it is important to remember that we are each at least as complex as a miraculously fluorescent sea amoeba, and there is always more to us than how we are currently presenting, or what we are currently insisting upon. To paraphrase Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass:
We are -- [each of us] -- large; we contain multitudes.
No matter how small the actions of another, it serves us to cultivate respect for each person as a whole universe; a whole work of art. Even if we would not choose to display a particular canvas in our home, it nonetheless represents a complex confluence of influences, a history, and a depiction of its creator.
Considering one another as works of art includes both spaciousness and wonderment. Aiming to return to that view periodically, particularly during difficult interactions, might be helpful to the other, but will certainly assist you. Focusing offers gifts that, when artfully applied to divorce and relational difficulties, increase perspective and summon imagination. The vital ingredients for change.