087: Let’s Try It Once

Play Episode 87 Here Dynamic sessions that move toward productive
change rather than maintain the status quo regularly introduce new
things. These include: experiments (also known as excercises),
Practitioner behavioral changes (like increasing or decreasing pace
of reflections) and trying on of different channels of attention
for the client (such as turning toward sensation or image). In this
episode I encourage SE Practitioners to try new things out "once"
so that they can read the feedback of how it went and adjust their
next interventions accordingly. Simple like that. Mentions: I
reference a few older SE Reflections episodes this time around,
including: e.38 - It's a Try It Out Kind of Thing (in which I
encourage your to, well, try things out)e.01 - The Importance of
Spontaneity (a critical metric for successful movement in
sessions)e.43 The Formula (how to attend to the storyline
without getting caught in the negative parts of it)e.77 - Will this
Be an "I Can" or "I Can't" Moment (not mentioned but it could have
been.) Some Added Thoughts: Sessions are dynamic, not rote
experiences. The new SE client doesn't necessarily have a complete
understanding of the SE session process, nor are they likely to be
familiar with the kinds of experiences they'll encounter in
your presence. There's going to be a lot of new things coming their
way. That's part of the point of doing therapy in general: To find
new ways of being rather than just repeating old ones. Thus
Practitioners are going to offer a steady stream of "new" ideas,
observations, requests and so on. Some of these will be transparent
to the client, some of them will be more behind the scenes. On the
transparent side will be clear request to try something out, such
as "I wonder if you'd be willing to try a little experiment with me
here?". These are generally best offered invitationally, as
something approaching "an experiment", with attention given to the
curiosity of what is found during and after trying this new thing.
It's probably also best if they're done with a "beginning, middle
and end" with a check-in/evaluation time afterwards to see how it
went (also known as "a round"). Also, it's easier to manage the
expectations from these experiments if you diminish or remove the
sense of profundity before the fact. This can be super necessary
if, in then end, the experiment doesn't go anywhere. What is
discovered then helps inform both the client and practitioner of
what can be expected next. Was it easy? Simple? Difficult? Scary?
Successful? Productive? Annoying? Did "tyring that thing" increase
intrest, engagement and participation or did it thwart it? This
feedback – from both Client self-report and Practitioner
observation – is critical for determining if the request should be
titrated up or down, simplified, repeated at the same level or, as
is the case sometimes, abandoned altogether or shelved for later.
Then there's the less transparent side of things. These include
behaviors, questions and requests from the Practitioner that are
simply layered into the session behind the scenes. We might try to
mirror a client's behavior, comment on positive elements of
experience or even ask for internal sensation reflections as in our
classic line "Can you tell me what you notice now?" If the
introduction of any of those slows or stalls the session rather
than move it forward with more spontaneously, we're best off
reading that feedback and adjusting how we do things next time to
garner more ease and acceptance of the new thing. For example, when
a client has a difficult time answering the "What do you feel now?"
question, it may be necessary to: Clarify the question next time
(don't assume they know what you're asking for)Make it smaller
(titrate it down)Ask a more oblique question ("If someone else had
a response to that kind of thing, what might they be feeling right
now?