Issue #1 Article#16
Session Viewing by Pietro Abela
In
previous issues of the ARC newsletter I have outlined the practitioner support
that is in place for the on-going development and professionalism of our senior
students, graduates and practitioners. This has been offered with a little
nudging, in the hope that ARC practitioners take advantage of these services.
Continued mentoring is invaluable and essential to the discernment of the
personal issues that inevitably arise with client-based session work. Such monitoring also allows the faculty to
keep on track with the professional standards ARC espouses, the high quality of
services we advertise and to advance practitioner skills which lead to greater
effectiveness in performance.
One of the
services ARC offers is Session Viewing. Practitioners and senior students
observe myself in practice while working one-on-one with a client, with the
client’s permission. This is an opportunity to see how I negotiate the
challenges of session work and deal first-hand with many of the professional
issues we have talked about in class.
To my
satisfaction I am finding more people taking advantage of such opportunities.
Having worked for years in the seclusion of my office with only the client and
I present I am sometimes startled to see someone else sitting in the room
watching my every movement and listening to every word spoken. There are times when I innocently
(or so I think) scratch my head, I wonder, with the observation skills, they
have in place whether the observing student or practitioner has concluded that the
movement of the hand and the rhythm of the scratching has a profound meaning of
some huge event that took place one time or another that I am not aware of.
Such distractions are fleeting and amusing to me , but on the whole I am
pleased to say that having someone in
the session doesn’t seem to make a difference to my overall performance with my
clients.
My desire in writing this article is to offer
pointers on how to fully observe a session and what to actually look for so students
can take full advantage of this learning opportunity.
For those of
you who have not yet observed one of my sessions the set up is as follows: I
talk with the client personally for five to ten minutes and then invite them to lie
on the table ensuring
that they are comfortable. Then I open the office door and invite the student
in who respectfully creeps to an awaiting chair. As the session concludes, I
give a discreet nod to the student who leaves the room while I talk with the
client privately. In the interest of confidentiality the student is not
permitted to talk about the client’s personal process, but they are allowed to
approach me on techniques and methods I may have used.
My recommendations for observing are:
·
Become aware of yourself and mindful as soon as you sit
down, so that you move into full receptivity in the same way you do when in
practice. Notice those times when you have drifted off or you are in your head.
This will likely be due to excess head energy from a state of ungroundedness,
meaning something going on in the process has triggered you. This need not be
something that was heard in the dialogue. It could be an energy block that has
been contacted in the client from the running of energy and you have an
experience that you share with the client on some level. Once you notice you
are no longer present use your personal rituals to re-gain presence for
yourself.
·
Watch for those moments when I lose my grounding and am
triggered. It happens more than you might realize. My clients are there to
challenge and further my growth too and so I am prone to this in the same way
that anyone else is. Notice when and how I recover from this.
·
Notice the dialogue techniques used. Name for yourself when
you hear Pacing, Contacts and Creative Questioning. Am I using a creative
question where there is a change in syntax and as a result does it serve to
bring the client to a more body based experience – or not? When is the client
in their head, and what serves as confirmation that they are in their body?
·
What was the charged word that was spoken which led to the
formation of the question. Was there more than one charged word in the
statement and would you (as the observer) have used another instead?
·
How do I provide safety for the client? What energetic and
dialogue techniques provide that? How do I model? Do I change the pace of the
dialogue? Am I more parental or nurturing at certain times?
·
Deciphering frequencies can entail a high level of
discernment, but still I would encourage you to look for those used in the
session. You could always ask me later if you were correct or not – that is, if
I remember. It is often challenging to recall all that went on in sessions due
to my need to be fully present in the moment and letting go of the session for
both my own personal clearing and for the good of the next client I will be
working with.
This is a lot
of information and certainly more than I would expect you to even remember,
never mind discern, in the session. Therefore you may want to consider copying
this article to have it on hand as a reference next time you are viewing a
session. Maybe there are items you notice in addition to those
written here. If so, we would love to hear about them. Write us an article or a
few lines in our newsletters so that we can share your experiences too. But if
you do, please remember confidentiality-do not share the client’s information
or process, but instead comment on the techniques and methods of client care
and self care you observed.
See you in session!