THE CONTENTS *

WHAT "FOCUSING" IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT *

1. PROLOGUE *

2. FOR WHOM THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS ARE INTENDED AND FOR WHOM THEY ARE NOT? *

3. HOW AND WHY TO READ THIS BOOK *

So: *

4. KEY TO CONCEPTS, ABBREVIATIONS AND STRANGE WORDS* *

5 - DO IT YOURSELF NOW! *

I. A warning for beginners *

II. First stage - beginning steps of guided sensate focusing *

III. Daily Focusing *

IV. Second stage - Recycled Emotions (for very advanced focusers only) *

V. Synthetic emotions or "remedy before disaster" *

VI. SPECIAL PROJECTS *

VII. Impossible missions??? *

SUPPLEMENT 1: A form for marking the time of cigarettes lighted, or other bad habits *

VIII. Concluding remarks *

6. A SHORT GUIDE FOR THE FOCUSING "COACH" *

7. THE EMOTIONS *

8. THE ACTIVATION PROGRAMS *

9. AD HOC ACTIVATION PROGRAMS(4) *

10. SUPRA-PROGRAMS *

11. THE EMOTIONAL SUPRA-PROGRAMS *

12. THE COVER-PROGRAMS *

13. THE TRASH-PROGRAMS *

14. HOW IT REALLY WORKS *

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY *

Questions and answers *

Summary: Phase I *

About Mental Health and Biofeedback (Re: Sharif) *

1. PROLOGUE

Who of us has not experienced a stomach ache (or at least butterflies) before a test or examination or an important interview. Who of us has not felt a `pinch' in his* heart when he sees the loved one who broke his heart, pass in the street, arm in arm with another. Who does not feel a lump in his throat on learning about a tragedy that has happened to someone close. Whose anger was not aroused many times upon witnessing evil or injustice. Who of us is completely free of events of bottled fear - the kind that makes us feel tense but does not allow us to relate it to a specific or defined thing? Who has not felt depressed, or just in a bad mood that goes on and on...

So what?

The technique was developed for people who are no longer willing to relate to their emotions like the weather, about which one speaks about it but does nothing at all to change. The technique (and the book too) is intended for these who are dissatisfied with the quality of their lives and the accepted ways of changing it (or getting reconciled to it). Therefore, I sought for a better way to manage the human emotional life. I looked for a technique or a certain practice which would enable one to organize the variety of one's sensations and emotions in a systematic and comfortable way.

I searched for something more effective than the archaic techniques developed in the Far East throughout history. I looked for something more available than the various kinds of psychotherapy known at that time* had to offer.

2. FOR WHOM THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS ARE INTENDED AND FOR WHOM THEY ARE NOT?

If your main goal at this moment is to read about functional means or practical ways for improving your interpersonal relations, about better ways to cope with the world you are in, or recommendations for change to introduce into it, you are reading the wrong text. This book is not even a guide for analyzing or solving problems of life by effective thinking methods.

The sole substantial usefulness anticipated from the casual reading of this book is that you may broaden your mind a little. On the other hand, if you use the knowledge and the exercises of the chapter "do it yourself now", you will have the ability to influence purposefully your feelings and sensations by giving them systematic attention.

The good news:

It is reasonable to expect that after not too long a period of training, you will be able to lighten gradually: unpleasant feelings, sensations, moods and other bodily sensations felt, by means of concentrated attention. Most of the time, you will be able to reach such a state after several seconds of concentrated and focused attention paid to them (to be called hereafter "focusing"). At the beginning of the training and even afterwards, when difficult cases are encountered, changes will be felt only after a minute or even several minutes...

After a relatively short period of training (sometimes even during the first hour) you will profit immensely from the application of the focusing technique. You will be able to use your newly acquired knowledge for targets more significant than only elevating low moods and easing hard feelings. You will also be able to achieve such objectives as solving long standing interpersonal problems, internal conflicts or getting rid of damaging habits.

The bad news:

However, these latter aims are not easily obtained. They require preliminary attainment of suitable skills and proficiency in the new focusing technique - i.e., proficiency in concentration on the felt physical sensations of the body, and the no less important skill of the recycling of the relevant emotionally loaded contents.

Moreover, not just a few people are "stuck" with nearly permanent or recurrent nasty sensations or feelings or moods. Few of these unpleasantness-es are really very difficult and are relatively resistant to quick solutions. It is especially so when they are the result of a real and very meaningful event, where the results and consequences do not pass quickly. In these instances, a significant result that is more than just momentary relief is not easy to achieve. It may be felt only after the accumulation of an hour or even several hours of focusing, spaced over a period of a few days or weeks.

In the early stages of focusing, the only significant improvements one can expect - and succeed in achieving as a reward for diligent work - are only within the domain of one's emotional climate. Long-term results and basic change in the emotional and behavioral routines (habits, temper, long term moods, "personality trends" etc.) are even harder to achieve.

Besides the proficiency in the technique, the more serious objectives require a lot of systematic activity over an extended period of time. These objectives are seldom achieved without weeks and months of diligent use of the various tactics of the technique - in accordance with the guidance offered in the guide - chapter 5.

During the search for the limitations of the technique many difficult goals and problems were encountered. However, I have not yet encountered an impossible one. Perhaps you will have greater success!

Respect for the suffering

Before you continue to read this booklet - BE WARNED!! Too much use of sensate focusing (giving a lot of concentrated attention to the felt sensations of the body) can bring about irreversible results. The exercises and steps which will be discussed in the "Do it yourself now" section, may bring an irreversible change in the quality of your life or even in your personality.

Those whose suffering, deficiencies and inadequacies are precious to them and those in whom human suffering gains more respect than compassion or pity - will do themselves a favor if they refrain from reading this book.

These people who find it very important not to change, will be wise not to take any of the various steps in the training in sensate focus. Even a single execution of one step of the preliminary stage can cause the beginning of processes which will bring about an irreversible change.

It seems that the manner in which the text of this book relates to sensation, emotion and to human suffering may seem inappropriate to many. The treatment of this domain might seem to them too matter of fact - and thus, disrespectful. My approach may hurt the feelings of those with afflicted souls and those dealing too seriously with literature and poetry. Here we apologize for this unintentional, but alas unavoidable aspect of our de-mystification and banalization of the emotional phenomena.

The contention that emotional and other felt sensations of suffering can be relatively easily eliminated (or at least got rid of when encountered) will probably anger many opinionated people. It will anger all those who attribute an important positive value to human suffering. It will most anger those who delegate the bulk of human suffering or even all of it to a divine source.

I do not share the opinions of those mentioned above, nor do I share the belief of those who are, in principal, in favor of the eradication of human suffering, but tactically, believe that "the worse it gets, the quicker it gets better". Moreover, I do not believe in any purifying effect of suffering. Therefore, I do not see even one reason to be lenient to the feelings of the various sorts and creeds of overt or covert sadists and masochists, nor do I feel any inclination to ask their forgiveness.

Only improvement

Alas, in order not to infuriate those who see the main root of human suffering within the inappropriate social order, it is emphasized here that the ideas and suggestions presented in this book are not intended to replace the striving for a better social order but to supplement it.

However, the accumulated experience of many trainees shows that even before any significant improvement in the social order is achieved, alleviation of personal suffering is possible. The first steps of the disentangling of the unpleasant emotional complexity - already achieved in the beginning of the training in sensate focusing - start to contribute to this end. This, and the achievements of the following steps, enable the individual to distinguish better between the contributions of the various factors to his suffering.

This distinction allows - quite early and even before all internal and external harmful factors have been neutralized - the mobilization of resources available to the individual. This mobilization makes the dealing with all sorts of factors easier. Thus, the sensate focusing processes enable the individual to improve the quality of his life - even before any environmental change takes place.

For those who are active in the struggle to change the social order because of the prevailing unnecessary suffering involved within it, the freed resources will enable them to do so in a more successful and human fashion.

The vengeance of psychology

The popularity of dealing with psychology in the past decades, has resulted in an increased awareness of the different processes which occur within the individual. The general knowledge about these processes - already accumulated through systematic research and "field work" - is huge. That part of it which is accessible to all, is still too small, but it is also on the increase. There are also more people who are no longer content - and thus do not consent to leave their feelings and "emotional problems" to the professionals who specialize in this field.

This trend is similar to the spreading tendency to take part in sports and other physical activities for health and body maintenance outside of any formal framework or organization. This tendency expresses - among other things - the wish to eliminate the monopoly of orthopedics and other specialists on the maintenance of the well-being of the skeleton and muscles.

Similar tendencies can be found in the wide stream of movements for the liberation of the individual from the reign of "Professionals and authorities in their field". This stream expresses the growing tendency of people to take responsibility for their own functioning and place in the world. ("Eliminating School" and "Medicine's revenge" of Ivan Ilitch are among the outstanding books aimed at achieving this end through "destructive" means. They try to do it through their contribution of "Exposing the conspiracy of the experts of the establishment".)

There are also "constructive" means to meet this end. Many people take the trouble to make organized knowledge - based on applied sciences - available (accessible) to the layman. They take the pain to "translate" scientific findings and professional publications into texts written in everyday language, and invent new techniques of the "do it yourself" type. And so, the previously mysterious knowledge of the chosen few becomes intelligible to the ordinary person, who with this help can becomes independent of professional assistance.

The knowledge accumulated by me and my trainees and brought to this book - and especially that which is brought to the chapter "Do it yourself" is of the "constructionist" kind. It contributes our share to the growing body of knowledge that enables the liberation of the individual from total dependency on professionals. ((!!!!!!!!!!!!!!))

This growing body of knowledge contributes more than any other modern factor to the growing feeling of the freedom of people in modern times. One is no longer forced to choose, again and again, between self-neglect or fearfully submitting to the experts - to whom one has to apply for every little malfunction of one of the systems.

How lucky we are that the strength of the resistance of the professionals and their ability to take revenge for their lost exclusiveness is not like that of the gods... who according to the Greek mythology punished Prometheus for divulging the secret of fire to mankind.

 

3. HOW AND WHY TO READ THIS BOOK

This booklet comprises chosen topics from a wider domain - chosen for their essentially, for the explanation of the practical guidelines offered to the reader, or the concrete steps suggested to him. It belongs to the fast growing "Do It Yourself" library. It's main message is "Feel It Yourself" and it is mainly intended for three types of readers:

The first type consists of those who relate to their emotions as a factor which contributes a great deal to their lives. They regard the feelings of the daily life experience of human existence as a blessing that enriches them - and not as a calamity or pathology. This way of relating to emotions is characteristic to most of the Bohemians and other people active in various fields of the arts. Recently, it has become the main mode of relating for wider circles of society.

Lately, the increase in this mode of relating to emotion is overwhelming, and it is prevalent even among very "sane" people. The main contributing factor to this phenomenon is the very fast growth in the number of those who believe that "life should be a valuable experience that is worth living and not a purpose, mission or punishment".

The second kind of person this booklet is meant for is the increasing number of people who are aware (at least partially) that emotions are not only something that happens to them or to others. These people are from the growing sector of the population who are involved with interpersonal relations to a great extent.

Because of their training and occupation they become progressively more aware that their emotions - as well as those of others - are something that they use (and manipulate) for different purposes. Many of these people feel or think that it would suit them to become more sophisticated users.

The third kind of potential readers are those to whom the topics dwelt on in this booklet seem very familiar. This group of potential readers includes all those who have discovered in a vicarious way or by chance or because of ideas they have picked up somewhere... the curious effects of the willful manipulation of the attention paid to the felt sensations of the body.

Many of them have found, by themselves, that the concentration of attention on the common headache - if done persistently - tends to weaken it or even cause it to disappear. Some of them generalized from the headaches to the unpleasant sensations of other parts of the body. A small minority even applied this to the more vague and hard-to-place feelings and moods.

This kind of potential reader also includes all those individuals who are used to being "in touch with themselves". For many different reasons, people get into this habit. Having this trend - intentionally or unintentionally - they are used to `listening' to their physical sensations and thus, to all the felt senses of their feelings, emotions, moods, passions, etc.

So:

If for one reason or another you wish to improve your understanding of the human emotional system and its functioning, and especially if you wish to improve the functioning and quality of your emotional system - this booklet is meant for you.

If all you want is only to improve the quality of your ongoing feelings and moods or a certain aspect of your life - this book is for you too.

This book may also be useful to professionals whose work is involved with the emotional systems of others. We hope they will not misuse it.

The reader who wants to become acquainted with the emotional domain as a whole, before taking steps to change it, is advised to read first the theoretical chapters.

The reader who is more interested in the practical side of the new technique is advised to start with chapter five entitled "Do it yourself now", which is a guide for training oneself in the use of the focusing technique.

Readers who work in the domain of the social sciences, are advised to read the following chapter as a summary of the theory and the concepts of my version of the sensate focusing.

Readers who are interested in topics that are mentioned but not explained in the booklet in detail, are invited to write us about them (or even to phone). They may get a copy of the preliminary drafts dealing with those topics, which, for one reason or another, were not included in this edition.

 

4. KEY TO CONCEPTS, ABBREVIATIONS AND STRANGE WORDS*

___________________
* Actually, this chapter can be regarded as a condensed preliminary introduction or a summary - to be read as a unit by itself. Therefore, the order of the items included in it is not alphabetical. After the first reading, or without it, it will serve you as a short dictionary.
------------------

The concepts

        2. Activation Program           6. Feedback
        4. Ad Hoc Operation Programs    7. Felt Sensation
        3. Basic Emotion                5. Input or Feed
        1. Basic Emotional structures  14. Sensate Focusing
       12. Biofeedback                 11. Socialization
       13. Natural Biofeedback         16. Subliminal Perception
       15. Cognitive Processes          8. Supra-Program
       17. Cover-Program               10. Trashy Supra-Program
        9. Emotional Supra-Program

1. Basic Emotional Structures are approximately 15 - 20 neuro-biological structures of the brain. Their main components are located in various parts of the "Limbic System", which is an archaic part of the brain. Each of these structures is a relatively independent part of the emotional system and is in a reciprocal relationship with nearly all the other systems and subsystems of the brain and body.

Each of the basic emotional structures is in charge of the continuous appraisal of the condition of the individual, with regard to a specific aspect of his existence as a human being and as a living creature.

The ongoing appraisals are done for actual, potential and hypothetical circumstances and activities - directly and indirectly related to the individual. The appraisal of each is like a point moving along a continuum located between two opposing poles, the content of which is specific to it.

For example, those of the structure in charge of assessing the amount of present and future dangers, are made along the "Fear-Serenity" continuum which is better known as the Basic Emotion(3) of "fear".

These appraisals are conveyed to the other subsystems and culminate as specific behaviors, as internal and external communications, as various physiological and cognitive processes, and as subjective experiences. More on what are the emotions

2. Activation Program or Activation Plan or Scheme: is a pattern for the activation of processes in the mind and body, stored in the memory. Usually it does not operate by itself but by means of a temporary ad hoc operation program(4) constructed for the specific occasion from various programs already stored in the memory. More on the activation programs

3. Basic Emotion: is the most common name for the combination of the individual brain structure of a basic emotion and the activation program(s) of this structure. Each of the basic emotions includes a program or a subprogram for the perceptual component; for the integrational one; for the intra-body activation one; for the behavioral one; and for the expressive one. Each of the basic emotions includes also a program for the component which is responsible for the subjective experience of the activity of that basic emotion.

At the beginning of the life of an individual, these structures are activated and operated by innate "Activation Programs"(2). Later in life, these structures are operated by dynamic combinations of the innate activation programs and a plethora of acquired ones - mainly built in the early years of life (to be called, in the following chapters "Supra-Programs"(8).

4. Ad Hoc Operation Program is a temporary structure of (or in) the memory, which was built in order to execute one of the many functions and processes of the mind, body and behavior. It is based on activation programs, previous experience and other materials already stored in the memory. Taking into consideration the specific circumstances of the moment, it is built anew for each occasion, by the ad hoc operating programs active at that time.

Each ad hoc program includes within it more or less clear and detailed expectations about the relevant future - the course of the executed program and results - and a subprogram for concurrently checking (while it is being executed) the congruity between what is expected and what is actually happening.

When needed, this component supervises the introduction of changes into the executed program and in all the relevant activation programs. This part of the ad hoc program is the main agent of improvisation, learning and change. More on the ad hoc activation programs

5. Input or Feed is the process of transferring energy, matter or information, or all of them, from one source or various sources, continuously, on schedule, sporadically or vicariously, to any destination that is capable of absorbing it.

6. Feedback is a type of transfer of input (mostly to be used as information) from one part of a system (the feeding one) into a process which goes on in another part of the system (the one which is fed) caused by previous or concurrent input from the part which now gets that input in return. In daily life, this concept is frequently used to label the information regarding the influence of previous activity, behavior and speech - of the target of the feedback, on its source.

7. Felt Sensation or "felt sense" for short is the name of those sensations of the body of which we become aware. All of them are related to mental processes. Frequently, when attended to, they are organized and felt as a meaningful whole. These sensations derive from five main sources:

First step - know thyself

Sit comfortably, with support for your head so that the nape of your neck is relaxed, the head and the neck are in a relatively straight line with the spinal cord which is straight as well. This will prevents muscular tensions in the neck from interfering in following tasks.

After reading the beginning paragraphs, you will be advised to take a small tour of your body. The starting point may be the place you are usually aware of or feel once you have "decided" (or discovered or discerned) that you are in a bad mood, or that you have unpleasant emotions or feelings or sensations. It is recommended that you choose as the starting point, the place where you are now feeling the worst.

Usually this point is located in the intestines, chest, neck, or the head. Less frequently it is located in the nape of the neck, shoulders, back, feet or hands. Sometimes it is hard to find a more accurate address to those feelings as many of the parts in our body have scientific names which are not part of our daily vocabulary. Another contributor to this difficulty is the common lack of proficiency in focusing attention on feelings and sensations that are of a low or moderate intensity.

After you pay a brief notice to the starting point, start to scan slowly the various regions and organs of your body. Pay attention, for a short while, to the various sensations of each - whether you can define them as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.

It is recommended to start the tour in your body - now
After completing the first tour, it is worth doing again - parallel
to reading the following paragraphs:

The head: One can feel pressure or pain or various unpleasant sensations in different regions of the head or in all of them simultaneously. The most common place for those feelings is in the front of the head - in and around the eyes. A lot of itching of various intensities is also felt there from time to time, mainly on the scalp.

The face: Though it is a part of the head it is entitled to a name of its own. The 23 pairs of muscles of the face are in permanent and close connection with the emotional system. Their connection is specially strong with the active ad hoc programs(4) of the moment - mainly with the "trashy"(10) ones, the parts and procedures of which are emotionally loaded. The most active region of the face is that of the mouth. Most of the problems here are mainly esthetic. The intense ones are expressed as furrows, distortions of the face or a tightened mouth. Less often there are "ticks" or a general hardening of the face muscles and jaws.

The nape: (and especially the root of the head): This is the upper end of the long muscles of the back. These muscles - especially of the upper end, are the source of headaches and other bad feelings or discomfort of the head. Various activation programs(2) use the controlled hardening of the muscles of this region to regulate the intensity of various feelings and emotions, mostly to reduce them.

The throat: Usually, the precise address is the region of the vocal cords. At this point we usually feel the lump which is hard to swallow, the suffocating tears and other kinds of sorrow. The vocal-cords like the muscles of the face - are always in very close touch with the concurrently active "trash-programs".

The chest: In this big bulk there are a lot of addresses and variegated sensations and feelings - distress, pressure, pricks, stubbing pains, sharp and dull pains, shrinking and hammering of the heart, contraction of the diaphragm, etc. The most dramatic occurrence in this region is asthmatic suffocation, triggered by mental stress. The most grave expressions of emotional stress in this area are disturbances that affect the function and health of the heart. These stresses may "donate" an important contribution to death due to heart failure - especially when they are of long duration.

The belly and intestines: The external muscles of the abdomen, the many yards of intestines and the other internal organs, have an abundance of possibilities. Each sub-region has its own characteristic variety of feelings and sensations. The pains of convulsions, nausea, stress, pricks and "butterflies"... are the most common. Diarrhea, constipation and ulcers are the most acute expressions of the effects of emotional stress on this region.

The muscles of the skeleton: These muscles are a major part of the body's weight - and even more so in lean people. These muscles can be tight, stiffened, rigid, slackened, strung, stretched... or simply painful. The majority of adults often feel pain or other bad feelings in their back - usually in the lower part. The common name is "low back pain". When one is out of luck, one learns from the physician its orthopedic name - Lumbago.

Itching, scratching and other irritants: Very often we feel itchiness (or other excitations of the skin) in the region of limbs, head, torso, etc. Sometimes (according to the prevailing code of manners), there are no moral, physical or health restrictions and we touch, rub, scratch or scrape the place absent-minded (or almost so).

Sometimes we have to refrain from doing this due to various restrictions. In these cases we try to distract our attention, and hope for a quick disappearance of the irritation.

Sometimes, we are forced to continue paying attention to the discomfort for many long seconds... until we yield to the urge or reach a compromise.

The overwhelming majority of these sensations are not of an objective source like a sting, or an insect bite or any other irritant to the skin, but a result of the activity of our emotional system. We shall dwell on this subject later in a section intended for the sensate-focusing for the advanced.

This is the end of step one

After finishing the second tour of your body, you are invited to return to the starting point and prepare yourself for the second step. However sometimes, while you are on the first step, unexpected changes have happened at the starting point, and thus a surprise awaits you there. Even if your point of departure was a significant and unpleasant sensation, it may already be changed or even dissolved.

In such a case, you can choose for the second step, any other uneasy or unpleasant sensation you still have. In the rare case where you cannot find any - leave the sensate-focus training and have a good time while it lasts. When an unpleasant feeling or sensation returns you will be able to resume the training.

If you are one of those people who are hard to stop while things are unfinished, you can still resume this step, even if you have lost the last of the bad feelings. In this case you can choose as a substitute, one of the facial muscles that are on the left of the mouth. (If you are left-handed - try the right side.)

A somewhat more sophisticated means to this end is: the "opening of the nape* of the neck", recycling of emotionally loaded memories, structured imagery and self-provocations. However, if you are doing this step without the aid of an experienced focuser - be careful not to invite too intense feelings.

The fifth step

This step is an enhanced and more focused repetition of the previous one. Before repeating it, read the following paragraphs.

Whenever we pay attention for a while to any place in the body which is not too cold, we start a multistage process: first, the focusing of the attention increases the clearness of the natural biofeedback it supplies to the brain and strengthens its impact on all the ongoing processes. This especially influences the processes which are responsible for the entering of changes into the ongoing ad hoc supra-programs.

This results, at first, in the gradual relaxation of the muscle fibers in that area - including those of the walls of the blood arteries. As a result, the arteries expand a bit, increase the amount of blood streaming there and rises the temperature of the attended area. Usually, after a while, this, and the increase in the effectiveness of the natural biofeedback of the area to the brain, helps the subliminal sensations of rhythmic pulsations of the arteries there to gain admittance to awareness. (((((Vipassana meditation on impermanence correspond to this??? Goenka and his headache???? Also, Hui Neng, let the mind flow freely….Tao))))))

When the region is not too cold, when one is not too troubled and when there is no "veto" by any supra-program - it takes only a few seconds (up to thirty) of focusing till the throbbing of the pulse (or a change in it) begins to be felt. ((((Like at the start of meditation???? A sign of metabolism/ natural program without being inhibited…))))

In like fashion, it will probably happen at the point of focusing you have chosen. This will help you to sustain longer the focusing of attention there. Afterwards, as tends to happen with most other sensations and points of focused attention, your power of concentration and the portion of your attention paid to the sensation will decrease, and the sensation of blood pulsation will recede to the subliminal status again.

Now do the fourth step again. During its course, focus on the central
point of the sensation. Try to discern the pulsation and
the other changes that might occur there.

If, while you were doing this step, you have not encountered any problem, and if you are not curious to know which obstacles you missed - go to the sixth step. Otherwise, you may find in the following paragraphs a lot of useful information.

Sometimes, when you are attending to the sensation of an area, focusing for a longer period of time is needed till one can feel the pulse. This usually happens when the place of focusing is marginal, when the number of blood vessels there is small or when prejudice is involved. Usually even in these places it does not take much longer than half a minute till one starts to feel the pulsation. ((((Intereesting!!!)))

Sometimes nothing helps and even the enhanced natural biofeedback is not strong enough to make one aware of the pulsation and it remains subliminal. This is not critical since the feeling of the pulsation is only an auxiliary device used to help the new trainee in the process of focusing his attention and not an essential precondition for its success.

Sometimes, the receptors located in the walls of the blood vessels of an area are less sensitive than those of the small muscles there. This may cause the focuser to feel a localized relaxation of the muscles and the emerging of felt sensations which are like the "pins" and needles experienced when a limb has `gone to sleep'. The focuser can use them as pointers - just as he uses the pulsation of the blood.

Sometimes it is hard to pay attention for a prolonged period of time to a point or area of the body. Many factors contribute to this difficulty. The following are the most common obstructions and the preferred means to overcome them:

From time to time, a short absent-mindedness occurs or a momentary "falling of tension" in the processes that regulate the concentration of attention and enable focusing. Usually, it takes only a minimal mobilization of resources to redeem the ability to concentrate and to resume focusing.

Sometimes, sensations or pulsations in other parts of the body increase. These may deflect one's attention away from the point of focusing. Often, one can overcome the distraction by heightening the efforts of concentration on the original point. It is also possible to compromise and focus on both - the original and the distractor. It is also permissible - and sometimes preferable - to yield to the distractor and to change the point of focusing to the place of the new sensation.

Sometimes, as the activity of focusing continues, various thoughts start to gain prominence in the consciousness. As long as they do not hinder the focusing, let them continue their own course. If they do disturb the focusing (or the focuser), obliterate them. This can be done easily by monotonous repetition of a simple, short word or a syllable - silently and without even moving the lips - in parallel with the focusing. When the intruding thoughts disturb the focusing too much, it might be easier to stop the training for a while, and return to it later.

It happens sometimes, that the difficulties encountered are "side effects" of positive developments. Frequently, even a short focusing can supply the processes mending programs with a sufficient amount of natural biofeedback. This enables them to solve very quickly the problem responsible for the arousal of the felt sensation and thus stop it. In this case, just search happily for another felt sensation to focus on.

The sixth step

After the primary focusing you reach a stage when the main work of the natural biofeedback, enhanced by the focusing, is done. This stage can be short - a few seconds. It can also be as long as a few minutes. It depends mainly on the region on which you focus, on the sensation or feeling you are focusing on, on the strength of your concentration of attention, and for sure, it also depends on the supra-programs involved - especially the one which causes the sensation on which you are focusing.

As we described in other chapters, the primary sensation you concentrated on, and those that joined or replaced it, are natural biofeedback. This feedback is the output from processes activated by various ad hoc activation programs of the mind - mainly the emotional type - and it feeds both the processes responsible for the concurrent execution of those ad hoc supra-programs and those responsible for their improvement.

Though most of your supra-programs are quite similar to those of other people, they are unique to you. Therefore, every description we outline in the following paragraphs (and those previously outlined) will not be entirely the same as those you may experience.

Now find the precise place of the previous target of focusing (if it
still exists) or the most suitable sensation that you have now.
Focus on it for about a minute with all the attention you
can recruit for this task. Whether you feel the
pulsation or not - try to sense the minute
changes that happen all the time to
the intensity of the sensation,
its quality and its borders.
After a minute, resume the reading.

If after a short time, the unpleasant feeling has already faded, shift for the remaining time to another sensation or area.

If the original sensation you were focusing on disappeared or changed into another or changed address - don't worry. Even when one laughs in the face of suffering and plays games with it - it still does not go away forever after only one session of focusing. Thus, there is no need to panic. The unpleasant sensation will come back after a short time. (Usually it will return a little bit weaker but in the not too exceptional cases it may even become stronger.)

If after a minute, the unpleasant feeling has not yet changed, try to continue the focusing, in spite of the accumulating doubt, while you read the following paragraphs*. It is important to take into account that this may happen frequently in the first stages of focusing.

1. The nape of the neck

Many may remember the pictorial biblical description of stubborn people as being "stiff necked". This expression means that a person so named, does not yield to pressure - physical or moral - from others. It seems that the hardening of the muscles of the nape of the neck by contraction is the most common of all the available means used to weaken or dampen the intensity of unwanted feelings and sensations. It influences all of them, without regard to their nature or source. It is usually applied - without being aware of the fact - to internal processes and to external pressures.

In our daily life, the chronic or temporary hardening of the nape of the neck is used as one of the important weapons of the "Trash-Programs". They use it to reduce the high and unbearable levels of intensity of sensations and feelings to "bearable" ones, with which one is able to deal if one chooses to.

This treatment is not restricted to the unbearable ones. In their effort to keep the conscious mind "clean" from any unpleasant experience, the trash- programs are also aided by the contraction of the nape of the neck muscles. Unwittingly, it is even applied against the "distraction" of most of the moderate feelings as well. Consequently, a plethora of subliminal sensations are constantly, "just waiting" to gain access to the awareness or to be invited in.

Interventions

When we want to invest effort in sensate-focusing and we cannot find any feeling upon which to concentrate, or when the feelings that exist are too weak, we are not helpless. We can "cure" this by "opening the nape of the neck" - slightly relaxing the muscles of the nape - using various means. As a result, at least a few of the subliminal sensations will enter the awareness.

Sigmund Freud and other orthodox psychoanalysts did it by lying the patients on their backs on a couch. You can do it whenever and wherever you want by focusing part of your attention on these muscles - with or without a gentle touch or caress preceding it. One can do it also by leaning one's head on any kind of support while standing or sitting. These tactics can also be used as an amplifier (or booster) for the ongoing felt sensations or as a means of changing them.

The last tactic can even be used to a very precise degree as one can open and close the nape to a minute extent by enlarging or reducing the angle at which the head reclines.

Maximum opening of the nape is achieved whenever the head and the neck are in a straight line with the spinal cord which is straight as well. As this position is very similar to that which characterizes a high level of pride, it invites to the awareness many felt sensations related to trash-programs involving the emotions of status i.e. superiority-inferiority, pride-shame and adoration-depreciation. (((Relation to Zazen?)))

As the "focusing while opening the nape" can release pent-up
emotions, it is advised that the beginning focuser will
do it cautiously, taking the following measures:

The first measure: open the nape very gradually and only while standing erect, lying comfortably on your back or most preferably - while sitting comfortably with a good (from an orthopedic point of view) support for the back and the head. Refrain from doing it when you have pains in the neck or the higher parts of the back. Never force it too far back even if no pain is felt.

The second measure: do not "open the nape" while in an emotional turmoil or even when you only have strong emotions, feelings and sensations.

The third measure: whenever the felt sensations aroused during the opening of the nape become too intense to work on comfortably, decrease the opening and even harden the muscles if needed.

The first precaution must be taken in order to protect against the abrupt stiffening of the neck, constriction of the muscles there and in the back and chest, and other orthopedic damages. A good support will prevent the uncontrolled and swift recruiting of other muscles of the body to do the job of quenching the aroused sensations and feelings.

As a beginner, it will be easier for you to build the new habit and to find your physical and emotional limits, if you do it gradually, while sitting comfortably and paying a lot of attention to the sensations of the nape and the surrounding muscles. Better postpone the more intense opening of the nape to the later stages of your training or just leave it to the experienced focusers.

The second precaution is taken with regard to situations and emotional climates in which it is unwise to intensify the sensations or to try to find what is lurking behind them. Actually, the existence of any felt sensations the intensity of which is more than moderate is an indication to refraining from opening the nape. The emergence of one while you are doing it is a sign not to continue with the "opening" or at least to reduce it. The recommendation to evade the initiation of tackling intense sensations and feelings has many reasons, the most prominent of which are:

The first one is simply because they are unpleasant.

The second one is that the best results and the least damage are derived from the focusing on felt sensations of moderate and less intensity. Though it is not based on systematic research, my accumulated experience of seven years training new focusers - indicates this. It seems that the more intense sensations and feelings - so much appreciated by the professionals - too often strengthen the cover-programs or even initiate the swift automatic process of building new cover-programs, thus delaying the improvement of the trash-programs involved.

The third one is because of motivation. After the excitement resulting from the surprises encountered while starting to meet the focusing phenomena subsides, and after the extremely unpleasant feelings and sensations start to dissolve, two of the main factors inspiring the focusers to continue are the emotions of pride and amusement. When we choose as targets of focusing sensations with a near neutral quality and of low intensity, short and easy focusing tends to dissolve them. Thus, we supply ourselves with challenges that yield quick results.

I and my trainees, as well as various scientist, have found that often, the knowledge that doing something will yield good results in the future, is not enough. It seems that our emotional system, and the way it functions as our main motivation factor, is very childish.

The third precaution is taken when the "opening of the nape" brings too strong feelings or other sensations and they do not recede when you decrease the relaxation or stop it altogether: Whenever you open the nape, be ready for the need to use the emergency act of "rubbing the hands together while focusing". Preparing for this measure beforehand, you will not forget it when flooded by intense felt sense.

The focusing on the nape of the neck - with or without opening it, can be used for other purposes than the search for a felt sense to focus on. Even when a suitable felt sensation or any other sensation appropriate for focusing is available - there are sometimes good reasons or potential benefits for focusing on something else. It is mostly so when the prolonged focusing on the original ones does not bring the wished for results fast enough.

One may also want to change the targets of focusing whenever their unpleasantness increases or is prolonged, when they become boring, or because they cause unwanted reactions like tears, sobbing, and coughing. The focusing on the nape of the neck or its opening usually makes other feelings and sensations available for focusing. In both cases, the focusing on the newly invited ones usually cause the old unwanted ones to recede or to disappear.

The focusing for about half a minute on the nape of the neck - with or without opening it - as an introduction to each sensate focusing session and before any other serious activity of focusing, is recommended.

Many trainees have found that when one dedicates time to focusing on a "longer than a few seconds felt sensation" (of other locations than the nape) or when one is engaged in a "project" of focusing on a specific content, this introduction makes the mission easier and improves the results.

2. The facial muscles and the vocal cords

The facial muscles and the vocal cords are, in essence, the outer extensions of the system of the basic emotions and are directly connected to them. All through one's life, the muscles of the face and vocal cords are continuously fed by the basic emotions. In return, they supply them and the other parts of the emotional system with a continuous and indispensable natural biofeedback, related to the emotional supra-programs active at the time.

Usually, those reciprocal relations are active at the margin of awareness and we do not attention to them for more than a very short period from time to time. One can always pay special attention to the facial muscles and the vocal cords if one wants, and get in return the awareness of felt sensations there. The facial muscles respond quickly and easily, but those of the vocal cords do not. This is so because the base line of the natural biofeedback of the vocal cords is weaker when one is silent.

When the initial focusing of attention on those two sources does not bring results, there is no room for despair, one can still get the right results if one only focuses on a point there. Even the most protected trash-programs are affected by this act. Usually, after a while, the cover-programs yield to the pressure and some felt sensations other than that of the normal tension of the muscles emerge from them - there or elsewhere.

The focusing on the marginal sensations of face and vocal cords contributes mainly to the improvement of the active ad hoc supra-programs. However, in the long run, diligent focusing on them brings huge profits for the whole emotional system.

3. The mouth

Despite the fact that the mouth is a part of the face, a special section is dedicated to its care. It acquired this honor as it was established scientifically by cross-cultural studies all over the world, that people use it more than any other part of the face in order to modulate, inhibit, control, or restrain their subjective feelings and to disguise their nonverbal expressions. The most common of these activities is the pressure applied by the lips against each other.

Sometimes, we manipulate the muscles spontaneously, other times, deliberately. Part of the time we observe this activity, but mostly it is done unaware.

Very early in life we learn to use the mouth to lie about our emotions and feelings. (False crying is the earliest, denials and lies come not much later.) Later, we learn by imitation or by trial and error additional ways to manipulate the muscles of the lips and those around the mouth in order to influence deliberately our emotional processes and those of the people observing us.

We use this knowledge "generously" in order to attract the attention of those around us and get assistance and consideration from them; also as a means of adapting to the emotional behavior rules of our culture; and as a tool for the regulation of our own emotional processes. In time, the ad hoc programs built for the activation of those behaviors, consolidate as trashy supra-programs.

As happens with other activities often executed they become habits and we tend to activate them automatically. Most of the time we are not even aware that we are activating these programs. Frequently we are only dimly aware of the temporary or permanent furrows resulting from this.

Consequently, the muscles of the mouth are very active even when we are silent or asleep, generating many chronic and semi-chronic constrictions of the muscles of the mouth, even when one cannot observe any significant effect on the lips or the adjoining skin.

Sometimes, we can reverse the process and get rid of these habits, and furrows too, by deliberately activating the automatic habits and by consciously manipulating these chronic or semi-chronic expressions. As those activities summon felt sensations related to the trash-program involved, we can focus on them and enable the mending processes to work on them intensively. Other times, we can just focus on the mouth passively. Both ways we contribute immensely to the improvement of our emotional system.

We can focus there while attending to other assignments or even when we are focusing elsewhere. We can concentrate on feelings and sensations there. We can also focus on the various points of the mouth in order to capture and "domesticate" emotional supra-programs the natural biofeedback of which is very weak - even if only slightly above the threshold of the awareness or only subliminal.

During the last few years I have examined the effects of placing the tongue between the upper and lower front teeth. Originally it was tested as a measure to be taken in order to break the habit of pressing the jaws firmly against each other. (This habit is usually a part of trash-programs that unwittingly inhibit anger or just fail to regulate it. Sometimes it is even expressed as grinding the teeth.)

It was found that this manipulation of the tongue activates the defense mechanisms (regulated by innate programs that work like reflexes) that protect the tongue from being punished by the teeth, and keep us from seriously biting our tongue on purpose. The activation of this reflex always causes a substantial automatic relaxation of the facial muscles.

It was also found that this relaxation undermines the component of facial muscular tension, which is an essential part of many trash-programs. By doing this, it forces the adaptation and accommodation processes of the mind to change and mend them.

Placing the tongue between the teeth, till it gently touches the lips, can become a "chronic" habit that induces substantial tranquility. The best version of this act is done while the mouth is closed, with a division of about a millimeter only between the lips, in order to avoid (social) embarrassment. This act can be most beneficial in circumstances in which one wants to achieve a fast reduction in the felt tension or to enter a calmer mood - as for instance when going to sleep.

Examine now, the sensations at and around the lips and mouth. Then,
thread the tongue between the frontal teeth till it touches the
inside of a lip or a cheek. Better leave a gap of about a
millimeter between the lips to prevent competing
sensations of touch or pressure there.
Focus for a minute or two on the
sensations felt there and the changes occurring in them.

4. The muscles of the body in general

There is a whole category of sensations that are usually near the threshold of awareness which originate in the muscles of the body. Most of them are the result of chronic contractions or "stiffness of muscle tissue". These, and the occasional stronger chronic sensations there, are the result of the "criminal" activity of trash-programs. The small minority of those sensations that do engage awareness is like the tip of a floating iceberg seen above the water.

The majority of the sensations stemming from the muscles are the result of the intimate relations between the supra-programs and the muscles. Those relations consist mainly comprised of the dynamic induction of tension in the muscle by the active programs and a natural biofeedback supplied by them to these programs.

Many of the prominent trash-programs (that are often called "personality", "character amour", daily habits, prolonged basic moods, etc.) need a kind of biological feed back from the tension receptors of the muscles for their regular activity. These muscles serve these programs as the air serves the juggler who cannot hold all the balls he is juggling in his hand, and as the sand at the bottom of the sea serves for the anchors of ships.

External interventions

Various schools of gymnastics and massage find those stiff points and succeed in relaxing them - temporarily or nearly permanently. Many people massage themselves intuitively in those places with similar results. Focusers can do this intuitive massage at the same time as focusing. They can search systematically all over the body for the most stiff or tender muscles to treat.

These activities stop the habitual course of the dialogue between the muscles and the ongoing ad hoc activation programs and force on them the editing and updating of the `mending' processes. In all these contexts, their improvement is quite easy to observe. ((((Again, like applying heat!!!))))

These activities improve the quality of life as they free the muscles of the skeleton from too crude use by the trash-programs, and allow them to behave in greater harmony. Simultaneously, they improve the quality of life immensely as they force the mending processes of the mind to treat the crippled programs, which have just lost their physical support.

This phenomenon is the main reason for the growing popularity of the treatment of the body by the many "physical therapies" of the various holistic "body and soul" schools and methods. The most famous in the West are: "Alexander", "Feldenkrise", the various schools of massage, the Neo-Reichians and their "Bio-Energy", a few "Eastern Cults", various types of Yoga, Reflexology, Shiatsu, etc.

Regardless their division of opinions and criticism of each other, most of these treatments improve the body function and that of the mind as well. One who is versed in the rationale of the various focusing techniques can detect in the practices and the explanations of these schools the echoes of common principles.

When one goes on a "hunting trip" in order to capture and then domesticate trash-programs, one may find them hidden in the stiff muscles of the skeleton or in any other "knotted" ones. One may also catch them at the orifices and other sphincters like the mouth, eyes, etc. These muscles are among the favorite targets of various holistic schools - especially that of "Paula".

Whenever one interferes in the "dialogue" between the trash-programs and the muscles, the latter usually respond with discernible sensations in various places simultaneously. Focusing on these felt sensations forces on the trash-programs involved, an intensive work out by the mending processes.

Beware of two dangers: The first is a physical one. Like any touch or pressure you or others apply to any place in your body, you have to be sure that it does not damage your health. Whenever in doubt or in pain ask the advice of the experts and professionals into whose field this part falls.

The other is an emotional one. Whenever trash-programs are provoked, it is better to be prepared to receive more than one asks for. The interference in the dialogue between muscle and programs can upset "a whole apple cart". For instance, one of my trainees tended to get the introductory signs of an "anxiety attack" each time he tried to work on a specific muscle. Only months of careful and sensitive recurrent work on it solved the problem, with out provoking a fully fledged anxiety attack.

Freezing the activity of the muscles of the body

The use of the muscles in the service of the emotional system is not restricted to the focusing on spontaneous sensations arousing in them or on those achieved by touch and the manipulation of the nape.

We can also use for this purpose the voluntarily-controlled-muscles, with which we can manipulate the system of activation programs in many other ways. Frequently, we can change what is going on in the system of emotional supra-programs by an intentional activation of muscles - with or without added focusing.

In daily life, nearly every one of us uses, from time to time, the stretching of the body as a means of heightening wakefulness, vigilance, rigor or vitality. Usually, as in the case of yawning, we sense their spontaneous arrival and only manipulate their intensity in a voluntary or semi-voluntary mode. Nearly everyone strains the muscles in order to reduce the impact of bad news, or unpleasant sensations like those experienced in the dentist's chair.

Everyone can use music to change mood by singing or listening to material with the right shade of emotion. Everyone can voluntarily change the pattern of muscle activity (and constriction) that is part of the emotional climate of the moment.

For instance: straightening the back helps one to recover from a melancholic mood; voluntary relaxation of the skeletal muscles dampens anxiety; the relaxation of the neck muscles (especially those of the nape of the neck) weakens vigilance and tension; the relaxation of the facial muscles weakens any ongoing emotion - good or bad; deliberate manipulation of the pattern in which the facial muscles are constricted ("pulling faces") changes the quality of the feelings and mood of the moment - at least for the duration of this activity.

From all the various options open for actively inducing mood changes, manipulation of the facial muscles is the one most commonly used. Nearly all of us use, from time to time, the constriction of the lips in order to squash the explosion of a soaring anger. Many, if not all of us, try, and usually succeed, to erase the smirk or smugness from our face - when it is uncalled-for or when we have to continue in a more serious or intentional activity. Most common is the habit of using the modulating activity of partial relaxation of facial muscles, for blurring or camouflaging the facial expression that goes with an emotion or feeling.

The above activities are usually done automatically - unconsciously or only with a very slight awareness. However, quite often, after a spontaneous start or even without one, they continue as intentional activities. The aim of these activities is twofold: a) to adapt the expression of emotion to the cultural norm and to other practical considerations b) to "trim" the felt sensation of the emotion of the time to a more bearable measure. For instance, to diminish the intensity of laughter that starts to hurt or that of crying that starts to suffocate.

The focusing on the sensations that accompanies the voluntary activation of the muscles while they are used to manipulate the emotional climate, enhances their effect. This concentrated attention on sources of natural biofeedback - those that are above and those that are below the threshold of awareness - while using them, helps us to find the trash-programs that make the previously wished for change, difficult.

Recommended activations

Often we find ourselves engaged in a repeated "nervous movement": rhythmic movement of one of the feet; touching or manipulation of the hair or any other part of the body; "small habitual games" like playing with bits or parts of the clothes, or with small articles; etc.

Except in minority cases, when we do it intentionally to alleviate the affect of boredom, these activities are the spontaneous semi-automatic products of trash-programs.

By freezing our ongoing movements of that time, we prevent the smooth operation of the ongoing trash-program of which they are a part. We force these programs "to seek help" from the brain processes that are in charge of aiding "helpless ad hoc programs" to adapt to the unexpected. (In the terminology of J. Piajet: we force on them adaptation and accommodation).

If we focus our attention on the sensations that are aroused as a result of the freezing of a repeated movement - their "cry for help" - we draw the attention of the mending programs to a larger extent. Thus, we add another "hunting ground" to the collection of processes used for "catching" trash-programs. As a by product, with the use of this tactic we can free ourselves temporarily, at least, from an unwanted habit.

If you want to rid yourself of a habit of this kind or wish to use it for focusing, do the following:

5. The common excitations and itching

The skin, which is the main boundary and interface between our body and the world, supplies us with a never ending stream of input and data. Part of the data is natural biofeedback about the pressure applied to various surfaces by our body weight - due to the pull of gravitation - during movement or rest. Part of the data is the result of physical and chemical interactions between us and the world - like insect bites and inanimate irritants.

However, most of the itching and scratching - the single and the recurrent ones - are not of this origin. They have nothing to do with "real" agents. We feel them time and again without finding any apparent source. For most of us, the overwhelming majority of skin irritations are without external cause and they are generally the result of the active ad hoc trash-programs.

Most of the itchings emerge as if randomly at various locations of the body. Some are like frequent visitors or guests which arrive at the same places time and again - like those that make us scratch at specific locations of the head, rub the nose, etc. Part of these result in the habitual scratching or touching (mostly absent-mindedly) of a certain point, which are the peculiar characteristics of various individuals.

However, though most of the itching and scratching is haphazard, we can use them systematically as "hunting grounds" for trash-programs. We can add an intentional one to the spontaneous minimal attention we give those phenomena. We can fall into the habit of focusing on these itchings for prolonged periods of time or just to add a few seconds each time they occur. We can even focus on the places where they used to emerge and cause them to appear. By doing so, we can clear or at least quicken, the mending of many of the ongoing trash-programs involved.

The focusing on the itching can also help us to refrain from scratching at inconvenient places or times. This result is most important when the itching is in places we cannot (or will not) reach permanently or temporarily. For instance when the itching occurs at times when our hands are engaged or dirty; when the itching is in a recuperating wound; when it occurs at intimate locations when in formal circumstances; etc. Experienced focusers suffer less while this itching lasts and they also succeed in curtailing it.

Whenever the itching occurs, whatever the intensity and duration, and no matter what the social circumstances - it is recommended always to delay the scratching for a few seconds. The few seconds dedicated to the focusing on these usually short-lived sensations before we scratch or turn our minds to other things are frequently most rewarding. (((Also like to put anger to the box, and to observe it rises or deminishes..)))

It is especially so when one is in the first stages of building the sensate focusing habit. This, like the focusing on sensations that are near the threshold of awareness, is one of the easiest ways to put attention resources to good use. It converts unused or misused resources to the long term betterment of the quality of life. Those felt sensations are very seldom too intense or too long-lasting and very seldom need the treatment of the emergency measures. (((Find what you or your heart like, and live fully…)))

6. The general survey

Whenever we want to invest unengaged brain resources of a moment in an act that will surely improve our quality of life in general, without being keen to work on something specific, we can scan the whole body systematically or haphazardly.

When we pause somewhere to focus on, the natural biofeedback of that place is enhanced. This may result in the emerging of a discernible sensation previously not attended to or even one that has been subliminal before, and if it seems worth while, we can focus on it. If nothing emerges from the systematic search, not even at the face or vocal cords, one can always shift to the slight spontaneous tension of the muscles.

Therefore, if (or when) you are convinced that you are benefiting significantly from the use of the sensate-focusing technique, you will be able to allocate unused or misused resources of the brain to this activity, whenever and wherever you wish - even if the desire for it lasts only a few seconds. You will be able to do it whenever you prefer the new "game" rather than the current activity.

Experience of many focusers shows that one can dedicate to this activity surplus attention resources like those existing while one is engaged in "small talk", routine waiting and traveling, waiting at bus stations, long journeys, situations that do not tax the concentration and any other situations not needing all conscious attention. It also point to a strong connection between this kind of investment of resources, and a decline in the excessive tensions, softening of the voice and the relaxation of over-tense facial muscles.

This kind of focusing is like a savings account to be used for rainy days. It forces the system of activation programs to invest in the improvement of ongoing programs, more than the needs of the ongoing activities call for. Later, when most needed, the improved programs will act in a more efficient manner. Usually one can not point at a connection between a specific focusing of this kind and a specific gain. However, periods in which one does a lot of this kind of activity always culminates in a discernible improvement.

This activity is most recommended for all periods of time when one has no better target for the surplus brain resources. When one does not have a "project" to focus on (or is not in the mood for investing in an existing one) and there is no other significant sensation which draws attention - one can allocate part of one's resources to this activity. You will have the option of doing this whenever you are bored or tired from the activity of the moment or when involved in an activity that does not need all your attention.

We have more senses than the somewhat diffuse sense(s) of the body tissues - like touch, pressure, pain, irritation etc. The most prominent are hose that enable us to see and hear. We can at one and the same time attend to one or a few of them together, simultaneously with the attention paid to the felt sensations fed to the awareness.

For instance, we can attend to the sensations of the face and the vocal cords - together with the input coming from the eyes and ears while singing. We can do the same when a muscle is in spasm or a painful contraction.

While we emit sounds: speak, moan, etc. we can attend simultaneously to the natural biofeedback embedded in the quality of the voice, and to the one supplied by the feelings and sensations in the throat. While shaving or putting on make-up, we can attend to the sensations of the face (or to the subliminal ones there), and simultaneously, look in the mirror at the target we are focusing on, etc. (((You learn to live from X, perhaps??!!)))

In these cases and their like, in which the natural biofeedback comes through two or more channels, the expedition of the mending process is much more than doubling the regular rate.

Experienced focusers can devote a large part of their attention to this focusing, in parallel to most other activities. Many of the focusers find this the best remedy for intensely boring situations.

Some of the focusers (especially those who previously practiced certain methods of "Meditation") reported the benefit and even pleasure derived from a "general tour" of the body - especially before going to sleep or just after getting up. They observed that among the more beneficial places were those which usually receive the unpleasant "announcements and summons" of the emotional trash-programs. The most beneficial results were derived from scanning the facial muscles and the vocal cords.

Very often, while we are scanning the body and focusing at a point or place, the sensation there weakens and recedes very fast to a subliminal level of intensity, or to one only slightly above the threshold.

The habit of focusing on a specific region which is frequently troubled - in spite of the disappearance of that sensation from our awareness, i.e. "returning to the crime area" whenever the time permits, is also most profitable. It hastens the improvement of the trash-programs which cause the problem.

The habit of focusing on subliminal sensations and those slightly above the threshold of awareness, can be applied to other places and points in the body. Among those, of special importance is the focusing on points and places where you usually feel the strongest sensations and those related to specific harmful trash-programs.

It is worthwhile to continue focusing there for a few seconds more before changing the point of focus, especially if the said sensation was very short-lived and connected to a very trashy program. Even the focusing on the place of a sensation that just faded (or shifted), still enhance the impact of the natural biofeedback it send to the center. This "residual" focusing has great value as it has a special quality - it signals to the involved supra-programs that they have changed for the better.

Thus, instead of the usual negative messages about the unpleasantness of the situations - which are relatively hard to learn from - there is, for a change, a positive one. It was found through systematic research of learning and concept building, that humans and animals derive more benefit from positive information that says this is right, try it again, than from one which says - it is wrong, do something else. (((Re-enforcing on the positives??!!!!!)))

7. Focusing on the emotional expressions of others

In addition to that which you gain from focusing on your voice and your face you can gain even more when you do the same to the voices and faces of other people. This kind of focusing can, especially when you cannot or do not try too hard to organize your impressions verbally, activate within you specific trash-programs that parallel those of the other person.

These trash-programs that are a kind of echo*, are related to the emotional climate of the other, as expressed by the melody of his voice and his facial expression. The activated trashy programs create in you a felt sensation that is directly relevant to the said trashy programs. Thus, by the added focusing on your emerging felt sensation you can catch them, as if you grip them by the hairs or a handle, and force on them the processes and programs that are in charge of updating trash-programs.

1) Steps to be taken against psychosomatic disturbances

There are many disturbances in the smooth functioning of the body, that are called "Psychosomatic". These disturbances - like Asthma, Hemorrhoids, Eczema, Migraine, etc. and their "eruptions" or "attacks" - were found to be the result of the combined contribution of psychological factors ("stressors") as well as being physiologically based.

The physiological base can be acquired or innate, and may need a chemical or mechanical trigger to set it off. The relative contribution of the psychological factor, as well as that of the physiological factor, varies from person to person and from one attack to another.

As the psychosomatic attacks generally do not contribute to the well-being of that particular person, it is obvious that their psychological components are trash-programs of one kind or another, (mostly inefficient emotional supra-programs). Having the appropriate physiological and the psychological base, the attacks may be activated by trash-programs - with or without any discernible contribution of chemical or physical agents. It seems that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the leading factors are the psychological ones, especially the trashy emotional supra-programs.

An important point to emphasize on is that the following suggestions are not intended to be an alternative method for any medical, psychological or other treatment the reader has had in the past, may have now, or may be intending to receive in the future. The suggestions we offer here, and those we offer in other parts of this book, are intended to supplement the other measures you have already taken.

In this section we offer procedures that use the natural biofeedback processes in order to decrease or even temporarily (short or long periods) to stop the psychosomatic events. This can happen if one succeeds in stopping the trash-programs from contributing their share to the creation of the psychosomatic processes (symptoms and attacks included). These procedures are meant to supplement the focusing on natural biofeedback received from any other steps you may be taking, in order to improve the quality of your life, and are not intended to supplant them.

By changing the psychological factors, one can lighten or alleviate the deleterious and unpleasant aspects and effects of the psychosomatic attack, even at the peak of its intensity. Though ongoing psychosomatic processes respond to focusing gradually, they do fade faster than expected. Thus, during the focusing training attacks and other eruptions tend to become milder, they become less and less frequent, and after a few months of focusing, they practically disappear for months or years.

Though we still do not know exactly how the sensate focusing contributes to the cessation of psychosomatic processes, it seems that the weakening or disappearance of the unpleasant sensations of the psychosomatic processes gives the physiological component a lethal blow. It seems that asthma without the choking suffocation, and hemorrhoids without pain, are like Migraine without a headache, Eczema that does not itch or a car without an engine.

During my focusing and that of my trainees, we found that it is possible to stop, to weaken or to at least bring significant alleviation to the following psychosomatic phenomena:

2) Increasing the pleasure derived from smoking and curbing the habit

Many of the intended readers of this booklet are used to smoking nicotine mixed with various ingredients and burning materials. A significant number of smokers are not satisfied with the amount of the material smoked, the frequency of the smoking occasions and/or the sensations derived from it.

Frequently, smoking is an automatic behavior - a reaction to unaware internal or external cues. Some smokers think from time to time about trying to abolish the habit, but various activation programs prevent them from even taking that decision.

Other smokers have already reached a decision and want to decrease the amount smoked or to stop it altogether, but find that it is extremely difficult to do so - due to the trash-programs involved - and therefore cannot adhere to any of their decisions. They cannot do it at all or they regress to the old habit after a relatively short period of success. In both situations, the inability to reach a conclusive decision, or the inability to adhere to it, makes them the same as any other addict (of drugs, alcohol, etc.), who wants to stop but cannot.

I stopped smoking "cold turkey" 8 years ago while in an intensive care unit (because of a false alarm), but as a veteran of 28 years of numerous failed attempts to rid myself of the habit, I still remember what it was like. I still remember the difference between one failure to abstain from smoking and another, and how each cigarette (or pipe smoked) is a unique experience.

However, it is still possible to classify the smoking experiences into a few categories:

3) Regulating the sexual functioning and reducing disturbances in it

The trash-programs involved with sexual behavior react positively and relatively quickly to focusing on the sensations and feelings related to erotic activity. The focusing on these sensations is the core of an ingenious approach to sexual therapy developed by Masters and Johnson. They were the ones who introduced the concept of "Sensate-Focus" for a wider use. Readers who are interested in this area are advised to read their books about their technique.

The application of sensate focusing to erotic feelings and behavior stresses another aspect of the new technique: contrary to what appears to be the superficial impression, the technique is not a tool for achieving a quick relief*. It is not only a treatment for stopping unpleasant emotions, feelings or sensations, and the activation programs that create them but also a means to increase pleasant ones and improve the supra-programs that create them.

4) "Cultivating the voice" and the reduction of tension

During the development and examination of the general sensate focusing technique, a strong connection was detected between the reduction of the "trashiness" of the emotional supra-programs contributing to the general (free floating) tension, and the quality of the voice i. e. its deepening and softening. The factor most contributing to that was the repeated focusing on the tension of the facial muscles and the vocal cords. Observations also revealed a strong tie between the above and the enhancement of the natural biofeedback embedded in the quality of one's voice, occurring when trainees paid attention to it.

Very often, especially when the novice focuser is initially under a lot of pressure, the focusing effects on the qualities of the voice are already discernible during the first few weeks of training. Many times, the "chronic" deepening and softening of the voice is already consolidated after the first few weeks of focusing.

The focusing on the general tension of oneself brings about very fast and impressive changes in the quality of one's voice. Actually, the changes in the qualities of the voice are a kind of "side effect" of the decline in the general tension of the individual.

Often, when a proficient focuser detects the signs of tension in his voice, he can "drive away" part of the trash-programs involved, by merely focusing on their vocal expression. It was found that the natural biofeedback derived from listening to one's voice whiles peaking or singing, has an immediate effect on the quality of the voice.

The effect is usually so dramatic and swift that it is discernible even when one is in the middle of the a sentence. Likewise, the focusing on other sensations and feelings during conversation, unintentionally and indirectly influences the quality of the voice so much that one becomes aware of it as it happens. It seems that any shift in the felt sensations brings about a corresponding observable change in the quality of the voice.

Actually, the quality of the voice is mainly an external communication of the subjective emotional climate and a kind of side effect to the internal processes that load it. It seems that the best way to influence the quality of your voice is by introducing suitable changes in your emotional climate, whether momentarily or for extended period. A few of the trainees who are professional and semiprofessional singers were amazed to learn that so easily a new quality was added to their voice - enlargement of the range, enrichment of the "color", and improved control of all the parameters of the voice.

5) Controlling the body weight

A considerable percentage of people who live in countries where hunger is rare, suffer from overweight. Our basic genetic trend towards accumulation of fatty reserves is enhanced by a wide spectrum of internal signals, mostly of stress and distress. Some of the signals are related to natural processes like under-weight, pregnancy, aging and mourning, but most are the outcome of trash-programs. The most obvious example is a kind of obesity resulting from the activity of trash-programs related to depression, which is its known as "masked depression obesity".

As a result of various trash-programs, the pleasure derived from eating and satiety, especially if tasty food is involved, causes in so many of us the development of an addiction to overeating. Many other trash-programs and especially the cover-programs, include the behavioral component of eating that function as a "natural" means to achieve a "shift" in an unwanted felt sensation. These programs use the experience of eating, and its physiological results, to change the unwanted emotions, moods, feelings or sensations of the moment.

The outmoded-type trash-programs regulating the food intake are another reason for the accumulation of fats. Frequently we develop the appropriate habit of eating large quantities of food: during the intensive growth of the teenage years, during prolonged periods of intense physical effort, etc. When the conditions change, we are usually left with habits that need to be changed, but are often too rigid to adapt automatically to the new conditions.

The majority of people with overweight problems, and many whose problems are elsewhere, are not satisfied with their body weight. Sometimes, because of the weight itself or health considerations, sometimes for esthetic reasons and sometimes because of various trash-programs.

Innate programs that are responsible for two of the most important aspects of our eating behavior, can help us in the nearly "impossible mission" of weight control (and reduction if really needed).

The first group of programs are those which announce, through the use of hunger pangs, that it is time to eat. The second group consists of those which announce through the use of satiation signals, that enough has been eaten.

Frequently, the focusing on these and the other feelings and sensations involved with our eating behavior frees the innate programs from the deleterious influences of trash-programs. For those who are lucky, this step, by itself, brings about a significant reduction in weight.

For all the others, at the beginning of focusing for the reduction of weight, the training only helps to discern between a real hunger and an urge which does not take into consideration the internal signals of satiety. Later, when other measures are added, combined with strong will-power and the investment of a lot of effort, a more substantial result may occur.

Part of the success is dependant on the focusing on the available sensations related to eating behavior. Another part, the harder one, is dependant on the application of a lot of effort in recycling these emotions, feelings, moods, sensations, etc., that are related to the trash-programs involved, but are usually outside of the awareness. The application of the sensate focus technique to the reduction of the weight involves a small investment of money and a number of steps that - how sad - cannot be redeemed by money.

First step
In the beginning, arrange things so you have good scales available for weighing yourself freely, whenever you feel like it. Then, as a preliminary act:

weigh yourself each day and a few times a day, for about a week.

This repeated weighing will acquaint you with your body weight and the changes occurring in it during daily and weekly cycles. It will enable you to find your minimal and maximal weight for the day. It will also provide you with a somewhat delayed feedback about the amount eaten each time. Though this feedback alone is usually not enough, it is essential for the process of adaptation and accommodation of the trash-programs involved and for enlisting the will-power. If you have not done it before:

decide at the end of this step the body weight you want to reach.

Second step

After you have got to know the daily variation of your body weight and decided on your target weight, it is now time for the systematic focusing on the problem. Pay attention to the sensations occurring in your body during the last few minutes before you start to eat, pay attention to the tastes in your mouth and to the scents you smell too.

Train yourself to sense and identify all of them even when they are very weak. Get into the habit of focusing on them for prolonged periods each time they occur. Pay special attention to changes that occur in the sensations, as the urge to eat begins to ebb while you focus on them. (Unlike the focusing on smoking, when the urge to eat ceases, even the first few times, you are not supposed to eat.)

Third step

In addition to focusing on the preliminary sensations of the previous step, start to pay a lot of attention to the sensations related to eating that occur during the meals: attend to those of smell, taste, touch, and the physical resistance of the food materials to chewing. Pay attention to those of the softening of the food, while mixing with the saliva and the combined excitation of the various receptors dispersed in the mouth. Pay special attention to the pleasant feelings of swallowing and the downward movement of the food through the Oesophagus. Pay also special attention to the sensations of the stomach as it gradually begins to fill.

Usually, the above feelings and sensations are messages sent to the ad hoc activation programs that regulate the amount of food intake each meal. When the amount of attention allocated to them is too small, the amount of food devoured tends to increase over and above the needs of the body. When too much attention is focused on them, the intake of food tends to drop, even to a lower level than the one needed to keep the body weight from decreasing.

Execute the second and the third steps for a week or two before
advancing to the other steps. During these steps,
keep measuring your body weight after the
daily emptying, and if possible
after meals too.

As it is with smoking, so it is with eating, the mere focusing on the appetite, the hunger and the eating, increases the pleasure derived from the food and decreases the amount consumed. The first signs of the slight decrease in the body weight, resulting from the above two steps are an external feedback. However, this is an important addition to the natural biofeedback inputted to the trash-programs, and it too, contributes to their improvement. (Just as the decrease in the speed with which the package of cigarettes is emptied during the focusing on smoking contributes to that project.)

After the habit (the group of activation programs) of focusing on the eating processes is settled - during the first week or two - you can start using them in order to achieve a more substantial decrease in the body weight.

Fourth step

In parallel to the two previous steps, as an addition to them, decrease or even stop the intake of tasty items that are filled with calories. Sometimes overcoming the tendency to consume foods with plenty of calories can be quickened if you swap or eliminate the most nourishing ingredient from a meal or a beverage. For instance, add milk to the coffee, instead of cream or sugar.

This step can be of short or long duration: according to the level of proficiency you acquired with the six steps of focusing for the beginners
according to the effort invested in the previous two steps; and, especially, according to the importance of the project to you.

Pay close attention to the changes in your body weight. When you see
the beginnings of the loss of body weight (or at least its
stabilization) it is time for the next step.

Fifth step

Decide on a certain amount of calories in your daily and weekly food consumption. This amount is supposed to be about 5% below the intake needed for the activity you are used to, and for maintaining the regular processes of your body. Be sure that you have a balanced diet that is not too different from the one you are used to. Strive to achieve a diet that is tasty, easy to prepare, and satisfying (as much as possible). The bulkier the food and the more chewing work needed, the better. (Get the help of a professional dietician if available when needed.)

It is recommended that you shift or concentrate most of the instances of your food intake so that they happen during your relatively free time. Thus you will be able to dedicate more attention on the focusing (as mentioned in the previous steps).

It is not a good tactic to concentrate all or most of the food eaten at a fixed time schedule, fixed content or fixed meals.

If you do this, you diminish the effect of the focusing on the hunger pangs, on the mending and updating of the trash-programs which are involved with overeating. From the same point of view it is not a good tactic to have a strict composition of ingredients. With a laxer regime you can always exploit opportunities, leave something unconsumed or swap it for something lower in calories.

It is most recommended to include in the daily diet components that are suitable for an emergency, like fruit or crumbs of the crust of black bread. It is good to have them on hand when "dreams about the poor" send you to the kitchen at night.

Continue with this step till it becomes a habit,
before starting the next one.

If and how much you succeed during this step, depends on the effort you have made while training for the first six steps of the beginners, and how much effort you have dedicated to integrating them with previous steps of this mission.

Sixth step

Once you have observed that most of the time the focusing has enabled you to succeed in restraining your overeating sprees, and you see that your new eating habits are already consolidated, it is time to enter the decisive step. In this step, you start exploiting every opportunity to change the ingredients of your menu to other equivalents that have less calories. At this stage, whenever you feel the craving to supplement your menu with high calory ingredients, eruptions of appetite, or the urge to snatch something to eat between meals, try to focus on them until you have killed these desires (or until you have lost).

Remember!!! as in war, the winning of each battle and the success of each implementation of a tactic is not so important. What really is important, is the final success of the strategy and the victory at the end. Therefore, if you have over eaten during a meal or a day, you can always even out your caloric intake the following meal or lengthen the duration of the project.

If you find that the decrease in your body weight is too quick or that you are nearing your target, relax your effort a bit. It is time to start building new eating habits (updating the activation supra-programs involved) for the permanent daily maintenance of your body. When you reach your target weight, it is advised to know already how you are to continue, lest you regress to your previous eating habits and weight.

The importance of a close inspection and control of the tempo of the changes induced by focusing is common to all projects. Matching the effort invested to the result achieved, in order to get the optimal tempo, contributes to the efficient expenditure of effort and will power. The need to economize is common to all focusing projects you involve yourself with. Sometimes it is a precondition to success. In addition to the economization of effort invested, this kind of management can reduce the danger of leaping from one extreme to the other or from one unwanted emotional climate to another. (Anorexia Nervosa or even a "simple" emaciation are no better than obesity.)

I. General recommendations for professionals

II. The main body of the guide to the focusing "coach"

A general introduction

People who wish to begin learning the focusing technique and contact you will be at different levels of knowledge, as well as having very different ideas about the help they require. Misunderstandings about the roles you are willing to fill are better dealt with in the first session. Following are typical situations and problems, and the recommended ways to treat them:

The following sessions

General routines

At the beginning of each session, it is recommended to start by the trainee's listing of his felt sensations of the moment. Then suggest he briefly focuses on one or a few of them in a row, till a shift occurs. Then comes the vital part of reviewing the "homework" done between sessions.

It has been found that with many trainees, both the spontaneous talkers and those who do not talk much, a review of those focusings and the main felt sensations occurring since the previous session is the best tactic.

This habit provides the unstructured procedure of the focusing session with a rudimentary structure to fall back on when needed. The coach can draw from the narration of the trainee ideas for future homework and projects, provocations and other recycling tactics for use both in the session and out of it, various tactics and even a strategy.

Sometimes, the coach may rely on his or the trainee's free associations arising from the content of the narration, to decide on focusing targets. They can even rely on psychological knowledge and creativity as a means to this end.

And as usual, some of the trainees tend to get into a power struggle with the coach about the schedule of work during the session. Others, may be very excited and anxious to share the experiences or problems of the week, immediately at the beginning of the session. As with other cases of breach of schedule, compromises are preferred. Go along with the trainee, but make short interruptions, breaks and pauses in his narration with suggestions to focus briefly on the most important felt sensations or provocations suggested by you.

While reviewing the felt sensations and the focusing on them, trainees talk about various topics. The best a coach (who is not integrating focusing with psychotherapy) can do with them is to use them as targets for focusing. The trainee may be advised to focus on the felt sensation of the moment of the narration - the one that was aroused during the talk, or to try to focus on the original ones (of the episodes mentioned) - revived by one of the various available tactics for "recycling" felt sensations of past experiences.

When trainee narrations take up a high portion of the session, it is often wise to go along with them rather than fight this tendency. In these cases it is wise to introduce the allegory about the yacht which cruises on a lake full of fish for pleasure. The narration is like the cruising yacht, which drags a fishing net often hauled on board full of fish. The haulings are the interruptions suggested by the coach at key points of the narration, in order to focus on the concurrent felt sensations.

As the focusing session deals with contents which are not part of the usual daily rapport, it is highly recommended to show the trainee that he is understood. It is also important to assure him time and again that all felt sensations are legitimate topics as all of them are legitimate targets for focusing.

Frequently, especially when training is prolonged, feelings that are not of a "pure" trainee-coach relations emerge. Sometimes, even at the beginning of training intense feelings are aroused. In all of them, the worst tactic is to delve into them or dwell on them. Even if no acting out of yours or the trainee stems from it, trash-programs related to other people and relations will surely emerge into active functioning and hinder the training. The best way of dealing with the irrelevant feelings is to focus on felt sensations of each of them until they fade.

During the first few sessions and even during the advanced stages of the training, the best contribution for morale and diligence in focusing is derived from success. Therefore, it is best to divide the efforts of the coach equally, between the search for new focusing targets (topics and tactics) for the trainee, and the emphasis on the success already achieved.

The tempo of introducing the technique

The first few weeks are dedicated mainly to overcoming the most urgent problems of the trainee. During this period, introduce him to the tactics most needed for this task. If he is reading the text of chapter five, point out to him the sections most relevant at that time.

After the trainee starts to overcome the most stressing problems and the most distressing felt sensations, it is time to look at the more advanced targets to be reached by focusing. The specific targets chosen will dictate the selection of the tactics and techniques from the book (and experience) as well as the order of their introduction.

Usually, during the first two months, the trainee is supposed to experience the use of all the tactics and to have a project or two that goes beyond the alleviation of unpleasant felt sensations. In the following months, the projects selected and the tactics to try in overcoming them represent team work - and they had best be "the most democratic" possible.

In addition to my prejudice against authoritative relations, there are also pragmatic reasons for this recommendation. The coach may suggest projects and even try "to sell them to the trainee". However "the last word" should remain with the trainee, as he is the only one who is in direct unconscious touch with his activation programs and stored memories. Consequently, only he can receive their warnings and recommendations regarding the time to tackle the various problems.

Only by taking these as a dominant part of the considerations about the appropriateness of the decisions, can one refrain from gross mistakes and from arousing the "resistance" of the trainee.

Even if the trainee makes many incorrect decisions while managing his daily focusing programme, too much pressure on him "may win a few battles, but will lose the war". The feeling of being his own master and the only one responsible for his focusing programme is very good for his morale and enthusiasm.

The mutual agreement that the proficiency of the coach and his somewhat more objective point of reference, are only some of the factors to be considered, circumvent most of the "transference" problems so common in psychotherapy. The mutual agreement that the gut feelings of the trainee should decide what, when, for how long, and if at all, to focus on any target or project contributes immensely to the emotional climate in which the focusing training functions.

Only in such an atmosphere will the trainee allocate the maximal share of possible resources to his focusing and his growth.

If the atmosphere of good teamwork is preserved, the coach can motivate, persuade, or coax the trainee to focus on some of the targets which he regards as essential and the trainee initially is reluctant to tackle.

Remember, the coach is only there to help the trainee to learn quickly and more easily the steps of the "do it yourself" manual. You should only supply him with an external point of view and a temporary second mind, to be used while he is contemplating the best ways open to him (for focusing purposes).

Though the trainee will tend to treat you as a parent figure, it is better to evade this. The best you can do for him is to play the role of a fellow traveler and a coach.

Whenever you ask the trainee to think or focus or make experimentations, use the minor suggesting tone, that is as far as possible away from an authoritative tone. Make your suggestions as open to refusal as possible. This way, you minimize the dangers of both excessive compliance and exhausting "resistance".

Beware of suggestions that make the trainee too compliant - he may lose his enthusiasm and diminish his vital selectivity in taking your advice. Remember, you are only a temporary guest in the trainee's life and soul - not his partner or a permanent tenant.

Do not forget to focus on your own felt sensations - the ongoing ones and those which emerge as a result of the developments during sessions and between them, especially those related to trainees. This will diminish the effects of "counter-transference" and other trash-programs which may hinder the focusing training and your general emotional climate.

Hints and tips

Remember to review sporadically the tactics used by the trainee and the problems he is tackling. Often, one gets into the habit of using a restricted number of tactics applied to restricted areas of his life. Though it might be wise to do this during certain periods and in a crisis, the patterns should be broken each time the circumstances change - and this happens very often.

As part of the effort to change the opinion of the trainee about the felt sensations of the body, stress that their nature is first and foremost a kind of notice from the emotional subsystem to the awareness, and their quality as pleasant or unpleasant is only secondary. Thus, suggest to him that it is better to prolong the focusing on each of the felt sensations for the longest duration possible and curtail only those that are not needed at the time of their occurrence.

Even experienced trainees tend to disregard the fact that the main contribution of the focusing is their intensification of the updating, mending and upgrading of the programs involved. From this point of view, the prolongation of a felt sensation contributes more than the hastening of its fading.

Company facilitates attention allocation. Stress this to the trainee who skips sessions. Stress this also to the one who complains about the insufficient effort made by him between sessions and the "shallowness" of his focusings while doing homework.

Stress the difference between the focusing on the felt sensation while being in a strong emotional state, and the expression of it or acting impulsively because of that felt sensation. It is important to communicate frequently the notion that everything qualifies for internal focusing, even if it is inappropriate to act upon it, or to share it with others.

It is essential to show the trainee that he can learn to make the distinction between the various components of the emotional processes i.e. to sever the automatic ties and connections between the experiential component of emotion (including that of the tendency to act), and the behavioral or expressive components.

If needed, dedicate considerable effort to pondering this topic and the recycling of related felt sensations. This is especially important for the levelers who exclude too many emotions, sensations and contents related to them from their awareness - lest they lose control and act upon them. It is also essential for the sharpeners who are often flooded by certain emotions and tend to act impulsively on their behalf. It is most important for those who oscillate between these two modes.

At every opportunity, convey the confidence that any felt sensation one can focus on is always a blessing, as it is a chance to update and mend the trashy programs that aroused it. Whenever a trainee describes an intense unpleasant feeling that has defied his focusing attempts, convey your sympathy. Assure him that the gains derived from focusing are as high as the price paid in focusing effort - independent of the alleviation in the felt sensation (derived most of the time as a token reward for the diligent focuser). Then remind him that the best results are those derived from focusing on moderate felt sensations.

Whenever the trainee introduces a new theme, whether by contemplation or by description of a felt sensation, emphasize these themes as new horizons awaiting his focusing.

When a trainee is stuck with a project that does not yield enough felt sensations needed for regular focusing, suggest he try the self-provoking approach, the G recycling section of chapter 5, part IV. The most prominent on the list are the verbal exclamations that describe the target topic - like: "I am afraid" or "I am afraid of ...." and the paradoxical negation-sayings.

Whenever one is "hunting" for a felt sensation related to a specific content, the negative sayings ("I am not...", I do not...", "I never...", etc. ) might be the best means. A single recitation of one of these, followed by a concentrated focusing is usually the fastest and most "elegant" way of "fishing" for the right felt sensation. (It seems that this is the best and funniest line for recruiting a felt sensation. When one recites these exclamations to oneself silently, it works even better than when doing it aloud.)

When, after the first few sessions, the trainee is Un-selective in his focusing on the ongoing stream of daily experiences, gently try to redirect him. Stress the different contributions of the various trashy emotional supra-programs. Try to point out those that are hindering him the most at the time. Show him that he can invite the appropriate felt sensations to aid him in tackling these specific trashy-programs. Explain to him how one wastes so much effort by Un-selective investment of effort.

When a trainee complains about indecisiveness, hesitations, ambivalence and difficulties in reaching a certain decision, demonstrate to him the work of "the inner guide". Show him that he can initiate a dialog with his unconsciousness and thus become "his own oracle". Show him that he can "ask" his unconscious for an opinion on various aspects of his life and potential acts and anticipated happenings, and then focus on the resulting felt sensations, created by the questions. Emphasize to him that this procedure is both an activation of the inner guide, and a means of recruiting felt sensations to be used through focusing to clear his path to a longed-for future.

This context is suitable for the advancement of the training of the focuser to treat the felt sensations as a general nonverbal communication from his mind to his awareness, and not only as a target for focusing.

While training in the "economical talking to oneself" technique of provocations, use positive and negative exclamations about the world, oneself and one's emotions. Stress the advantages of this procedure which needs less resources than other tactics, but do not fail to mention its deficiencies.

Be as flexible as you can! there is not any "one and only way to do the focusing" at any given moment or particular problem. So be an expert in letting the trainee decide for himself, during the training sessions with you as well as when you are not there. Thus the trainee will feel more competent and treat the focusing "homework" as his own. The better he feels during the sessions with you, the more he will remember what you have trained him to do, and the better will be his focusing during the week.

Do not forget to focus on your own felt sensations during coaching; prefer to focus on those related to what is going on in the session. Remember the mighty effect of a good model, on the learning processes of the "modeling" type. Exploit the positive effects of modeling to the utmost by sharing with the trainee your past and present experiences as a focuser, and be careful not to provide a bad example.

However, do not forget the difference between the role of a professional coach and an intimate friend. Mixing these roles is deleterious for the focusing training, for the morale of the trainee and for fair interpersonal relations. It is especially important to keep these two kinds of roles clearly separated when the trainee is an acquaintance, a friend, a relative, or one who is involved in an intimate relationship with you.

Beware of the over-psychologized trainee!! Many trainees have been patients of psychotherapists, or at least know a lot about it. They have preconceptions about their role as trainees and very often confuse it with that of patients in therapy. If you do not frustrate them too much or too rigidly, they will eventually yield and gradually accept their role of trainees.

Beware of "transference"! though it is usually a part of psychotherapy settings, it is not restricted to them. Working with a trainee is only another kind of interpersonal relationship. Thus mutual feelings develop. Trust and other basic emotions intensify. A certain measure of intimacy tends to develop. And the staunch adherence to the formal roles of trainee and coach is never kept.

Gradually, a tendency to involve in the training relations other patterns, supra-programs, and other activation programs may endanger the harmonious teamwork needed for the training to succeed. Therefore, beware of this and continuously gently but firmly push and pull the interaction toward the main roles and away from dangerous deviations.

It seems that the best way to deal with too strong transference is to let the trainee (and the coach) focus on the felt sensations involved, and restrict to the minimum the verbal treatment of that topic.

However, do not treat all personal references as expressions of "transference". Generally these are merely relevant information and natural interpersonal communication to be expected in any team work. Usually, "a matter of fact" response is the best reply to both kinds of communications. Thus, it satisfies a "simple" communication as well as neutralizing a "transferential" one. So, even if "transference" effects are suspected, there is usually no need to clear the point or to deal with it.

Many trainees wish to understand the roots and reasons for their emotional and behavioral problems. Many more feel uneasy from time to time when getting rid of problems they have never really understood. In order to discourage the new focuser from investing too much impotent effort in understanding the root of his trouble, certain steps have to be taken: a)

It is better to explain to the trainee from the start, that all the problems he wish to deal with result from trash-programs.

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The biological basis of the emotions

At the beginning of life, the human baby is equipped with a complex neurological system. This system receives input unceasingly through a wide spectrum of sensorial receptors of diverse characteristics. For instance, receptors of light (mainly the eyes), receptors of noise (mainly the ears), receptors of heat and infrared radiation (the coarse ones are all over the body - the most delicate ones are mainly in the forehead and around the eyes), receptors of taste, smell, pressure, movement & balance, etc.

Various parts (or centers) of the brain (which is the center of the neurological system) are simultaneously fed by this plethora of fresh input(5), and an even larger amount of "conserved" ones, stored in the memory. The new and the old inputs are processed by various components of the brain in divergent ways in order to act upon and/or to memorize them for later reference.

During the analyzing and the recycling of the new and old input (stored results and references of previous processing included), many processes occur in the brain. Small parts of those processes are sufficiently slow, long, strong and important that they involve our awareness. The majority are too short, weak, or of a content or mode, that do not access to the awareness at all, or perhaps do so but only in certain circumstances.

The initial steps of the processing are mainly swift and inaccessible to the awareness. They mainly consist of (and result in) perception, identification and subjective evaluating of each item and pattern. This initial step can decide what will be the amount and the nature of the effect a specific item of input will have on the ongoing happening and on future ones. This weighting is done in accordance with a subjective bias that can deviate widely from the objective one.

During initial processing of the input (and more so during the recycling and deeper processing of conserved ones), new organizations, conceptualizations, summations and decisions are achieved, at various levels of organization and functioning of the brain.

Part of the processes occur in steps that have a stable order. In some of them, the order of the steps is dependant on the result of the initial steps, or the advance of the whole process. In most cases, various steps of the processing are taken parallel to each other. The processes of these steps can (and usually do) interact with each other.

Frequently, they not only interact among themselves but also with other processes that are ongoing in the brain and mind at the time. The most complicated mode of processing in the brain, which is also the most typical, is called by the experts the "procession-in-parallel" mode.

The integrations done during the input and the advanced steps of processing have a topographic (or geographic) facet. Part of the steps or aspects of the processing can be related to large parts of or to almost the entire brain. Part can be related to small or large neurological paths and areas. Specific parts of the processing can be located in small neurological structures, in a small group of neurons or even in a particular neuron.

Process products that reach awareness are usually the result of the simultaneous activity of many regions or nearly all of the brain. Only complicated and ingenious tactics can succeed in the task of isolating stages, or in the effort to relate them to regions.

The emotions (sometimes called moods, feelings, sensations, subjective experience, passions and their like), that are the subjects of this book, are also processes of the brain. They too have specific neuronal paths and organization centers for their main facets. They too involve fresh input and recycled ones (including previous processions of them) stored as memory traces, which they integrate at various levels.

For instance, the processes of the fear emotion can be engaged by inputs from receptors of the same sense located at different part of the body - as in unexpected pain signals. Fear can be aroused by inputs of various senses like seeing danger or hearing a threat or feeling the loss of balance. It can involve recycled input of previous processing about the measure in which a specific person or event is dangerous, as it caused harm in the past.

It can also involve all these in combination and higher level processes, like thinking and imagery. It is typically so in the evaluation of a specific situation in the present or the future, that has no similar precedents - according to its components, circumstance and/or the probability of its development and transformation.

The same principle, but with more complex integrations, is expressed in movement. The regular daily walking in the house from one room to another - which is relatively simple when the lights are on - is based on the input of the eyes, the ears, kinesthetic inputs of the muscles, the sense of balance, memory of the environment and furniture arrangement, and knowledge of the neighbors' windows, our clothing, our curtains and our sensitivity of being spied on.

Usually, this kind of movement does not involve the emotional subsystem to any great degree. However, when the movement is part of a dance at a ball, with a partner who is a stranger and whom we are courting - and the dance is not one we know too well - it will surely involve the emotional subsystem to a great measure. A whole book will be needed to describe the relevant processing of the input done by the brain* and the various subsystems involved.

The following is a tentative list of 15 basic emotions:

The essence of emotional phenomenon

Emotions have one aspect which is most known to each one of us, and whose existence and emotional nature are indisputable, that is, what we perceive with our internal-body-senses (like muscle tension, pain, pressure, etc.) when we feel. In other words, the bodily sensations accompanying the activation of fear, anger, happiness, etc. i.e. the subjective experience of emotion we are aware of.

The most known to us about the emotional expressions of others, come from their facial expressions and the inflection in the voice intonation. When the facial expression or the pitch and melody of the voice are clear and unequivocal, it is possible to deduce the main emotion that person is experiencing. Most of us do this quickly, surely and frequently within the "reality" of daily living. Alas, we seldom do it for the expressions of more than the two or three prominent emotions. (((Re: Emotional intelligence)))

Another expression mode of other people from which we can learn about their emotions, moods, feelings, etc. is their verbal communication, "live" or "recycled". Many emotional contents are communicated by means of verbal messages such as conversation, singing, writing, and exclamations like: "help!", "damn it!", etc.

However, one can rely on the verbal expressions only in very specific instances. Immense quantities of prose, poetry, and scientific essays were written about this form of communication and the amount of truth to be gleaned from them. There is a great difference between the amount of truth conveyed by the two kinds of communication of emotions, i.e. the verbal and the non-verbal, and the level of clarity of that information.

However, the most essential difference between these two communication channels is not in their truth value, but in the richness of their content and the immediacy of their transfer. Each one of us who tries hard to convey an emotion finds it nearly impossible to describe in a few words or a crude sketch, what the feeling is.

Verbal language is indeed not fit for conveying precise emotional content, even when deceit or any other kind of censorship is not intended, even when one is most gifted in verbal communication, and even when one does one's best.

The essence of emotional phenomena does not consist solely of the internal activity, which is responsible for most of the subjective experience and external expression; it also has a few other important components some of which can also be observed in daily life.

There are those which are expressed through changes induced into the pattern of muscle activity of the body, capable of taking part in intentional behavior - like walking and manual work - and are easy to observe. These components are expressed also in less purposeful behavior of recreation and leisure, that are prone to include more idiosyncrasies and are thus more obvious to the observer.

Some expressions are also involved with subtle patterns of activity such as balancing the body, the tension from vigilance, etc. that are only apparent to the eye of a keen observer. Others are even less discernible as they involve smaller areas of the body and tender tissues, for the tracing of which both the scientists and the unsophisticated lay observers need electronic instruments like the Electro-Myo-Graph - E.M.G.).

The activity of components of the emotional system is expressed also in the "Autonomic Nervous System", which is responsible - among other things - for blushing, paleness, cold sweat etc.

For instance, the systematic bio-electric rhythm of parts of the brain, tested by the Electro-Encephalo-Graph (E.E.G.) is used in medicine to trace anomalous effects of tissue damage (Epilepsy included). However, this rhythm is also related to the emotional system and its activity. Therefore, the E.E.G. is used in research as a means of measuring systematic changes induced by various psychoactive drugs and other interventions to the emotional climate.

The emotions include within their intra-body activity and behavior very subtle physiological expressions that can be traced only with the help of bio-chemical tests and electronic gadgets. These observations are very common within the medical field but not only there.

The internal influence of the activity of the emotional system is expressed even in subtle chemical changes. These changes are difficult to relate unequivocally to emotion and to malfunctioning of the emotional system in each of their occurrences. It is even harder to discern and assess the relative contribution of the emotional system in cases where other systems of the body are significantly involved.

For example, the plethora of "psychosomatic" disturbances; the variations caused to the semi-stable hormonal rhythms of women; the unwanted changes induced in the levels of the brain's neuro-transmitters (especially in the autumn); etc. It is still very expensive to conduct studies in this field and many moral, ethical and technical problems are involved.

How are the emotions of daily life created?

It is worth stressing here that the term emotions has many "relatives". These are mostly different names for the same processes - providing different "nicknames" to the same phenomenon in the various circumstances in which they are expressed or demonstrated. This is done mainly because of the idiosyncrasies of the language, the insufficient development and accumulation of human knowledge, and the influence of prejudice. The most common names for emotional processes in English are: Emotions, Moods, Feelings, Sensations and Passion.

At the beginning of life and at the appearance of each of the emotions the first activations of which occur at later points of the maturation process, we can see a direct connection between a small number of patterns of stimuli, and the activation of each of the basic emotions.

In this early period, the "innate emotional programs" (or plans - as depicted by the well known investigator and theoretician Bowlby) are active all the time and respond to the right input in a reflex-like fashion. At the beginning of life, these programs (plans) are solely responsible for the management of the multi-neuronal integration subsystems of emotion - a specific program for each basic emotion. ((((Emotion may be traced back to a very basic sytstem))))

While the original program is active, the relevant perception processes of each basic emotion feed the integrative part (portion or stage or component) of the basic emotion. For each topic (or perception or subject of perception) after the perception stage is completed (i.e a verdict is reached about the contemplated topic), the integration process of that emotion can reach its conclusions and pass them on.

The integration stage consists mainly of the assessment of the perceived stimuli, with regard to the specific aspect of life for which it takes charge. The integration stage terminates in one kind of message or another, conveyed to the behavioral part (portion or stage or component) and, parallel to it, sends the appropriate messages to the intra-organismic component as well as the expressive and the experiential components.

(These post integration processes are not only receptors of input but also sources of output, as they supply feedback to the integrative component, feed each other with important information and supply input to nearly all the rest of the emotional subsystem. Actually, none of the systems of the brain are independent. They are constantly in one kind of contact or another and are regarded as entirely different entities only for ease of conceptualization and research. They are called subsystems - and not systems - wherever this aspect needs to be stressed.)

The specific emotional experience of each moment of our life is, in essence, the sum of the sensations created by the activity of the biological sub-strata of life (among which the contribution of the basic emotions is the greatest) and the recycled traces of past ones from our memory, projected on various locations of the body.

Usually, the overwhelming majority of the changes in our felt sensations are induced by the Activation Programs2 of the Basic Emotions3 - whether as "originally emotional sensations", or as ones which are emotional responses to purely physiological ones with which they tend to integrate.

Therefore, at any point on the time continuum, the sum of the sensations felt, and the emotional experience we are aware of are nearly identical. It also means that the differential treatment and conceptualization of the felt sensation, regarding many of them as "not related to emotion", is mostly arbitrary. (((((Immediate response, implies immediate remedy - realtime attention - required!!!!)))))))

Most of the time, the level of activity of the emotional system functions in the middle range and not at its extremities. The most frequent verbal labels of these intensities are names of moods and feelings. These tend to answer the question "how are you", with the lengthy answer: "I am in a bad mood" or "I have strange feelings".

In these situations, it is harder to discern the relative contribution of each basic emotion. This is the main reason for the use of the somewhat "abstract" labels of adverbs and other qualifiers that accompany mood, feeling, sensations and experience - instead of names of emotions. ((Which indicate that the treatment need to be holistic…all emcompassing))))((Also, this indicates that the basic personal transformation takes time to work our the encompassing nature of the issues - process control that is.)))

The weakness of the discrimination power of our awareness in the emotional domain is most clearly revealed when one tries to apply it to common mild emotional experience. The power of discrimination of the focused awareness with regard to classification and labeling of feelings and sensations is even worse and is restricted to the few most prominent basic emotions in situations of high emotional arousal. Therefore we cannot rely too much on this faculty when we want to study or manage the climate of our emotional experience. ((((This is why notion of ego, etc. in Buddhism may not "really" understood because of gap between conceptual understanding and "real" digestion of the message to the point of changing the neuro linkage.)))))

The activity of the system of the basic emotions creates, in its various combinations, a huge divergence of specific emotional mixtures, that are constantly changing. Though we are not aware of it, we never experience twice the same emotional mixture. Even the vocabulary of the most "emotional" language does not include names for more than a fraction of this variety. These are the main reasons we find it hard to give a name to the feelings of a specific moment or at least to define it in words. (((Perhaps, proven by observation of brain activities.)))

The gap between the small number of basic emotions and the abundance of the specific emotional mixtures of daily life can be translated into numbers: according to scientists investigating the emotional phenomena, we have between 10 to 20 different basic emotions. According to some of these scientists we can encounter in one day thousands of different emotional mixtures, drawn from the pool of the most common tens of thousands of emotional mixtures.

The mathematically-oriented reader can appreciate the total number of possible mixtures if he takes into account the number of possible permutations for 10 basic bipolar emotions even if each has only 4 steps between the two poles: 1) substantially towards on pole; 2) mildly so; 3)mildly towards the other direction; 4) substantially towards the other pole. The result is 410 which is more than a million.

This might seem to be impossible if one does not take into account that, in the stream of emotion, change is the rule not the exception. Usually, even an extremely intense emotional mixture lasts in its original state (as to quality and intensity) no longer than 10 seconds. (((Very good point to know…. And relate to the remedy to this point!!!! But…)))

In this stream of emotion, only in extreme cases is the weight (and thus the quality) of one of the basic emotions so prominent that it "leaves all the others in the background". In cases like this, people (and scientists too) tend to regard that mixture as a "pure" expression of that basic emotion. (((Major suffering may be singled out - however…))))

The level of activity of the system of basic emotions is constantly changing, both absolutely and relatively to the other subsystems of the brain. Sometimes, the level of activity of one or a few basic emotions rises until the individual seems to be flooded by a certain emotion, or a specific mixture. This condition is usually of only a short duration. However, when the homeostasis controls fail, it can last a whole hour or even longer. (((Tears, major suffering….))) (((How about excitement, inspiration, satori?)))

Usually, even the highest levels of emotions experienced in daily life by adults are not so intense and do not flood the individual. When they do occur, one can discern in them the simultaneous expression of three or four basic emotions.

For instance, when injustice is inflicted upon us, we feel intense anger that usually "leads" the resulting "emotional convoy". Nearly always this "convoy" includes sorrow for what has been done. Frequently these two emotions are accompanied by helplessness, especially if it was a happening we had foreseen but could not prevent or if we could not extract ourselves from a bad situation. Very often we also feel shame or regret too - if there was an opportunity to evade the disaster which we neglected or overlooked. Sometimes, the emotional convoy includes hatred toward the wrong-doer if he is perceived as an enemy or a rival.

The emotional experience

In daily life, we experience simultaneously the presence and activity of all the basic emotions. The results of their recent activity is experienced too, mostly as diminishing echoes. Occasionally, we label a mixture of basic emotions with a single emotional word taken from the list of pairs of emotional words that delineate the extremes of the basic emotional continuum.

Usually, but not always, a mixture is named after the most prominent basic emotion of that time, using words like: sorrow, happiness, pride, shame, fear, security, love, etc. At other times, we refer to a mixture by the name of a milder intensity of the emotional words that delineate basic emotions (i.e. sadness - instead of sorrow; contentment - instead of happiness; liking - instead of love; etc.).

As the number of verbal labels is scant, they are mostly used as pointers to a general direction of a "cloud" of emotional mixtures, without a detailed address for a specific one. When a more precise communication is needed - in life, prose, or poetry - a more pictorial language is used and detailed descriptions of the circumstance are added.

The system of basic emotions is responsible for the most fundamental assessments of life in each of us. Each of them is in charge of an aspect of life that is essential to our survival. The relevance of each event and aspect of the circumstances of the surrounding world - real and fictional, past or future, material or spiritual, directly or circumstantial - is scrutinized by the emotional system. It is assessed and tested simultaneously by all of the 15 or so basic emotions, for its relevance to the 15 aspects of life the basic emotions are monitoring. Part of the results of these assessments reaches our awareness.

The emotional experience we are usually aware of, such as emotion, sensation, feeling, mood, desire, felt sensation of the body and their like, is the main interface between the emotional system and the consciousness.

The combined emotional experience we are aware of at each moment is, in essence, like a parcel of 15 announcements delivered from the emotional subsystem to the subsystem of conscious processes (the aware cognitive15 processes). The flowing stream of emotional experience of which we are aware, is like the melody of a grand chorus containing 15 "voices" that are constantly "singing" to the awareness subsystem of the brain and mind (system).

We can regard the emotional experience we are aware of as the summing up of the plethora of the emotional information and processes we are not aware of. This emotional experience serves several main purposes:

9. AD HOC ACTIVATION PROGRAMS(4)

As mentioned in previous chapters, the overwhelming majority of activities in our brain is executed by activation programs(2) - schemes, in the terminology of J. Piajet. Part of the programs are with us from birth while the others were built during life. The programs are usually stored in the memory and drawn out when needed. However, the actual work is not done by these programs but by ad hoc executable programs based on them.

The ad hoc programs are temporary versions of the semi-permanent ones translated or adapted after taking into consideration the specific circumstance, or more specific ones based on the semi-permanent ones. The new ad hoc programs are built by "older" ad hoc programs, which are active at the given moment, after these programs identified the need for new or additional programs.

Each of the ad hoc programs contains a subprogram for monitoring each step of the execution. Parallel to the execution of the program, this subprogram is responsible for introducing minute changes needed to achieve the aims of the program. The whole process of creating and executing the ad hoc program is recorded in the memory for future reference.

Before we start any activity, or change the course of an ongoing one the appropriate activation programs and processes initiate a search in the memory for the most appropriate program. Generally, the one chosen is treated as the ad hoc execution program for the task at hand and applied almost as it is. Sometimes, the chosen program is adapted to specific needs and conditions.

Seldom - and even less common as one matures - none of the stored ones are found fit for the need in hand. In these cases, and when one is deliberately learning something, the ad hoc programs which activate the preparation processes, construct an entirely new program. For this task they use part of the plethora of programs, and routines of programs already stored in memory.

During a meal, for instance, regular food is treated semi-automatically. A common dish with a new variation is treated a little less automatically. However, an entirely new food demands the construction of an entirely new set of programs.

The same processes apply to the programs of all other aspects and happenings of life, beginning with the most basic physiological maintenance of temperature and energy up to the most complicated ones of philosophy.

Many activation programs, especially the most complex supra-programs of behavior in social settings, include options to be decided upon according to specific circumstances. For instance, the ad hoc version of the supra- program responsible for cleaning the nose is constructed after taking into consideration the presence of others, and the ease with which one can avoid being seen.

The decisions about the program options involved in eating also need to take into consideration many specific conditions. Even during eating and before starting to swallow the chewed food of each intake, the specific circumstances must be inspected thoroughly if smooth functioning is desired.

In addition to the executable portion (subprogram) of the ad hoc activation program built for the task at hand, there is always built into it a subprogram the task of which is to control the said activity. The control components of the ad hoc programs in these two examples contain, among others: expectations about the reactions of those around (or the lack of them) with regard to cleaning the nose, and in the case of eating, about the smooth passage of the food in the Oesophagus.

Afterwards, while the ad hoc program is being executed, the control component monitors its progress and results, and compares them with the expectations. If everything goes as expected, the information is entered into the suitable memory "files" together with very complimentary recommendations. If things do not go so smoothly, the controlling subprogram enters these observations in the memory together with detailed criticism. ((((Expectation and deviation is related to H-factor. If off, then, response negative H-factor. Learn the lesson. Then, handle the emotion which is quick and may be overwhelming… to settle it down by…quiet observation with the fact. So from after the fact to catch up. And like sailing analogy, find where we are. And reconstruct the strategy. Learn that things can go wrong!)))

Simultaneously, the control subprogram recruits the help of other programs in order to mend the ad hoc program while it runs, to stop it if needed, and to abandon it altogether if found irreparable. Whether successful or not, recommendations for the future are always entered into the memory files for further reference.

During the controlled activity of the ad hoc programs, and afterwards, when the relevant memory files are reviewed, the information is also used to update, mend and improve the supra-programs involved (including, of course, the emotional activation programs).

For instance, when a chunk of food gets stuck in the throat, the ad hoc operation program enters the warning that a better inspection should be made before the next swallow. If the food is of a tasty new dish not encountered before, the recommendations at the end of the meal will certainly include suggestions about the building of a special supra-program, to be applied in the future, whenever eating this food. (((This is the conditioning process. H-values developed together with the program to optimize input-output process.)))

The program of cleaning the nose might need a more radical amelioration when one receives harsh treatment while activating it in the presence of people who are sensitive. One of the possible results may be the inclusion of a subroutine which will ban its execution altogether in the presence of others. ((((So, would this make the people more mechanical???? reflecting this learning? But it may be viewed as self defense…..so that the H-negative does not happen again….. However, instead of adding many rules to life, there may be a point of revamping the whole program - A10 like idea.. almost like super conscious. At certain point, band aid programs need to be reviewed in totality.))))

10. SUPRA-PROGRAMS

At the beginning of life, we are entirely dependant on the innate emotional programs and those of the senso-motor type. From that time onwards, the building and executing of the ad hoc programs, together with the maturation of the brain and the accumulated experience, result in the building of numerous new programs. Each of these new programs is usually a crystallization or integration of the results of the repeated execution of similar ad hoc programs, in similar conditions and/or with a similar purpose.

The new programs are usually "stronger" or "of higher status" than those previously built - including the innate ones. In most circumstances the new programs inhibit the innate ones or actually substitute for them. Because of this difference in status, Bowlby calls them supra-plans. For the same reason, many scientists call them supra-programs or other similar names.

For instance, all the healthy newborn babies cry when slapped (and thereby clear their air channels). However, a baby that has grown a bit, and is more than a few months old, can easily learn to inhibit crying in situations where the pain involved is not too intense. Moreover, the same baby can learn to emit heart breaking cries even on occasions where he has slight or no physical pain at all. It seems that most babies try this from time to time, in order to get the desired results from caring figures. (((((This is like random walk. This indicates that he delusion path is important to find the middle path/enlightened path!!!! Without delusion, or should we say "try-out", no insight, no progress. Is there a diffeernce between instant try-out and Simulation try-out? Latter is for simulation… and OK, and helpful so far as it is not overused/misused this tool.))))) ****

The supra-programs are also experienced as being more powerful than the original ones. This is so, because when one becomes conscious of a conflict between programs of different kinds, the new ones and logic are frequently the winners. (Sometimes, the act of attending to the conflict is what decides which will be the victor; other times, people just remember better logical solutions.) ((This indicates the learning process.))

Most of the time the "new" programs are really a stable organization of a few of the old ones with the addition of new routines and options. The more advanced a program is, the less the weight in it of the original mode of operation and the more parts in touch with the awareness. Consequently, the new programs seems to be less emotional and oriented more and more towards the future. ((( Future or timeless?? Does emotion say, "It is OK even if it does not work?" Thus, detached? Or, will it have attachment still??? Or, where does the attachment(emotion on importance placed on the issue at hand) come? Does it indicate that if one is emotional, he is not advanced? If so, advanced in what way, then? Less emotional and live forever like robot eventually????? Become independent of emotion and more like pure logic!!!! What does this mean???? Or, it may create human suffering? It is just as it is!!!! No good or bad. It is about how to use it…. Then, where does that program to use come from or be developed????? Or, is it A10??? like link so that cold logic is tied to something at the core as opposed to run independent of the emotional// meaning life maintaining program? It appears that this is the beginning of the departure toward the dualistic world (to be seen independent)? -- Real consciousness/Nakayama?)))

The construction of supra-programs

The greatest number of the supra-programs are constructed "spontaneously" during growing up, mostly with the "help" of socialization11 and mainly during early childhood, but also through adolescence and young adulthood. Some are the result of relatively free experience and experiments initiated by the individual. A bigger number result from "modeling".

In most of the cases we copy the supra-programs of others because of identification and other emotional ties with them. Others are the result of our in-built tendency to absorb information embedded in the situation even if its emotional quality is neutral or nearly so.

During maturation, and more so in adulthood, an increasing number of the new versions of operating programs seem to be the result of less substantial activities. Among these which contribute an increasing share to the "pool" of "building materials" are: contemplation, imagery, passively absorbed information, learning, activations of programs in a "theoretical manner" in the imagination (without their behavioral components), etc. (((Perhaps not following 8-fold path.)))

The relationship between various components or steps of the new programs is more complicated and of a less rigid order than in the innate programs. The triggers that can activate them are more diverse. They seem to have more than one version each, which often differ only slightly from each other.

A small number of the programs are built as intended by "agents of socialization" as a result of their direct activity. For example, the building of a program of positive regard towards relatives results from the repeated pressure of parents applied in the irrefusable demand: "Say thank you to aunty".

The culture of mankind includes the knowledge and customs required for the intentional activities aimed at molding the innate and acquired emotional programs. Some of the activities involved do not have a name of their own. They are usually applied informally, by family members, peers, friends and other acquaintances, mainly during childhood and adolescence but also throughout life.

Other influences have more specific names like: Psychotherapy, Chemo- therapy, Education, Punishment, etc. and are usually applied by people of authority who have special status in the social system.

The main aim of these activities is to induce changes in the undesirable aspects of supra-programs in the individual. Their targets are mostly those programs that are deemed noxious, harmful or destructive for the individual, for those who are related to him, for those in authority or for the system in general. (((In a way, there are fights among various programs to see which works better and to be survived as better programs!!! This is micro level under mini-mini-self. The decision will be made by X not self….. but past conditioning may override!!!! Like Karma…)))

However, the more profound results of socialization are usually quite different from those expected by the agents. In the above example, when the pressure is applied "too successfully", the results tend to be a specific program of submission, and many other non-specific ones related to manners. More often than not, the results are a general supra-program of yielding to authority and another one of avoidance of relatives. That of positive attitude to relatives is less likely to materialize as a result of this kind of intervention.

Still a smaller number of the new programs are built throughout life, as a result of deliberate learning, including the one responsible for the habit of inserting a small plastic card into a crack in the wall, in order to get a number of colored pieces of paper!

11. THE EMOTIONAL SUPRA-PROGRAMS

At the beginning of life, the dominance of the innate mental equipment is overwhelming and the hegemony of the subsystem of the basic emotions is nearly complete. The brain structures of the basic emotions are repeatedly activated by innate programs of their own. At that stage, the emotional repertory is quite simple and nearly every inconvenience of substantial impact causes the baby to cry.

Combined with the physiological processes of maturing, the accumulated experiences result in the building of new programs. A number of the new emotional programs built are only more flexible versions of innate ones. A number are those the fresh aspect of which is the result of the inclusion of options (and inhibitions) that are based on the maturing of the body and the cognitive ability.

Other supra-programs are based to a large extent on acquired knowledge and skills. They seems to be entirely new, and it is hard, at first, to find which of the more primitive programs were used as their "building materials".

Over the years the relative weight of accumulated experience in the building of programs, increases immensely. Consequently, most of the new programs of adults are based on stored information accumulated during the actual activation of ad hoc programs which were based on previously built supra-programs. (((This may be the cause of many problems, a fundamental one.)))

Though all programs are related to survival, and thus to emotion, not all of them are colored so much with emotional factors accessible to awareness of the individual or to those who observe him. Thus it is a common custom to distinguish between the two kinds and call "Emotional" only those which are obvious or which defy simple logic.

As a result of the maturation and the accumulation of supra-programs, the rigid automatic innate mode of operation for the activation of the brain structures of the basic emotions, is abolished. This causes changes to the way each of the various components of each of the basic emotions function. It also changes dramatically the relations and interactions between these components which become very flexible. ((Childishness lost????!!!!)))

For instance, using a supra-program, the integration processes of basic emotions can be inputted and influenced by other than the innate perceptual patterns. They can be influenced by word, memory, thinking, perception of signs or symbols or other things, that are connected with the specific basic emotion by association.

The most striking example is the ability of colored pieces of paper, (treated as money) or memories and imagery about them, to influence the emotional climate of people. They can change the mood of a person, from the positive pole of the basic emotion happiness v. sorrow to the opposite pole and vice versa. (This power is especially potent when the colored-pieces of paper are inscribed with a number followed by many zeros, which with luck one may receive, or unfortunately, may have to give.) (((Certainly, this is added later…)))

During maturation and socialization, the reflex like manner in which the primary patterns of stimuli of a basic emotion influence the integration processes and activate their other components, progressively diminishes. The original activity of the basic emotion, internal, external and communicative, also loses its cohesiveness and semi-automatic mode. ((Become before or after the fact…)) Even the ability of the processes occurring in the integration component of each basic emotion to create feelings of the subjective experience of that particular emotion is no longer automatic and unconditional.

The building, updating, upgrading, mending, and other changes entered into the activation programs of the emotional system are, in principle, more or less the same as the changes responsible for practical activities. Initially, they are based, like all other activities of the mind and brain system, on innate programs. However, it seems that in this domain, the basic building blocks come less from the senso-motoric repertoire and more from the small number of complex innate programs of the basic emotions.

For instance, most of the older generation still remember the feelings of disgust (and the tendency to vomit) engendered by cod-liver oil given to them in childhood to correct vitamin D deficiencies. This initially automatic activity of the basic emotion of Disgust v. Desire (or Attraction v. Repulsion) was aroused at first by the mere smell. However, after lots of pressure and bribes from mothers and other caring persons, this pattern gradually faded. After a while most of us ceased to spit out or vomit this "medicine" or even stopped feeling revulsion, and a few of us even got used to it.

During life, individuals acquire (learn) new sub-components and patterns that are integrated into the regular activities of each of the basic emotions by means of emotional supra-programs. These new components act as additions, variations or even substitutions to innate patterns and sub-components. The individual acquires supra-programs that culminate in the ability to activate deliberately the basic emotions - as a whole or certain parts of them - in ways that differ widely from the innate patterns.

Sometimes, the acquired changes are expressed whether unconsciously or involuntarily in an instinctive-like fashion, in such a way that it is hard to distinguish from the innate mode.

For example, people can intentionally activate their desire versus disgust basic emotion - the desire pole mainly - by memories of sexual activities or by imaginary ones. The initiation of these "unreal activities" can happen spontaneously during dreams. They can be activated intentionally or spontaneously or even reluctantly during daydreams, by the sight of a passerby, or an association. (((Stimuli and association)))

The deviation of these patterns from the original ones (of the basic emotions involved) may or may not reach our awareness, and the resulting sensations and images appear with varying degrees of vividness. These may or may not be accompanied by voluntary or spontaneous activity of one kind or another.

Throughout his life, the individual acquires the ability to influence the components of the basic emotions responsible for initiating activities, which were originally under the strict control of the integration components. Usually he also acquires some proficiency in executing them.

This proficiency enables the average person to activate various processes: intra-organismic, behavioral and communicative, even without a previously achieved suitable integration. Not only professional actors can simulate emotions successfully, even young children can do it.

The subjective experiential component is also not immune from the interventions and variations induced by supra-programs. The social environment greatly influences the shaping of this component, mainly by means of modeling, education and socialization.

During, and as a result of these processes, the individual also acquires a proficiency which may be used to divert the emotional experience. This proficiency is constantly expressed, deliberately or automatically, and with various degrees of awareness of the processes that divert the subjective experience from the innate course.

For instance, people learn to halt laughter or crying, by contracting the face muscles involved in the expression of these emotions. For thousands of years, people have been listening to and performing certain melodies to change their whole emotional climate. All of us are aware that we can change our mood just by changing the contents of our thoughts.

People posses a whole range of natural measures capable of inducing change in the emotional climate. Prominent among the behavioral alternatives are those that are included in the innate repertoire or appear automatically when one is sufficiently mature. In addition, there is a huge number of measures acquired from being subject to cultural customs of upbringing, and from divergent individual solutions found to common developmental problems, which were encountered on the way to adulthood.

The four main branches of this group of measures are:

12. THE COVER-PROGRAMS

The emotional supra-programs that automatically divert the emotional experience from its "natural" course, are called in this book "Cover-Programs"(17). This seems to be the best name for them, as the main purpose of each of these emotional supra-programs is to suppress (cover up) a certain internal message from the emotional subsystem, and prevent (if needed) contents related to it from entering the awareness.

The professionals provide names such as "Cognitive Sets", "Perceptual Sets", "Defenses", etc. Choosing the descriptive name of "cover-programs", and not the more common name "defenses" was done on purpose, the main reason being that the conscious and purposeful connotation of the name "defense" implies responsibility and even guilt. ("Don't be so defensive!!!").

The more sophisticated programs of this kind are mainly aimed at the weakening of extreme intensities of emotional experiences, mostly "negative" ones. They are also used to prevent "threatening emotional contents" (forbidden according to social norms or personal tastes and meaning) from reaching the awareness. They suppress them altogether or just change their quality, intensity or other aspect, to less threatening ones.

The unsophisticated cover-programs rigidly prevent emotional qualities and the felt sensations related to them from reaching the awareness at all (and they are the easiest to "capture" and rehabilitate). The most sophisticated ones selectively prevent, modulate or divert specific emotional qualities in specific circumstances, and are often hard to "diagnose".

The cover-programs do not meddle with our emotional experiences solely for internal aims. Nor do they do it just to break the chain of behavior that seems to get out of control. They also protect us from dangers and pain involved in the detection of true feelings, ours by others, and those of others by us. The cover-programs of this censorial type are an expression of the first rule of all spies which says: "What you do not know, you cannot disclose" - what you do not feel, you are not going to reveal by a facial expression, a slip of the tongue, or the intonation of your voice.

The most dramatic expressions of cover-programs are observed when they are on the verge of failure. In some occurrences, an extreme intensity of fear is recruited to divert the "awful secret" and emotional quality involved from reaching the awareness, "Anxiety Attacks" are the common name for their extreme intensities. These responses and other extreme responses that use other than the appropriate emotions try to prevent the appropriate ones from entering the awareness "with no regard to cost". In fact, they usually cost more than one can afford and lead one towards emotional bankruptcy.

The collection of the main types of cover-programs (or defenses) and their common usage are similar in people of the same culture. Consequently, the inhabitants of the industrialized countries of the western culture are very similar in this respect.

However, individuals of the same culture differ widely as to the actual versions of the cover-programs they possess and the types they use the most. They differ mainly in the subtle details of the programs resulting from the uniqueness of each personal history. They differ too with regard to their efficiency, flexibility, discriminatory power and a wide variety of inter- personal differences.

The direct flow of the emotional experience to the awareness is not the only victim of the cover-programs. External communications of emotion are also censored by the cover-programs. This measure is taken because the mechanisms of spontaneous external communication of emotions are intimately connected with the awareness system. For instance, our emotionally loaded vocal communication is heard by us too; the activity of the facial and other muscles of non-vocal communication is felt by us and not only seen by the others, etc. (((Like an actor…)))

As both functions of covering - from ourselves and from the others - are intimately interwoven, both can supply reasons for the building of a cover program that deals with a certain thing, and each of them can be the reason for the activation of a certain cover-program. As a result, both the awareness of emotion and the communication of emotion can suffer from distortions initiated in order to serve the other.

However, the various kinds of supra-programs of distortion - cover programs, cognitive sets and defenses - cannot banish, dissolve, or cause the complete annihilation of the activity of the innate activation programs of the basic emotion.

These programs cannot render the innate programs entirely inactive and stop them from reaching the specific verdicts of each of the basic emotions, even for the shortest time. It seems that the various supra- programs only contain the ability to shorten, diminish and push to a subliminal level certain parts of the innate programs in a wide spectrum of circumstances.

Therefore, at each moment and in each aspect, the ongoing activity of the emotional system is a combination of both the innate activation programs and the acquired supra-programs, with a greater weight given to the more emotional supra-programs, and among these especially to the cover-programs. (( Here is Integration..))

It is worth mentioning here that, in principle, the cover-programs are not a "bad" thing. They are part of the precious body of activation programs of the mind and brain system. They join the various mechanisms of the brain - physiological ones and various activation routines and programs - that do the immense work of filtering the plethora of inputs of body and mind processes to each other.

Usually the cover-programs serve the subsystems of emotion faithfully. Like other emotional supra-programs they are based on innate programs that are changed, mended, updated, etc. Their faults are mainly those of most other activation programs - insufficient updating, and too weak discerning power.

At birth, and more so later in life, the cover-programs have the responsibility of passively and actively filtering the huge quantity of information, inputs, feedbacks, etc. They have to decide, each moment anew, which content should be distorted and to what extent. They have to intervene in the allocation of the limited amount of resources of the brain and mind to the various tasks (mostly done by the various allocation mechanisms of attention but only a minority by the conscious ones). (((Self-defense mechanism,….)))

These programs are involved especially in the filtering of the inputs of those programs contending for the limited capacity of conscious awareness. To some extent, they decide which will be denied entrance and which will receive a split second chance to plead its case, which will receive only marginal attention, which will enter the focus of attention for a short time and which will be given full audience in the center of awareness with a prolonged and focused attention. (((How about a view of passive observation???? A self-defense mechnism????)))

For instance, the cover programs of the person who is caring for a young baby have the responsibility of trimming down and delegating to the background the hunger cry of the baby, while he prepares the food. (((Conscious over-riding is necessary… a case tied to PSDS.)))

13. THE TRASH-PROGRAMS

The concise slang used by young adults often includes the vivid description of the common low level of life quality as being "in the trash". This low level of the quality of life is the rule for most people in the modern and rich countries of the "first world" most of the time - regardless of social status or economic resources. For each one who is briefly "out of the trash" there are many more who are almost never clear of it.

Many of my trainees and I have recently become part of the minority which form the "exception that proves he rule". The "trash" simile adequately describes what each of us experienced before encountering the "General Sensate Focus" technique. (((Check this/Chicago guy, the search engine….)))

In commemoration of those bad days and in order to indicate the culprit, the programs one works on to improve the quality of life are nicknamed trash- programs. Actually, this nickname is not only used throughout the text of this book, but also as a regular concept in the work with trainees. We even use it regularly in our individual daily life when conversing with others familiar with its meaning.

There are about six main "families" of those "trash-programs". Sometimes, a subprogram or even a whole program can be allocated to more than one of the following groups or families as they are not mutually exclusive:

14. HOW IT REALLY WORKS

Paying attention

All people pay some attention to the feelings and sensations created continually by the emotional system and the ad hoc activation programs. It does not have to be an unbearable headache or internal intestinal agony which draw our attention to the feelings and sensations of the moment. But, most people are not consciously aware of the fact that they have bodily felt sensations and feelings all the time, and that they attend to them within the margin of their awareness.

Most of them increase and decrease their level of awareness to this stream of inputs instinctively or as a reflex, with only a vague notion of the fact (except when the feelings are very intense). Usually, they hardly remember afterwards that they paid so much attention to those targets.

Only people who are in extraordinary circumstances, or those who are extremely exceptional themselves, remember in detail their paying attention to a target. Only a very few people who are not specifically trained to do so are wise enough to activate this behavior deliberately and voluntarily.

The general sensate focusing technique, and many other effective measures, which succeed in improving supra-programs of individuals significantly, activate the same system in basically the same manner - even when the persons involved are not aware of this fact.

Those who use these approaches do so by systematically influencing the way the people they work with allocate attentional resources. Intentionally or as a by-product, the reallocated attention is focused on felt sensations which result from the control components of ad hoc programs. (Sometimes, when people are unaware of the real way the emotional system works, it is done only "by accident" as the treatment involves activities which create hard to ignore sensations).

The following are a few pages intended to make the focusing of attention and other tactics of the technique more meaningful.

Biofeedback or how the head works

During my first year of formal studies in the field of psychology, I enrolled in a course of laboratory workshops. One of the sessions involved the demonstration of the ever-changing electrical conductivity (and resistance to it) of the skin. Each of us experimented with an instrument which measures the changes that occur in the resistance of the skin to a weak electrical current (called by the name of "Galvanic-Skin-Resistance" or G.S.R.). The changes in the measured resistance are mainly due to changes in the sweating intensities.

The slow changes in the secretion of the sweat glands are mainly due to general changes in the body temperature, fast ones are the result of the minute changes that occur in the activity of the "autonomic nervous system". A fast rise in the activity of this system and an increase in the secretion of sweat are physiological expressions of high arousal and fear.

Thus, in spite of its innocent name, this instrument is intended to measure emotional changes and not those of electrical conductivity. For this reason, it is included in the police polygraph (called by some "the lie-detector").

During the exercise, I had one of the instruments attached to my fingers and I started to play with it: first I only followed the minute changes in the position of the needle of the watch-like monitor; then I found that these changes were related to the content of my thoughts; after a short while I even succeeded in controlling the movement of the needle by systematically changing the contents of my thoughts, sexy thoughts moved it to the right and boring ones to the left.

A bit later I found that one need not use thoughts in order to influence the needle, as the intention alone, accompanied with concentration of attention, achieved the same results. Not much later I learned that I was not the first to discover this phenomenon, and that this physiological function is the easiest to measure and influence. The sensations of the body which are related to these functions are hard to discern in normal circumstances and a few of them are never noticed by untrained individuals.

A whole branch of research is dedicated to the task of training people to take partial control of functions of the body with the aid of measuring devices. This activity is usually called "Biofeedback Training". This name sums up the processes behind this phenomenon which consists of:

                                *   *   *
                                  *   *
                                    *

The incomplete story of the emotions and their management comes here to an end. The "theoretical" chapters were introduced in order to help you get a meaningful picture of the self-maintenance system of the operating programs of the mind. This picture may help you recruit your resources in order to treat your emotional system more wisely. (((Theoretical, so not proven…??!!))))

Doing it as recommended in the self training chapter 5, will improve your whole life so much that not only those around will find it hard to comprehend, but you yourself will be amazed. It is a pity no one can yet supply, the final piece of the puzzle which is the mechanism of the brain that writes new information on the new protein chains in the brain cells, and its complementary one - that reads the information already there.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bowlby, J. (1969-1981) Attachment and loss. London: Hogart, Vol. 1-3.

Darwin, C. (1872) The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals. London: John Murray (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press 1965).

Descartes, R. (1649) Treatise on the passions of the soul. In the Philosophical Works Of Descartes: E.S. Halden & G.R.T. Ross (Trans.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.

Ekman, P., (Ed.), (1982) Emotions in the Human Face. London: Cambridge University Press.

Fonberg, E. (1986) Amygdala, emotions, motivation, and depressive states. In R. Plutchik & H. Kellerman (Eds.), Emotion - Theory Research and Experience. New York: Academic Press, Vol. 3.

Izard, C.E., Kagan, J., & R.B. Zajonc (Eds.) (1984) Emotion, Cognition and Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leventhal, H. (1982) A perceptual motor theory of emotion. Social Science Information, 21, 819-845.

Piajet, J. (1965) The origin of intelligence in children. New York: International Universities Press.

Plutchik, R., and Kellerman H. (Eds.), (1982-1986) Emotion - Theory Research and Experience. New York: Academic Press, Vol. 1-3.

Shalif, I. The Emotions and the Dimensions of Discrimination Among Them in Daily Life. A study towards a Ph.D. dissertation, that was carried out (1987) under the supervision of Professor Isaac Lewin. (Was approved by the Senate of Bar-Ilan University: 1.1.1991).

   Sir:
   My name is C... J... and I have a 10 year old son with A.D.D 
(Attention Deficit Disorder). He was on Ritalin for two years 
when he developed at Terret (sp) syndrome tick in his face that 
escalated ..........  Needless to say he was taken off that
medication fast.  He now is taking Tofranil but this dosn"t seem 
to do a very good job.
...................
   I saw a program on television about how bio-feedback was 
beening used with a lot of success with A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. 
children. 
   I downloaded your papers on bio-feedback and would like 
your opinion and any information, and or help that you might be 
able to give me on treating methods that I might persue to help 
my son.
      Thank you for your time and consideration.
   C. J.

Hi C... J...

I can assure you it does help as an ADD myself. (It is really a kind of micro to mild brain damage - common to a few percent of the children - usually a combination of birth and genetics.

Usually, it causes problems in process of learning to use the brain and body but not a permanent deficiencies.

Due to my severe condition I got on the academic "train" - the Psychology wagon - only at the age 35.

If you can convince your son or just persuade him, to pay attention to his bodily sensations in general and to those of his disquiet; and he'll start to do it while you do it - in a game like procedure - he will improve immensely.

It might be better if you start to train yourself few days before. Many have done it from the Hebrew text. I will be glad to be in e-mail contact - even daily if necessary - and answer specific questions to you and your son.

Ilan Shalif (Ph.D.)

*********************************************************************

On Mon, 25 Nov 96 L. C. wrote:

   "Please e-mail me info about your natural biofeedback 
technique. 
   I read  with interest the information you had at your web site.

   I have ADD [Attention Deficit Disorder - I.S.] and have heared 
that biofeedback can help. The main symptom I would like to address 
is the random drifting of my mind. One minute I'm thinking one thing 
and several minutes later I will wake up an find I have been 
daydreaming for 10 minutes.

   Can your technique help me? Please e-mail a reply to ..."
Thank you

Dear L. C.

Many factors contribute to the "Drifting of the mind" [the drifting of attention]. (I had in my childhood and youth a sever ADD due to minimal brain damage at birth.)

Un-solved "emotional problems" contribute their share to the problem. Training oneself with my technique (with or without a coach) helps in at least two things:

1) It solves or at least improve "unfinished emotional business". Thus lessen the power of distractors of attention.

2) Investing efforts in paying attention to the bodily sensation strengthen the willful control of attention. (Improving the regulating processes involved.)

If you start to train yourself with the technique, I will be available for further advice.

Have any question ? E-Mail me gshalif@netvision.net.il If it is relevant I'll respond promptly.

Ilan Shalif

*********************************************************

Dear L....

On Sat, 30 Nov 1996 you wrote:

> Dear Ilan,
> My name is L...., I am 4.., divorced, I have a son who is 2..
> years old and in the United States Forces .......
> I have suffered from depression since childhood. Sometimes it
> is worse than others.

25% to 50% of the children of the developed countries are found to be depressed (and it does not have to be so).

> I am writing to you to ask you if focusing can heal the "pain
> of depression". I read most of your book and tried the focusing
> described. I have few physical pains, when I focus on whatever I
> can find, it quickly disappears. But I don't understand how
> "focusing" on physical pain can help the miserable emotional feeling
> I have.

If you want to change your emotional climate and get rid of the miserable emotional feelings you have, you better focus on ALL bodily sensations. These you call pains are the easiest to focus on and to train yourself in the art of focusing (and we usually can't know which sensation is related to which problems). Gradually you will find that you can also discern in the body the more diffuse miserable emotional feelings called depression or distress - and focus on them too.

> I'm missing something here. Can you help me?

I don't know for how long or how much effort you invested in paying attention to the various bodily sensations. For people I trained it took few weeks to get rid of depressed feelings which resulted from specific problems of recent occurrences, but some months to get rid of life long miserable emotional feelings like yours.

> I have gone to phyciatrists, therapists, 12 step programs, I
> guess I have made some progress because there was a time when I
> could not even admit that I was depressed even though I was
> feeling that life was senseless. But I still have a long way to
> go and I don't know how to get there.

Focusing makes long stories short. I am sure that if you get into the habit of attending to ALL sensations and feelings (usually 10% of the opportunities is enough), you will write in the not too far future on the miracles you did for yourself.

> I know you must be busy but I would so appreciate any help or advice
> you can give me.
> Thanks so much, L....

I am not too busy and I always have time for people who use my technique.

Ilan

                                     
On Sun, 01 Dec 1996 L.... responded:

Dear Ilan 
Thank You for responding to my email. Until I found your 
page on the net I thought my life would never be any better 
but now I have hope. It means so much to me that you 
responded. 
I will do as you say and from time to time I will email 
you of my progress. 

Thank you for this "HOPE",
L....


********************************************************


On Thu, 26 Dec 1996 M. wrote:

Hi my name is M....,

  Will this process of biofeedback help for people with add/adhd.

  And can they be cured from add/adhd by using this method.

Hi M...

You wrote:
>..............
>..............

Many factors contribute to attention problems - at list part of them are structural. Any program that decrease emotional tension and the number of "unfinished business" improve the various functions of attention.

Biofeedback with instruments was found as effective with attention problems, and so was the case with my technique.

If the one with the problem can concentrate enough attention to practice the various exercises - by oneself or with the aid of a trainer - the attention will improve.

Ilan Shalif (Ph.D.)

On Thu, 26 Dec 1996 M... responded:

Thank You for your reply. I really enjoy.

On Mon, 30 Dec 1996 M.... wrote again:

Hi what section can I read for the mind. Meaning what section can I read

for to get started; people with add/adhd without reading the whole section.

Hi. M...
If you don't like the introductions, You can jump directly to the stormy water in chapter 5. To enter there directly, click on: http://www.oocities.org/~drilanshalif/content2.htm
Ilan Shalif (Ph.D.)

On Mon, 30 Dec 1996 M... responded:

Thank You for helping me.

********************************************************

On Sat, 28 Dec 1996 R... P... wrote:
     
Is it possible to control blood glucose levels with biofeedback?

What about without instruments??

Hi R... P...

It is hard to talk on blood glucose levels in the abstract. There are people who does not have in their body any production of insulin, and there are others whose production of it is just not enough in few circumstances.

And there is the problem of ongoing measurement of glucose levels in the blood. There are instruments - in the automatic internal pump for the supplying of insulin that have ongoing readout in real time. The usual measuring instrument does not supply such a readout.

If one's problem of blood glucose levels is not extreme and one have discernible bodily sensations when glucose levels rise, one can influence them directly.

Otherwise, like in other psychosomatic health problems - the more the contribution of the psychological factor the more the biofeedback without instrument can contribute as it is a general contributor to the psychological well being.

Ilan Shalif

     You CAN teach old dog new tricks BUT it takes allot of effort. 
             So pay attention to the pleasant and unpleasant 
                bodily sensations... and the troubles will
                     start to take care of themselves.

*****************************************************

On Tue, 21 Jan 1997 S. wrote:

I enjoyed your booklet that I downloaded.  I live in NYC. 
Do you know any "coaches" you can recommend in this area?

Hi S.

Very sorry, the advertisement of the technique in English is only five months old.

If you enjoy it, teach another person and coach each other... I will be always for you (at least few years more).

Feel free to ask for tips.

Ilan Shalif (Psychological Ph.D.)
Self-help book - http://www.oocities.org/HotSprings/3150/content1.htm
down-load site - http://www.etext.org/Psychology/Shalif

*****************************************************

On Sun, 26 Jan 1997 I. L. wrote

Dear Dr. Shalif, What to focus on? How do you hit a moving
target?

                Whipped Around

Hi I. L.

If you try to practice the first step of focusing training in the self help book, you will find the detailed answer. To put it here in short:

It is easier to focus the attention on a static target. However, even if you are "Whipped Around", you can still follow with your eyes a bird in the sky and a bodily sensation that is not static. (Some time sensations "cruise" in the body, sometimes they even jump each few seconds from place to place.)

Ilan Shalif

*****************************************************

On Tue, 11 Feb 1997 F. W. wrote:

Dear Dr. Ilan,

  I just came across your article in the net about doing biofeedback
without equipment. It is so kind of you to publish this kind of article
in the net free. I'm new to biofeedback, I'd like to try the techniques
you presented. before I start I'd like to ask if biofeedback is suitable
to my situation. 

   I have some slight tremor with both of my hand which is
tolerable when not working or working alone, but will be quite difficult
when I'm asked to sigh/write something before other person. can
biofeedback improve my situation? did you have similar cases? 

   I'm sorry to distrub you with my own problem, I really need some help 
on this as it has given a lot of inconvenience to my life. thanks, Dr.
Ilan, hope to hear from you soon, bye.

F.
______________________________________

Dear F. W.

biofeedback without instruments is suitable FOR EVERY ONE. Every one can benefit from it, as any one has "unfinished business", which the use of the technique helps to organize in a better format. Thus, the quality of the brain-mind system improve and so all its functions. Even if the origin of your problem is of the kind of "pure physiological" that are not directly influenced by biofeedback (there are very small number of them), it will improve as all the brain-mind system improve.

Few of my trainees had "unstable hands" in addition to their other problems. The more they invested in the application of the technique the more they benefited in this matter too.

So, you can start to follow the various instructions (including the advices for cautious) and keep in touch.

Ilan Shalif (Psychological Ph.D.)

            So pay attention to the pleasant and unpleasant 
                 bodily sensations... and the troubles
                     will take care of themselves.

*****************************************************

On Fri, 04 Apr 1997 K. wrote:

Maybe you can clear something up for me as far as ADD is concerned.  
While my mom was pregnant with me she had a thyroid problem.  The 
doctors did X-rays and made her drink radium even though they knew 
she was pregnant.  Several weeks later they told her to have an 
abortion and she refused (thanks to her strong religious back 
ground).  

In my research I have noticed minimal brain damage and ADD placed 
in the same category and even talked about as if they were 
interchangeable.  How can ADD be considered as minimal brain damage 
if it is hereditary?  I can see where I would have brain damage but 
where did my dad get it?  He was clearly born with ADD because he 
exhibited the acute sense now related to ADD.  When he was several 
years old he had Gillian Barre Syndrome which does not cause brain 
damage but does cause loss of motor skills.  So how can ADD be 
considered as both hereditary and minimal brain damage?  Where is 
the logic behind this? 

I'm sorry but I generally feel the need to find a logical explanation 
for EVERYTHING.  

Thanks for your time!!!

K.

Hi K.

Names have historic origin and so are MBD (minimal brain damage) and ADD (attention deficit disorder). As diagnosing of malfunctions of brain subsystem is very complicated, a more heuristic approach was used.

The origin of many problems at school was initially found to be related to various brain damages. Many other problems suspected to be so, were not properly diagnosed. This is one of the reasons the diagnosis of ADD replaced that of MBD.

To my knowledge (based on the psychometric diagnosis of thousands of school pupils - children and adolescents) in each of us the quality of various parts of the brain are inferior to other parts, because of plethora of factors. For the more significant deviations, heredity is in some cases only a propensity, which will be activated if other factors are joining (Physiological ones or even pure psychological ones). In other cases the heredity factors are stronger and need no "help" from other factors.

In few of the cases of ADD and other severe problems brain traumas are the sole reason for the malfunctioning, in others the combination of propensity and a contributor of one kind or the other are the reason.

My hunch is that in the majority of the cases the main reason is in an hereditary factor and the various damages and psychological factors only aggravates them.

Whereas there is nearly no one whose all brain functions are on the same level... In many cases psychological factors contribute to the aggravation. In most cases, various psychological factors can compensate or even help to solve at least part of the problem. The General Sensate Focusing technique is intensely involving the attentional variables. So, like biofeedback WITHOUT instruments it improves their functioning - even if no one complained about it before.

ALL trainees are surprisingly discovering the blessing of the enhancement of their ability to concentrate attention.

So, the attention deficit disorder is a group phenomena resulting from many brain problems. Even in the extreme cases, it is usually easier to overcome than to diagnose the main structural, chemical and psychological factors involved. (Most of the time, even if correctly diagnosed, it may still be irrelevant to the remedy.)

Ilan
             So pay attention to the pleasant and unpleasant 
                 bodily sensations... and the troubles
                     will take care of themselves

********************************************************

 On Sun, 18 May 1997 C. W. wrote:

i downloaded your book several months ago and found it fascinating. 
i had read Gendlin and found his technique hard to do. i practiced 
for about three weeks and began to feel so much more relaxed. i went 
from about 2 packs of cigarettes to about 9 a day. then, in my 
opinion my main trash program went to work. ("trash program" a 
concept from the self-help book, labeling a kind of activating 
pattern of the mind/brain I. S.)
i got a very bad cold that lasted three weeks. when it was over i
found that even though i wanted to practuce focusing, something kept 
me from doing it. anyway i know it is up to me to do the program and 
i am slowly struggling to adopt it into my life again.
my question and its not a  problem. i just wondered what is going on. 
when i focus my attention on my diaphram, it immediately begin to 
yawn with every breath i take as long as my attention is there. i 
guess i am just curious about what is there, even though i know that 
is not important. thank you for any feedback you can give me. 

sincerely, c. w.

Hi C. W. Thanks for the feedback.

It is sometimes hard to dedicate efforts and to keep focusing in a high level of intensity. It usually starts after the third week, as the bodily sensations become milder and shorter.

If you start to teach somebody the use of the new technique, it would be easier for you to keep the investment in practicing on a higher level.

As for the yawning resulting from the focusing of your attention on your diaphragm, you can treat it as any other bodily sensation. Usually, yawning results from a fast decrease in tension - very common during sensate focusing sessions. Most of my trainees start to yawn and stretch at the middle of their sessions with me (and not from boredom).

If you will post me a short note each week, it might help you to keep the focusing on the more intensive level.

Ilan Shalif

***************************************************

On Tue, 3 Jun 1997 J. K. wrote:

Your technology looks very promising. Do you know of any glaucoma 
cases that improved using your process?

Thank you,
J. K.

Hi J. K.

Among the hundreds I have trained, no one had glaucoma. Among the thousands who visited my sites and tried the technique... who knows.

As I understand, glaucoma can result from various processes and I do not know if any of them is dynamic enough and create a discernible bodily sensation one can use as biofeedback and focus attention on.

As any physiological process is in part psychosomatic, using the technique can contribute to the improvement achieved by other means.

For sure, using my technique can help to overcome psychological stress resulting from knowing you have glaucoma. It can also help to lessen the side effects of the drug treatment of the glaucoma.

Ilan Shalif (Psychological Ph.D.)

***************************************************

On Mon, 16 Jun 97 I.J. K. wrote:
 
 In Nov., l993, my wife fell on her head and
 suffered brain stem injury which has resulted
 in almost constant headaches and a definite
 reduction of her cognitive functioning.  So
 much so that she was forced to leave her
 elementary teaching position after thirty-
 nine years.  My question is:  Would biofeed-
 back help my wife?  I would appreciate your
 comment and also where your book can be pur-
 chased
Thank you.   
I.J. K.

Hi I.J. K.

There are good news and bad news.

The good ones are that any dynamic process that can be felt and/or measured can be the target of biofeedback training.
Head aches are easy to feel so are easy to train even without instruments.

I started to apply to them biofeedback without instruments (just attending to the head aches) 35 years ago... years before I become psychologist.

So, if your wife will train herself with my technique or find a biofeedback professional, success is only the function of efforts invested.

The bad news are that my self-help book was not printed in English. If you want it printed, you have to print a copy yourself.
Either download it from:
http://www.oocities.org/~drilanshalif/content1.htm and the seven following files, or take it in one big file of 400kb from http://www.etext.org/Psychology/Shalif/emotions

Ilan Shalif
***************************************************

Subject: Biofeedback, Smoking & High Blood Pressure

On Thu, 19 Jun 1997 S. H. wrote:
Dear Dr. Shalif:
  I have high BP and have to quit smoking.  Not smoking creates anxity
and the BP goes up.  I am hoping that by using Biofeeback I will learn
to reduce the anxiety and when I feel that I want to smoke I can learn
to control the tension.
  If you have any additional suggestions for a beginner I would
appreciate them.  Being an artist I probably do have a more hyper
personality than some others.
  Thank you,
  S. H.

Hi S. H.

How pity, there is not yet any simple instrument which measures the blood pressure continuously (with an instantaneous read out).

If you can use the available instruments to help you identify the bodily sensations related to the high blood pressure, the task of lowering it by focusing the attention on it will be easier.
Other wise you will have to relay on the general improvement achieved with the attending undiscriminatly to all kinds of bodily sensations.

Feel free to post me any additional questions. I will be glad to receive feedback about the successes - small and big, achieved by your efforts.

Ilan Shalif (Psychological Ph.D.):
http://www.oocities.org/~drilanshalif/content1.htm
download site - http://www.etext.org/Psychology/Shalif

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On Mon, 11 Aug 1997 U. wrote:

I would just like to ask you if you think your technique
would be good for me. I believe that it is stress that
causing the ringing in my ears.
When I wake up, the ringing is 99% gone, but as I go
through the day it gets louder and at night, it's at
it's peak.  I have a stressful job and that's one of the 
reasons why the noise level I believe goes up. I have
developed this problem about 3 months ago. 
It started when I listened to a loud speaker for about 15 
to 20 min.  But I don't think I was hurt that much, 
considering that the ringing is not even worth talking 
about in the morning. 
I believe that I have learned a very bad habit that I 
can't seem to get out of.  Also you speak of focusing 
on the problem itself, do you think I should be focusing 
on the ringing, if so, should I do it when it gets loud 
or as soon as I wake up? Your answer will be greatly 
appreciated.

Hi U.

Ringing in the ears is usually called tinitus. Its lower levels are very common. It is experienced as if one listen to a broadcasting station that only gives the monotone signal. It can be very annoying.

It can be caused by various problems of the internal mechanisms of ears and hearing, but mostly it is a result and/or signal of stress.

Using the technique and/or other procedures for the allocation of concentrated attention to the ringing can helps allot.
After a while, the systematic allocation of concentrated attention to it contribute to the lowering of the ringing or even to its disappearing.
When it is related to psychological stress (which is always so in one measure or another) it is recommended to allocate attentional resources to all bodily sensations. The returns are always huge, without proportion to the meager resources dedicated to this.

Ilan Shalif (Alternative Psychologist)

**************************************************

On Sat, 20 AUG 1997 I responded to J. V. post:

Hi J. V. You wrote:

> Dear Ilan,
> a lot of thanks for your guide through the focusing
> technique, published on the Internet. My name is J,
> I am male, Czech, 55 years old, working in the > computer area.
> I appreciate your fight for the independence from gurus,
> "specialists" and from all other manipulators.
> Please, could you kindly give me your opinion?

I promised and I will do my best.

> When I am focusing places of my pains or bad feelings,
> I can not help myself, I try to relax this area, to
> quiet it. According a minor problems, discomforts, they
> dissolve after that very quickly.

Some times strong bodily sensations are the result of minor problems and sometimes serious problems are expressed in minor bodily sensations. So, you can never be sure.

> But the most painful place, the pain behind my ayes,
> accompanying the headache, is very resistant. The pain
> forces me to quiet and relax this area. Is it bad, good
> or is it my choose?

Often, when one begins the focusing project, one have a "favorite" place with a recurrent unpleasant sensation. After one is sure this is not a medical problem, one can start the project of solving the problems responsible, using the focusing technique.

If one is starting focusing each time the sensation starts to develop (and is still faint), results are faster and many times the intense pain does not come. Better even, pay attention to the faint sensations that are always there (and in any other part of the body one attend to), any time you have a chance... and remember to do it.

When the sensation become too unpleasantly too strong, one can use the hand rubbing and muscle tensing to make it a bit more bearable. If it does not help or too tiring - just let it go and do something else for a while.

> What do you think about?

I had few trainees with persistent head aches like yours (or other nasty and recurrent sensation in the body) and it took weeks of intensive use of the technique on ALL bodily sensations till there was a significant improvement.

> Ilan, thank you very much for your answer.
> Regards
> J.

Feel comfortable to ask about tips and communicate results. (A weekly contact, for a while, is welcome.)

Ilan Shalif (Alternative Psychologist)
gshalif@netvision.net.il

http://members.tripod.com/~alternativ_psy/
http://www.oocities.org/~drilanshalif/
http://www.netvision.net.il/php/gshalif
http://flag.blackened.net/ishalif/anarchy.html
download site: http://www.etext.org/Psychology/Shalif

**************************************************

On Sat, 18 Oct 1997 J.B. wrote:

Hi, My name is J. B. I have been thinking 
of quiting smoking. But the problem i have right 
know is that i am living with someone that smoke's.
You are probaly wondering why i dont move, well 
the reason for that is because i dont have that 
kind of money.I really would like to stop smoking 
but like i said before i am living with a friend 
that smokes and when i asked him if you would stop 
if i stoped he said no.The reason he said no is 
because he wants to get to heaven quicker.I want to
stop smoking ,the reason for this is because;  
  1. I feel really weak latley
  2. I cant concertrate like i used to.
  3. I smoke too much like 2 to 4 packs a day.
  4. I sleep ok but when i get in the morning i
     feel like garbage.I dont feel refreshed.
  5. I feel like i am dieing anymore.(I hope that
     didn't sound strange)
  6.I get headaches alot

Well those are the reasons i wish i could just stop.
I tried the Gum (Nicorete) which didnt work.When i 
dont have a cigarette i get a very short Fuse.Well 
thats all for now.

              Signed: J. B.

Hi J. B.

The addicting to smoking is much more than to nicotine consumption. However, kicking the habit is not too hard for one who wish to get rid of it.

The various effects you described are the usual results of heavy smoking and it is easier to get rid of them through quitting smoking than any other means.

Few of my trainees who so wished, succeeded. It just need adherence to a prolonged schedule.

If you really care, you can start to train yourself with the technique. If you want to quit smoking, or just getting it to less than 10 cigarettes a day, combine from the beginning the protocol of focusing on the urges involved smoking with the various steps of focusing training.

If you so do, you can count on free weekly e-mail communication with me.

Ilan Shalif (Alternative Psychologist)

*****************************************************

Dear U. You wrote:

> I have been reading your book that you published on the
> Internet; at this point I have read most of it. I have
> a ringing in the ear problem that has been going on for
> about 6 months.

Ringing in the ear(s) is very common. Most people experience it for short periods - especially at moments of low environmental sound stimuli (silence).

In medical vocabulary it is usually called "Tinitus". It can be caused by medical (health) problems of various bodily systems - especially the one involved in the (auditory) sense of hearing.

> I also have been going to stress management counciling.
> Which by the way has been helping, but I feel that your
> method would be the final answer to my predicament.

Ringing in the ear, whatever the reason for it can me influenced by various physiological, psychosomatic and psychological factors and processes.

ANY thing that lower stress may help to reduce stress, but, few methods are better, less unpleasant, more efficient, etc. (and cheaper) than others.

Biofeedback and more so biofeedback without instruments (which use the ringing as the measure of itself) may help.

> The ringing in the ear is psychosomatic, I know this
> because, on some days the noise is completely gone.
> But it comes back, the way it's been going is two
> days good, one day bad.

Though it seems to be psychosomatic, precautions should be taken, as there may be a physiological problem at the base of the ringing. Medical examination is recommended, even if the ringing disappear after short period of focusing.

> For about a week, I have been focusing, using
> your method. At this point I have not been able
> to make it disappear, by the focusing method.
> In the past I have managed to actually focus the
> noise down to nothing, but unforuanately I really
> can't put my finger on how I achieved this, and it
> was done quite by accident.

When one focus the attention on a sensation related to a problem, the sensation may take it's time. As one is working on the sensation indirectly - by activation and changing various processes mostly unidentified, one can never be sure...

Sometimes minimal efforts bring fast change in a big problem... sometimes lots of efforts dedicated to a minor problem take long time of focusing.

> I feel I have the ability, but what my question to
> you is, during the focusing are you supposed to
> bring the sound down to zero in one sitting, or
> is this a gradual thing?

When focusing on a sensation which is not related to a severe health problem (not related to the heart or similar ones) it is better to prolong the focusing as long as possible. The sensation itself is like the peak of an iceberg visible above the water while the bulk of the mass is below the surface... While you focus on the sensation, the mending processes are "working" on the invisible and unconscious processes whose expression is the ringing. Thus, the longer you focus on the ringing and other sensations the more you invest in the improvement of the underlying processes.

> Does it slowly over time lower in volume?
> Can you give me any hints as to what I could
> be doing, either better, or what I am not
> doing properly?

You can expect that any problematic aspect you work on will improve and every unwanted sensation will be less intense, less frequent and even disappear for long stretches of time... But, it is hard to predict how fast or how much efforts need each problem. (More detailed explanations and tips you may find in the texts on my site.)

> You also mention in the book that with
> psychosomatic problems, that it could take
> sometime to achieve relief, do you think
> I'm being overly optimistic?

Usually, a beginning of relief is already felt some where during the first three weeks of focusing. The occurrence of more significant improvements depend on the specific problem, the amount of problems one has to begin with and the amount of efforts invested in the focusing endeavor.

> My current methods for focusing are, when
> the noise is loud or soft on any particular
> day I still focus, I close my eyes and zoom
> in on the noise, you mention in the book that
> it may be hard to pinpoint the target, but for
> me it's easy. Next I focus for two minutes at a
> time or maybe a little longer, is this enough time,
> should I do it for a longer time or shorter time? I
> also focus about 5 to 10 time a day, is this too
> many times or not enough?

The longer the better, the more you invest, the more will accumulate the improvements, the faster you get rid of the recurrent ringing. Along the years, many hundreds of trainees focussed on many problems. Few (included me) even invested few hours a day - in time dedicated to focusing or in parallel to other activities... no one of us suffered from any negative result of too much focusing.

> I have great hope in your focusing technique and
> your reply will mean allot to me.
> Thank You.

Your communication is for me a significant gift, as only few of the 1500 visitors a month contact me and give feedback.

Thus, any one who do contact me is eligible for a weekly "supervision" for the duration of the first period of focusing.

Ilan Shalif

**************************************************

On 21 Nov 1997 U. responded and got the following answer:

Hi U.

I will repeat what I wrote in previous post and in my book:

To get the most benefit from the technique - even if you have "only" one problem that bother you, better focus on ALL bodily sensations. Many times, the round about approach is bringing the best results even with regard to a specific and concrete one.

It is most probable that focusing on OTHER sensations will bring faster results with the tinitus noise than the focusing on this noise itself.

If the noise was a result of specific local physiological problem, your tactic might be the best. But, if the ear specialists are right, the best results with the tinitus will be achieved by focusing on other bodily sensations.

> Thank you for writing back so soon.
> I have fairly good news, I sat in a chair by myself in the
> quite, and focused for a straight 25 minutes, once in a while
> I would loose focus, but I came right back. The volume in my
> ears was very loud, but after I guess 15 minutes, I brought it
> down about 50%. It did not last long, as I expected, but I
> was very happy that I had the capability to lower it at all.
> This was the first time I attempted to lower the volume when
> it was at it's fullest. This gives me new hope, and I think
> the overall level has gone down somewhat. I have noticed that
> if I don't have a good nights sleep, that the volume the next
> day is loud to somewhat loud.

In night sleep, and especially the REM phase of it, the natural work on minds procedures is done. Focusing just enhance the same processes.

> You cautioned me that this may not be a psychosomatic problem,
> and that it could be a medical one. Well to answer your
> question I have gone to 3 medical doctors and all 3 told me
> that medically there was nothing wrong with me. This is how
> I came to the conclusion that it's psychosomatic. And it all
> figures to be just that. I am continuing with the focusing,
> but I do notice that I have to be in a quite place in order to
> concentrate, I have not been able to focus in an area where
> people are talking, I suppose I will get to this level, but
> not right now.

If you train yourself in attending to ALL bodily sensations, you will find that you can find ones in any condition. (Listening to the voices of others - not only to the words, is also a kind of focusing.)

> Would you say that with increased focusing, that when the
> level of noise is brought down, over time the effect of lowered
> volume would last longer than the first time which I talked
> about in this letter?

If it is psychosomatic one, it will sure start to disappear for longer and longer periods of time. ALL people have it for short periods of time, but usually it happens seldom and for no more than few minutes.

> You speak in your book about being very determined will I am
> very determined just like you and other you spoke about. I
> will beat this thing, someday, sometime.

Determination that does not translate itself to investment of efforts in focusing on ALL bodily sensations in each opportunity, is just magical wishful thinking - not a real one.

> I hope I am not being too much of a bother to you, but I would
> like to keep touch, just until I get a good foot hold on
> focusing, and my problem. I didn't understand what you meant
> when you said, in the first period of focusing, that you would
> give me supervision, please explain.

As long as you invest in focusing and have relevant questions, I have enough time and will you. Just keep training in focusing on ALL bodily sensation - and post me about it.

> You are the only person I know who can give me the counseling
> I need on focusing at this time. Your patience is very much
> appreciated.

I hope others will join me soon. In the mean time feel welcome.

Ilan

******************************************************

On 30 Nov 1997 H. wrote:

Hi! I found your page on the web and as someone who has been into 
and read many self improvement things over the years, i was quite 
curious. 
As someone who loves to sing, I was especially interested when I 
saw a section in which you claim that it is relatively simple to 
improve the voice using your techniques. however, I wasn't really 
sure exactly what you are saying one should do to effect this 
change in the voice.  
Furthermore, most of my vocal problems seem to be due to things 
in my throat... phlegm, acid, or whatever that coat my vocal 
cords and tighten up my throat as a response. I have been taking 
medications for this on and off for years with little effect.  
Do you think that your techniques could help with this?  
i have dreamt to sing for a very long time but my voice is 
always too tight and messed up.  Only when at its very very best 
is it good.  
Please write back and let me know.  If you can help me with this 
you will have a loyal believer in your techniques :) 
Thanks you.  
H.

Hi H. You wrote:

>...you claim that it is relatively simple to improve the
> voice using your techniques.

The technique was not developed as a process to improve the voice quality.

However, it was found that people who train themselves with the technique improved the qualities of their voice.

It was also found that paying special attention to the qualities of one's voice helps a lot in all psychological problems one wants to solve.

The various emotional processes are very intimately involved with the vocal cords - psychologically and psychosomatically. Thus the improvement in it achieved by the use of the technique.

If you start to train yourself with the technique, you will be eligible for a while to free weekly e-mail tips from me in response to specific questions.

Ilan Shalif

****************************************************************

On 01 Dec 1997 G. P. Wrote:

> Hi, I saw on TV that migraine headache can be treated with
> biofeedback excercises, basically working on the sympathetic
> nervous system that helps us deal with emergency situations.
> Where could I find information about it?
> Thank you,
> G. P.

Hi G. P.

I think the processes are much more complicated, but, luckily, we can concentrate our attention on the head ache it self.

You can find more information on the application of biofeedback without instruments in my mirror sites:
http://members.tripod.com/~alternativ_psy/
http://www.oocities.org/~drilanshalif/

About more conservative techniques of biofeedback you can find by search in the internet.

Ilan Shalif (Psychological Ph.D. - Alternative Psychologist)

So pay attention to the pleasant and unpleasant
bodily sensations... and the troubles
will take care of themselves.

*********************************************************

On 03 Dec 1997 M. M. wrote and I responded:

Hi M. M. You wrote:

> I've read your "General Sensate Focusing" book. I think it
> is very interesting, but when I tried to apply it to myself
> I've noticed a lack of physical sensations when I feel bad,...

There are many people who have learned to suppress unpleasant bodily sensations. When they start to search for them, they need to "unlearn" this.

> because my bad feelings are in cognition (bad thoughts and
> remembering bad situations in the past), but I can't locate any
> particular address of a bad sensation.

There are no bad sensations, ALL of them are useful thus good. There are, however, some less pleasant some barely discernible and few pleasant ones.

> Am I wrong in something ? Can you help me ??

You are dead wrong. If you adhere to the training procedures, and pay attention to suggestions about leaning the head backward a bit you will sense some thing to start with.

Then post me again.

Ilan

**************************************************

Take a small tour of your body. The starting point may be the place you are usually aware of or feel once you have "decided" (or discovered or discerned) that you are in a bad mood, or that you have unpleasant emotions or feelings or sensations.

The head: One can feel pressure or pain or various unpleasant sensations in different regions of the head or in all of them simultaneously. The most common place for those feelings is in the front of the head - in and around the eyes. A lot of itching of various intensities is also felt there from time to time, mainly on the scalp.

The face

The nape: Various activation programs(2) use the controlled hardening of the muscles of this region to regulate the intensity of various feelings and emotions, mostly to reduce them.

The throat: The vocal-cords like the muscles of the face - are always in very close touch with the concurrently active "trash-programs".

The chest

The belly and intestines

The muscles of the skeleton

Itching, scratching and other irritants

This step is dedicated to the work on the felt sensation itself. It is recommended that you choose for it the sensation(s) you have paid attention to during the previous steps.

Now, after finding and getting to know the region of the sensation it
is time to focus on the point where it is the strongest or where it is
most easily paid attention.

Find this point now and in your imagination, put the tip of your finger, or the tip of the imaginary paint brush on that point. Remain in this state a few seconds before continuing the reading. Let it become for a short while the central focus of the body as a whole.