Once we have a clear sense of a whole problem there inside our bodies, the time comes to ask it: alright, I hear you, now what is it that you really have to tell me? Where do we go from here?

Finding ‘the right word’ — knowing what it is in the body — makes the difference between the kind of experience we just have to submit to and the kind of experience we can be creative with.

Felt senses are there inside our bodies, carrying intricate, complex information about all of our thoughts and feelings, histories, pre-dispositions, cultures, traumas and loves. But what to do with them?

Sometimes moving forward requires not getting too involved with thoughts and feelings, not trying to understand or express them, but just getting a vague yet complex sense of “all of that”.

Most of the reasons for therapy’s success are simply unknown. This should keep therapists humble. The biggest factor which therapists can influence at all is the quality of the relationship. The relationship may be experienced as healing, even when therapy doesn’t measure up as “effective” at removing problems.

How do you deliver ‘placebo therapy’ to a client? By being deliberately hostile? Quantative scientific methods may not be the best ways to measure psychotherapy outcomes. But those who have the power and the money are increasingly using research results to legitimise a few techniques which are easy to measure, to the detriment of clients and therapists.

There’s some pressure in the more ‘psychologised’ cultures to be open, to share, to tell your story, and it’s easy to find yourself swept along and unthinkingly revealing more than, in retrospect, you want to. There can be a great deal of centredness, self-respect and power in silence.