Keep it company with interested curiosity

Check whether it is all right to be with what you feel, then sit with it the way you would sit with a frightened child: no pushing, no fixing.

Warum es wirkt

The base stance of staying curious and present is on focusing-felt-sense. What is added here is Gendlin's image of keeping a scared child company, which Cornell and McGavin quote: you do not argue with the child, push it or pull it out, you stay. Asking first whether it is all right to be with it allows for feelings that need some distance before closeness. The manual suggests a hand on the place where you feel it, and the 2008 article pairs that hand with "I'm with you."

So gehst du vor

1. Once you have found something and said hello, ask inwardly: "Is it OK to just be with this right now?"
2. If it is, sit with it with interested curiosity, as you would sit beside a frightened child, without pushing, arguing or cheering it up.
3. If it helps, gently place a hand on the place in your body where you feel it.
4. If the answer is no, or it feels like too much, acknowledge that and keep a little more distance; you can come back to it later.

Evidenz

Keeping a feeling company "with interested curiosity" is core language in The Power of Focusing and in the Student's and Companion's Manual, and the 2008 overview builds on Gendlin's image of keeping a frightened child company. No outcome study of Inner Relationship Focusing was found (searched 2026-10-14). Hendricks (2002), a chapter in the APA handbook Humanistic Psychotherapies, reviews Focusing research. The Focusing Institute's summary of that chapter says it covers more than 80 studies on Focusing and Experiencing Level (focusing.org/articles/focusing-orientedexperiential-psychotherapy). That research is about Focusing in general. (anecdotal)

The Focusing research does not test this particular move, so it supports it by analogy only. If staying with a feeling leaves you flooded, losing track of where you are, or with images that will not settle, stop, open your eyes, feel your feet on the floor, and take this work to a trained therapist rather than continuing alone.

Quellen

• Cornell, A. W. (1996). The Power of Focusing: A Practical Guide to Emotional Self-Healing. New Harbinger Publications.
• Cornell, A. W., & McGavin, B. (2002). The Focusing Student's and Companion's Manual, Part One. Calluna Press.
• Cornell, A. W., & McGavin, B. (2008). Inner Relationship Focusing. Focusing Folio, 21(1).
• Hendricks, M. N. (2002). Focusing-oriented/experiential psychotherapy. In D. J. Cain & J. Seeman (Eds.), Humanistic Psychotherapies: Handbook of Research and Practice (pp. 221-251). American Psychological Association.

Häufiger Fehler

Keeping company with an agenda: staying with the feeling while quietly waiting for it to shift or leave. If you notice that waiting, it is something in you too; say hello to it.