Return to the figure during the week
Return to the quality or figure you discovered, and experiment with it during the following week, as the study's eighth step encouraged.
Why it works
These steps are the eight-step session protocol that Sedláková et al. (2020) designed, inspired by Weyermann (2006) and consulted with a practitioner. Mindell's own books could not be read for this page. This practice uses Step 8, in which participants were encouraged to return to the discovered quality or mythological figure, and to try to experiment with it during the following week. The paper does not report what participants did in that week; its outcome measures were taken before the session, right after it (for ŠIP only), and one week after.
How to do it
- Return to the quality or the figure you discovered in the session.
- Experiment with it during the following week, as the study encouraged.
Evidence
Sedláková et al. (2020) describe this as Step 8 of their session. The paper reports no separate measurement of the week of experimentation; practitioner framework. (anecdotal)
See a doctor about any physical symptom before exploring it. The study did not measure what participants did in the following week, and it tested one therapist-led session, not self-practice. If you feel flooded, lose track of where you are, or images or sensations will not settle, stop and continue this work with a trained therapist rather than alone.
Sources
Common mistake
Treating the figure as a belief to adopt or a message to act on. The study asks only that you return to it and experiment with it during the week.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Process Work: Eight Steps Designed by Sedláková et al. (2020)
- Notice the signal you did not intend
Describe who you have been and who you are today, then describe a chosen symptom and your attitude to it: the first two steps of the study's session.
- Describe the disturbing quality in sensory words
Describe the chosen symptom and its manifestations in sensory words, such as warmth, tingling or pressure, then identify its most disturbing quality: the study's fourth step.
- Develop the disturbing quality the way it emerged
Develop the most disturbing quality through movement, proprioception, sound or imagination, then give it a form: the study's fifth step.
Related concepts
- Shadow Work
Meeting the parts of yourself you have been ignoring
- Gestalt Therapy: Awareness, Ownership and Contact in the Here and Now
Noticing what you are doing right now, owning it in your own words, and finishing what keeps pulling at you
- Focusing and the Felt Sense, Made Practical
Listening to the body’s pre-verbal knowledge — the six steps and their mechanisms
- Jungian and Research-Tested Dream Work: Hearing the Parts of You That Speak at Night
Working a dream image by image, so the disowned and unnoticed parts of you get a hearing
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