By Hal G. DeShong, Ph.D.

Implications for Clinical Work

The process toward a more defined self involves a quality of thinking based on self-questioning that can evolve toward a life freer from anxiety and a mind that functions more objectively. No one can answer for another the questions about what one thinks, what one believes, what one values and by what principles one guides his or her life course. Such questions can be answered only by the less anxious mind of the solid-self. As the clinician function, he or she is in a position to promote or undermine the development of solid-self in the other. The promotion of solid-self in the other is best done with a sense of how the processes of self-focusing and other-functioning influence development of objectivity and solid-self. The following implications for clinical work are relevant:

1. By self-focusing, the clinician has a way to better manage anxiety and therefore maintain more flexibility in functioning. When over-attending to the rises and falls in anxiety with the other, the clinician will be less likely to maintain a framework of the more objective "big picture." He or she will become more predictable and less thoughtful. This is not to suggest that the clinician is not paying very close attention to the facts of the problem presented in order to raise sensible questions and/or provide feedback. The other-focusing process addressed here as interfering with clinical work is a sort of "locking on," to watching the other as a way of measuring one's own movements.
2. The more the clinician is able to pay attention to self, the more he or she will be able to say what he or she will and will not do and the freer the client will be to see boundaries and recognize limits. The client is better able to see where the clinician begins and ends. As the clinician is not in a willful match to manipulate the client to change, the client is less driven to resist or to engage in a struggle to manipulate the clinician to take over responsibility for self.
3. Through self-focusing the clinician has a better chance of knowing and expressing what he or she thinks with this information less clouded by subjectivity. Through this effort to stay in one's own head in order to direct self based on thoughtful principles, the clinician will be more likely to resist picking up fads circulating in professional literature and conferences. Attention to differentiation of self will reduce the drive to borrow self with the excitement of a new diagnoses, techniques and promises of "fixing" other individuals.
4. Self-focusing will help the clinician to stay clearer on what will be helpful to the client to promote his or her ability to focus on self. The clinician will less likely be automatically steered off course by content features of the interaction.

Implications for Self

Each of us puts great effort into affecting life outcomes. The extent to which the individual invest these efforts in self-focusing processes and other-focusing processes influences the outcome of life's situations. From a personal perspective, as I consider desired change, I must ask myself, "Where are my thoughts going?" I believe that an emphasis on the capacity to self-focus is essential to differentiation of self and that other-focusing blocks efforts at differentiation of self. It is difficult for me to think clearly if I am not in my own head.

Reviewing this exploration of the basic direction of one's attention in dealing with life, the following observations are pertinent to personal efforts toward differentiation:

1. Self-focusing allows me to move a little less automatically. Observing myself slows down reactivity a bit or at least allows my review of situations to be more objective. This stance opens the possibility that I can recognize my patterns of reactivity in similar future situations. Following this line of thought, self-focusing may be essential for real change to occur.
2. Processes that involve focusing on self make it less likely that, when anxious, I will distance from others by attending to what I think they should be doing differently. Of course, when I started in this profession, that is what I thought being a mental health professional was all about. This included the belief that the more anxious another made me, the more I should tell them what to do - to help them of course.
3. Attending to my own thinking and behavior enables me to move and make choices without denying attention to real problems and dilemmas, but without being swallowed up by them either. I retain greater responsibility for what happens in my life.
4. Self-focusing gives me a way through the familiar temptation to judge my effectiveness by the response of others. I am better able to attend to whether or not I am moving in line with my best thinking rather than continually asking myself, "How am I coming across to others?"
5. The process of attention to self reminds me that I am responsible for my reactivity. This observation is challenging as well as a gift.

Conclusion

An example of a small, personal step: Several weeks ago my wife announced that she was removing from her office a particular memento that I had given her and relegating my gift to the hall closet. Her explanation had something to do with décor, what sorts of things she did and did not like to look at all day - silly reasons that had to do with her selfishly thinking of her own preferences while forgetting her duty to keep me comfortable. At the moment of my disappointment, I felt a surging desire to follow old, other-focused ways of thinking about the dilemma. In the past I would have first relished scenarios in my head about what uncaring thoughts were surely going through her head to allow her to step on my feelings. Next, I would have begun an other-focused campaign to convince her to reverse her behavior and, on a really good day, convince her to apologize for the whole affair.

This time I carefully chose to use self-focusing processes. First, I refocused on some computer work I was doing. Then I concentrated on relaxing and thinking about what sorts of things I like having in my office and what I did and did not enjoy looking at all day. The moment passed. I never raised the issue with my wife. Nor, more importantly in some ways, did I ever mention my agitation and how I managed to find a more effective way to deal with myself. Through the intentional effort involving attention to my own thoughts, my familiar, subjective view of myself as the center of the universe or at least at the center of my wife's universe, was balanced somewhat with a more objective view of self and others. It's a start.