Question

What is your understanding with focusing, its process, benefits, challenges and ethical considerations, etc.?   

Identify learning needs for nurses related to climate change.Please cite the reference

Answer 1

Focusing is one of h metod of holistic communication.

Focusing is a body centered method for developing self awareness and it is a way of listening to feeling by becoming aware of body sensations that carry meaning about issues and concerns.

FOCUS PROCESS

Focusing is a natural skill which was the key element for sucess in nursing therapy.

It is a method of getting in touch with your bodys sence of a particular situation or issue.

Focusing, first described by Gendlin, Focusing is a method of getting in touch with your body's sense of a particular situation or issue. In the 1960s Professor Eugene Gendlin at the University of Chicago joined Carl Rogers in researching the question, "why is psychotherapy helpful to some, but not to others?" Gendlin and his colleagues studied hundreds of hours of taped therapy sessions. They discovered that there was a clear difference between successful and unsuccessful therapy clients. The successful clients would at times slow down their talk, become less articulate, and grope for words to describe what they were feeling. Instead of analyzing what they were feeling, they directly sensed the vague, hard-to-describe physical awareness that embodied that feeling. Gendlin developed a way to teach this powerful and effective skill of emotional healing, and named it Focusing.

Accessing the felt sense is one of the two main components of Focusing. A felt sense forms by paying attention to a particular event or feeling, and then noticing what is evoked inside your body. Specific words or images then come to describe the felt sense.

Nurse: How are you doing this morning?

Patient: Not so good. I can't explain it. I just feel kind of ...blah.

Nurse: Kind of a blah feeling. Can you take a moment to sense how that is in your body?

Patient: (Closing his eyes) Yeah...it feels nagging. I have a nagging worry that this infection isn't healing.

Nurse: So that blah feeling is really about your being worried. (Patient nods). Let's talk about how infections heal. I think it might help ease your worrying.

A felt sense feels meaningful, but that meaning is at first murky and unclear. As you continue to pay attention to it with an attitude of friendly acceptance, its meaning comes into focus. Once in focus, words or images emerge that match the felt sense. In this example, the blah feeling is the felt sense, and when the nurse invites the patient to bring her attention to it, the feeling crystallizes, and she realizes she is worried. This brief process makes clear communication possible. The second key component is the Focusing attitude. It entails staying respectful, friendly, and welcoming towards whatever emerges. If you are judgmental and critical, that attitude stifles the inner voice and closes off communication with your deeper self. For example, if you're feeling vaguely annoyed with a colleague, it's less helpful to wall it off and pretend you're fine, then to take a moment for yourself to acknowledge that annoyance in a welcoming way. "Oh, part of me is really ticked off at her. Let me be with that annoyance and see if it can tell me more about what's so annoying." When the annoyed place "speaks", you feel a release in your whole body, the way you might if you put down a heavy package you've been carrying.

BENIFITS OF FOCUSING

1. Reducing Stress through Focusing Dealing With A Stressful Medical Environment Both nurses and patients find the medical environment stressful. Nurses, on the front line of medical care, have constant demands on them which sometimes cause them to engage in unhealthy life choices. As a result, they frequently need to take better care of themselves. Focusing can help nurses cope with professional and personal overload and burnout. Patients, in addition to coping with pain, surgery and treatments, and a hospital environment, often have financial and emotional burdens. 12 Frequently, they worry about the future, regret past behavior, are angry and sad about their condition, and have questions, such as "Will my health insurance cover the cost of the procedure?", "What will the impact be on my family and friends?", "How will I cope with this fear and anxiety?", and "Am I going to die?" Patients need effective methods to cope with this variety of stressors.

2. Focusing as a Coping Strategy A person who is sick must adapt to the challenges that arise during diagnosis and treatment. He or she must also find ways to deal with the unpredictability and vulnerability that illness evokes. Focusing empowers a person to create new ways of adapting to difficult situations. Focusing can be used as an effective coping strategy when: • The patient is experiencing pain and/or discomfort. Through Focusing one can get distance from the pain, can hear from it, or befriend it. One can sense how the body would be without pain, and work compassionately with the feelings accompanying the pain, such as anger, disappointment, or helplessness. In a single case study of pain management in a child, Focusing, along with guided imagery, was shown to be a useful approach. The child demonstrated effective pain management skills that endured beyond the period of study. The patient is faced with difficult decisions about medical care. Focusing helps a patient to get a body sense of which decision feels right. The heart of a decision often lies at a place which includes logical understanding but includes more than can be put into words. • The patient is undergoing a medical procedure. Focusing can help the person stay embodied and connected to herself. Noticing how the whole experience feels inside helps allay apprehension, and enables the person to find a sense of well-being as well as a positive expectation for the outcome of the procedure. • The patient is beset with fear and anxiety about test results. Focusing promotes acceptance and acknowledgement of the fearful and anxious place inside. When a person is safely distanced from these overwhelming feelings, she can better hear what would help ease the fear and then take the right steps. • The patient feels helpless. People who can communicate with themselves, and name what they feel, have a sense of mastery and control, feel empowered, and are better partners in the healing process.

3. Making Behavioral Changes There is often a big gap between deciding to change behavior (i.e., diet, exercise, drinking, smoking, sleep) and actually changing it. Because there are often major obstacles to altering behavior, simply knowing what needs to be changed is usually not sufficient.Focusing invites the person to check inside and see what's in the way of making a change, allowing her to have a compassionate dialogue with the reluctant aspects of herself. The reluctant aspects may speak on their own, or it may help to ask them respectful questions, such as "What makes this behavior change so hard for me? What does this resistant part of me need? What would make changing easier?" When the whole person engages in the process of change, then the change is more likely to occur.

4. Developing a Collaborative Approach The process of focusing facilitates a sense of trust and collaboration between nurse and patient, and, when paired with listening, it provides an excellent way for the nurse to relate to the patient's deeper concerns. What patients most often want from their health care team is not only information, but a sense of being seen and understood. Focusing and Listening are tools which can empower patients to listen to themselves, to take an active part in decision-making, and to change lifestyle behaviors. Even mini-Focusing moments, short exchanges embedded in interactions with patients, can help both patient and nurse befriend and work with unclear or intense feelings in a new way. These moments help to align nurse and patient as allies.