Principles of Individual Work, Protocol for Individual Session

While every individual session is totally unique, there are principles and processes that are involved in every session. The most basic principles of individual work are true whether work is done in a one-on-one context or a group setting. They include creating and maintaining safety, setting and working with intention, finding and expanding resources, sensory awareness and somatic referencing, finding, meeting and working with potency, integration and closure.

Each session usually has a detectable beginning, middle and end. In the beginning of the session we establish intention and resources, orient, settle in and make contact. The middle of the session comes as the work deepens and the client follows their somatic experience and potency is met. You may feel the energy shift. There is usually a point where "something happens", the client may ask for people to come closer, begin to ride the edge of a feeling, or go into a pre-birth posture. The end of the session is for affirming the work, integration and closure.

Now let's look at how this might unfold within a group session. After someone claims their turn, the group may take a break and you take a moment to review the client's history and earlier stated intention. When everyone is ready to begin, you will want to help the client situate themselves and the surround the way they want it. You are then ready to help the client establish an intention.

Establishing an intention is a vital part of the session. The rationale for working with intention is multifaceted. First, it helps establish a therapeutic contract. As mentioned earlier, this concept comes from Transactional Analysis and creates an agreement between you and the client about the focus of the work. It is your job to make sure the intention is one with which you can agree and one that is manageable. It should be appropriate to the client, the group, the setting or situation and the time frame in which you are working.

The intention should relate to the client's current life. For example, if the client says, "I want to know more about or experience my birth," you might ask, "What will that give you in your life now?" The image of what they want also helps establish this as a resource. When the intention relates to current life, it makes the work relevant and connects with the client's potency. It also contains and delimits the session, keeps the session on track, and makes the work seem manageable. During the session, coming back to the intention helps orient and bring it into the present moment. The intention, then, becomes an invisible map for the work.

After you reach a mutual agreement on an intention you can support, it is good to discover some of the client's resources. A resource is anything that helps stabilize, empower or orient the client or settle the nervous system. Initially, you are looking for something that can support the client's work, something that you can use during the session. This might be an image of something related to the intention, something the client wants in their current life. It could be a felt sense of a calm or resourced state, a memory of a time of being loved and connected or an accomplishment. Often something the person has said during the process of establishing the intention or something they are wearing will give clues to resources. It is vital before launching into the pre- and perinatal work that the client has a sense of something positive or empowering as a touchstone. This will help you as you use what Peter Levine (1998) calls titration or pendulation in the work. (See below.) It will also assist you in keeping the work manageable.