"Values and the Process of Experiencing" by Eugene T. Gendlin,1967

VALUE CONCLUSIONS AND VALUE PROCESS :
PEOPLE usually tell us their value-conclusions (their choices, preferences, and goals) but they tell us little of the experiential process they engaged in to arrive at these conclusions. In this paper I will attempt to formulate some of the characteristics of an experiential process whose outcomes we usually respect as compared with a process of valuing we generally do not respect. I will try to show that the problem of values can be seen quite differently and more usefully if we consider not only value-conclusions, but also the characteristics of the process.

1. For example, if a young man in psychotherapy decides to apply to medical school, the value problem is not really the value he or we put on medical school, prestige, or on helping people through medicine. Rather, the question is, What kind of process, what kind of "working through," led to his decision? If he has worked through only a very few of his feelings; if, for example, he has yielded to his family's wishes without resolving a sense of resentment, we are likely to consider the therapeutic process in this respect a failure, no matter how strongly we share his value-conclusion about a medical career. Conversely, if he has referred to many of his personal feelings concerning his life and family, if he has in many instances found these feelings becoming more differentiated and yielding up meanings he previously did not differentiate, and if this process has led with experiential clarity to this choice, we feel the therapy was successful even if we ourselves do not fully share all the value-conclusions of the patient's choice. Another example is the following: If a student in therapy decides to quit school, again our own values about higher education do not determine the probable rightness or wrongness. Rather, it will depend upon whether the decision arises directly from an increased ability to make free choices, from differentiations of feelings and meanings, or whether he is fleeing from unexamined difficulties and giving in to a sense of failure which he has not worked out.

These examples attempt to show that what counts is the manner of the process leading to value-conclusions, not the abstract conclusions alone. What we usually term "values" are only conclusions. In the above examples I held the conclusion constant. I tried to show that a positive or negative manner of process can lead to a given conclusion. I will argue that the whole value question is clarified if we consider this differing manner of process.
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The differences in process are not merely private:
we can observe the process differences in how an individual speaks. Major observable differences in later behavior are predictable from different manners of this process. For example, many industries select people for positions according to the kind of process they have gone through in deciding to apply. This is called a consideration of the applicant's "motivation," but more specifically, we mean the experiential process whereby he has become so "motivated." The value-conclusion (his decision to apply) does not tell us enough. For, from differences in the motivational process, the process by which applicants came to the decision to apply, we predict different kinds of behavior.

Two individuals may arrive at the "same" verbal value-conclusion and may hold it with equal firmness, yet the experiential meaning each has for this value-conclusion may be very different. One young man leaves school and applies for the position; his leaving school, however, remains an unresolved failure that haunts him through life. For the other young man, it is a move of freedom and ownership of his life; for the first time he acts on his own from genuine interests.

In our considerations of value problems, we must look not only at the value-conclusion, but also at the experiential process through which the conclusion is arrived at. Otherwise, utterly different concrete conditions will be incorrectly classified as the "same" value-conclusions.

2. Here is a second aspect of this question of values in psychotherapy: The client's movement toward this or that value-conclusion is temporary. (Of course he may commit himself to permanence through external ties, and this is a danger.) A student may decide to leave school and, through this freeing process, he may discover his ownership of life, and his own felt interest in things. Thereby he may, a little later, decide in a new way to go to school. This new decision may come even before he has had a chance to drop out of school, or it may come some time later. The experiential process often seems at a given moment to be leading to one value-conclusion. A little later it may head toward quite a different or opposite value-conclusion. Quite often several such shifts of seeming direction can occur within a few minutes, as the therapeutic process moves from one differentiation of feeling to another.

The therapist ceases to be helpful if he balks at moving along with his client just because, for the moment, the experiential process seems to be moving toward a value-conclusion he finds difficult to bear. In the experiential process (the process of differentiating one's felt meanings) the seeming value-direction shifts very often. Actually, what we term its seeming value-direction is not the direction of the process itself.

3. The process clearly has its own direction, given by the present, immediately confronted, felt meaning. Attention to and differentiation of this felt meaning is forward for the experiential process. Anything else is backward or sideways. The value-conclusion we interpolate only seems implied in a given moment of the process. We interpolate a straight line forward from just this one felt meaning. We fear that a student will quit school if he differentiates and confronts this strong feeling of inability, failure, hatred, lack of motivation and of being forced to study. We fear that a man who comes more and more to see the meanings in his desire to get a divorce will actually do so. If we let a client confront and differentiate his felt desire to die, to give up, to avoid coping with anything more, we fear that he will actually commit suicide.

Nor am I saying that we should not fear, or that we can help fearing. What I do assert is that if a given felt meaning offers itself as "next" to be differentiated, then for the present experiential process the differentiation of this felt meaning is "forward." This felt meaning, however, tells us nothing about the value-conclusion at which the individual will eventually arrive. When a given felt meaning is differentiated and felt through, the process will move on. The patient will inwardly confront another different felt meaning. That one will then be "next." Differentiating that felt meaning will then be forward for the experiential process. What value-direction will then seem to be implied by that next felt meaning is not foreseeable. It may seem to be in the same direction, or in the opposite direction, or it may shift the scene to altogether different issues.

When we travel in a car on a road that leads west we may frequently travel north or south for a stretch, for the road takes all sorts of curves, and its direction is by no means always west. Especially in mountainous country serpentine curves seemingly lead backwards and forwards; yet it is always clear where the road is. On the map it may be marked as a straight line going west, but on the actual ground we must follow the road, not going off into the bush just because for the moment the road has turned.

The third characteristic of the experiential process I am discussing is that it has its own determinants of what is forward for itself. The next felt direct referent which the client inwardly finds arising is forward. Or, if he confronts no such felt meaning, then his own inward scanning is next. Soon, there will be a felt meaning to be differentiated. The client can talk about anything else, can examine other things, can argue with himself in various directions, can explain or rationalize anything he wishes, yet nothing changes until he does confront this "next" felt meaning which has remained unchanged by all the previous talk. As he attends to it, this one felt meaning unfolds into very many different aspects and meanings. As it "unfolds," he can feel it "give" or change (in a bodily, physical way, like a feeling of hunger or pain). There is a physically felt relief when one grasps inwardly what a felt meaning really is. Sometimes the exactly right words have this effect. At other times the client may say, "Oh . . . !" and he knows (in a feeling way) what "it" is, quite some seconds before he finds words that fit.

Elsewhere (Gendlin, 1964), I have termed the phases of this process "direct reference," "unfolding," and "referent movement." After such referent movement, the inward scene has changed. Different felt meanings now wait to be differentiated. The interpolated value-direction may now seem quite differ-
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ent. What is important for our discussion is that the process is not determined by any value-conclusions that are aimed at, but by its own experiential, felt data to which the individual inwardly refers.

4. It is true that often the client does hold certain value-conclusions and strongly wishes to remain loyal to them. As value-conclusions, these are quite helpless to affect the experiential process. They do not determine where the process leads. On the other hand, the client usually has many feelings concerning these value-conclusions. Such concrete feelings become differentiated, and they are a part of the experiential process. Most often he holds to such value-conclusions for reasons relevant to his sense of self and his way of being alive.

In an experiential process, such value-conclusions become related to very specific experiential meanings, in comparison to which the old value-conclusions now seem much too general. Yet he can often keep them in this changed, experientially connected form. A client who has, for example, developed an ability and love for study may find in psychotherapy that this has been an avoidance of coping with the world—but he need not thereby lose his ability to study nor his love of it. Likewise, a biting, bitter sense of humor may lose its hurting manner but none of its sharpness. A client may have a conflicted mixture of authority problems in his religion together with a deep personal sense of some sort of spirituality; the latter is maximized when the former dissolves. If the client is outwardly a well-functioning, go-getting doer, he does not lose this ability or the joy of it, when he temporarily shelves his active adult self for a psychotherapy hour in which he lives the feelings of a small helpless child, wanting not to cope with anything, only to be cared for.

Notice that the above examples could be taken to imply value-conclusions and value-choices. I say "could be" because as I have phrased them, they concern concrete aspects of experiencing. I think the descriptive language I am employing gives a faithful account. It is not a choice between value-conclusions, or between value systems, value concepts, or values of any sort. We differentiate and symbolize the felt meanings which emerge. We do not apply concepts of values (value-conclusions) to choose what fits our values. The order of events is quite the reverse. First we differentiate the concretely felt meanings of experiencing. The feel of these new meanings determines much more specific value choices. Thus, I may first find that a certain way I feel about my religion puzzles and dismays me, and turns out to be, at a first differentiation, my hatred of what the religious people around me did to me. This feeling seems quite opposed to the broad value-conclusions I hold. Later, it may turn out to have more specific aspects, for instance, the inward cry that I can be good and valuable, despite the worthlessness and guilt that those people made me feel. Still later it may become further differentiated. There may, for example, arise a felt sense of being at peace and deeply whole.

This series of examples is meant to illustrate that the concrete differentiation of highly specific aspects of experiencing comes first. We do not use concepts or value-conclusions to evaluate various aspects of our religion, calling
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some "authority aspects" and others "genuinely spiritual." Such a sorting would be a conceptual one, and would lead to the old question: What value system decides which is which? But we do not even have concepts for these specific experiential differentiations. Indeed, the reverse is the case. During psychotherapy the client must invent concepts and define them for his personal momentary use precisely by making them refer to the highly specific, new aspects of felt meaning which he must first concretely differentiate.

The choices are made on the basis of these concrete experiential differentiations. Such choices have an experientially felt specificity, clarity, and sureness. What is the source of such experiential "sureness"? It lies in the concrete feel of the specific experienced meanings themselves, once differentiated.

In another example, an individual feels a desire to be free of artificial expectations, and the very feel of this desire to be free is positive. It is not a matter of "valuing freedom." The individual may conceptually deplore this feeling. He may view it as going against every positive value he conceptually holds for himself. But, there it is, and it feels good. He wants to be free of artificial expectations.

He is stuck now, however, because he also feels that he wants to achieve this and that kind of success. The question, "Why does he feel that?" can be answered with all kinds of conceptual and dynamic explanations that are useless for him. Such a question can obtain an effective answer only as he again focuses on the felt meaning of his desire to achieve. He is afraid, he now finds, afraid of getting utterly lost in the world if he doesn't achieve. In fact, among other aspects, he now finds that he is afraid in many ways, very afraid. The idea that he will not achieve, but rather just merely live, makes him afraid. It seems awful, too frightening, to "merely live"—to be "just another person among people." Here is his fear of life, his motivation to avoid life and the world! He need not phrase it that way. He need not evaluate it as bad. It feels bad!

The order in which experiential valuing occurs is the reverse of how it is often portrayed. We do not first adopt value-conclusions from some system and then apply them to choose between different possibilities. First we must confront and differentiate experienced meanings (felt meanings). Then we find that these now differentiated felt meanings have a significant feel of good or bad, resolved or conflicted. If the latter, we resolve them by differentiating still further and further. For any meaningful problem many steps are required, many instances of "direct reference," "unfolding," and "referent movement." The seeming interpolated value-direction may shift many times. The process has its own direction, its own concrete referent which is "next" for it, and the felt meanings have their own inward feel of resolution or conflict, constriction or relief, resentment or freeing, fresh realness or stuffy, isolated autism, and just plain good or bad.

Not only in regard to values, but in regard to any symbolization of felt meanings, there is a two-sided problem: When is the correct and releasing process complete?

Symbolizations may, in the very change they bring through being accurate, lead to the emergence of further felt meanings which are unresolved and require further symbolization. Or they may not. A given step may fully resolve it.

One checks the symbolization against many explicit concerns and many directly felt concerns, and one finds that the matter is "resolved." One feels "whole" or "clear" or whatever poetic words one wishes to use for this condition. However, there is an additional side to this question.

Any new events or situations, questions or circumstances can, again, require further steps of process. Such further steps do not mean that the earlier steps were "wrong" in the sense that one must backtrack. But changing circumstances and new questions can require further steps which can lead to verbally opposite conclusions (thus making the earlier verbal conclusions now seem "wrong"). This two-sidedness, this fact that an aspect of the process can be "complete," and yet is also open to further interaction involving further needs for resolution, is an aspect of the basic relationship between experiencing and symbols (Gendlin, 1962).

Value-conclusions do not determine the directions or outcomes of the process of differentiating experiencing.

Nor does felt rightness indicate value rightness. With the felt relief of some differentiation the individual knows directly in a felt way what "this feeling" is. The differentiation may involve great felt relief even when what emerges is an even worse situation and more troublesome conflict than he had supposed. Although the direction may seem deplorable to him, he feels unquestionable relief as he differentiates. (It is as if he is so glad to know, at last, what the feeling is. However it isn't really a gladness at knowing, since, if he had been told this piece of knowledge without the concrete differentiation's having occurred, he would not have felt at all glad.) "Now I really have no idea what to do about that," he may say, referring to the newly revealed state of affairs. "That's really much worse than I thought, and I really am baffled now." Yet he feels physically good, having taken the resolving, differentiating step.

Value-conclusions are always general and broad.

On the other hand, the experiential aspects of felt meaning which one differentiates are extremely specific (they may be hard to state in words, but they are "this, here"—quite a specific concrete aspect I feel now and refer to). The value-conclusion question is, "Will he stay in school, and are scholarly aspirations good?" The experientially concrete aspects of felt meaning are "this sense of being trapped," and "that feeling of doing something freshly because its fascinates me." The value-conclusions are assumptions, premises, themselves needing the support of an even broader value system, which in turn leads us to questions of just what supports a value system. The experientially differentiated aspects of felt meaning need no conceptual value system at all for their felt sense of life-enhancing, experiencing-maximizing, interpersonal-vivifying quality, or their constricting, fear- and conflict-producing, isolating, and life-minimizing quality.
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Eugene T. Gendlin is a seminal American philosopher and psychologist. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago and taught there from 1963 to 1995. His philosophical work is concerned especially with the relationship between logic and implicit intricacy. Philosophy books include Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning, Language Beyond Post-Modernism: Saying and Thinking in Gendlin's Philosophy edited by David Michael Levin, (fourteen commentaries and Gendlin’s replies), and A Process Model. There is a world wide network of applications and practices (www.focusing.org) stemming from this philosophy.

Gendlin has been honored three times by the American Psychological Association for his development of Experiential Psychotherapy. He was a founder and editor for many years of the Association’s Clinical Division Journal, Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice. His book Focusing has sold over half a million copies and has appeared in seventeen languages. His psychology-related books are Let Your Body Interpret Your Dreams and Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy.
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