• Therapists should develop skills to connect with and sponsor themselves

• development of skills that include deep listening, responsive silence, and receptivity to the various "presences" people bring to therapy
• In part, this suggests a therapist response that is an alternative to the reactive "What do I do?" response to the client., namely, "How do I connect?"

• in Self Relations, certain questions become important ones to be curious about
• these are called "orienting questions" - which are a bit like "rhetorical questions" in that they are not meant to be literally answered, but instead to tune and sensitize your awareness to certain presences and qualities in a client
• some examples:
• Who is this client? Sense the human presence behind the problem or story they're relating
• What transformation is taking place? How is the client trying to grow & develop?
• What is the client fighting for? What are they trying to achieve?
• What part(s) of the client need to be appreciated?

• the skill of "holding" a question leads to the skill of "receiving" an answer
• this includes the skill of allowing oneself to be affected by the client and to notice how one is affected by the client

• this is the direct antidote to the alienation of experience
• in the same vein as just described with receptivity - when clients respond to avoid or shut down an experience, the therapist can use his/her contribution to the relational field to hold the same experience

• resonant naming is the skill of finding/feeling, etc. a way to name/describe an experience that is alienated or "neglected" in a person so that they recognize it and experience it as a part of themselves

• this is the complementary skill/experience to the experience of holding on
• this is when the therapist recognizes that any name or description - no matter how "accurate" is never the whole story
• the therapist must be able to let go of one description/story/"name" and allow another to appear and take shape

• When clients come to therapy dominated by a particular description of themselves ("I am depression, only depression, nothing else"), this is the skill that allows the therapist to notice complementary truths, for example, that the client is a loving parent and partner, an intelligent student, caring human being, etc.

• in Self Relations, these self negating processes are primarily identified as alienating influences ("aliens") or intoxicating influences ("intoxicants")
• Alienating influences (aliens) typically are self critical remarks - often identifiable as "alien" by virtue of their use of the 2^nd person (e.g., "You're no good", "you always mess up", etc.)
• intoxicating influences can include chemicals, but also include certain emotional & psychological states that tend to numb and feed on themselves in a fashion similar to chemical intoxicants
• examples of these include self pity, grandiosity, and jealousy
• this skill would include the narrative practice of externalization as well as more conventional therapeutic skills such as confrontation
• note that in Self Relations, it is vital that practices such as confrontation be utilized in a relational field that is prominently influenced by such factors as love (or some other highly positive therapeutic relational connection), a strong relational connection to the client, and clear awareness and holding of complementary truths (so that the therapist is clear and sends into the relational field the idea that the client is not identified as the quality being confronted - otherwise, the therapist might very well become another alienating influence)

• simply stated, the ability to simultaneously hold experientially multiple truths. You are this, and this, and this, etc.

• in essence, this is the skill of recognizing when your interventions are going nowhere - and you need to start over!

* Adapted from: Gilligan, S.G., (1997). The courage to love: Principles and practices of self-relations psychotherapy. New York: Norton.