How To Conduct Your Own Experiential Session
Based on the new book by Alvin R. Mahrer, Ph.D.
Learning how to conduct your own experiential session is based on the research and therapeutic endeavors developed by Alvin R. Mahrer, Ph.D. Over the years, Dr. Alvin R. Mahrer has incorporated his understanding of human behavior, in conjunction with actual therapeutic skills in order to teach people how to discover what is deeper inside. In the end, your goal is toward an opportunity to become a qualitatively new person. To begin a process of self-transformation. This is a radical shift in the direction of becoming the person you are capable of becoming.
By undertaking the opportunities that can arise when having your own experiential session, you will moving in the direction of becoming more of the person you really are. In other words, during each session you will discover a new potential or a deeper quality reflecting who you could be. Whatever you discover, it is you. There are many possibilities within you and each session is an opportunity to discover these qualities. It is a process of self transformation—to become the person you can become.
Therapeutic Goals
- To become a qualitatively new person.
2. To be free of a painful scene and
the painful feelings associated with that scene.
The four steps below, roughly outline how to go about having your own session. If you are serious about real comprehensive change in the very person you are, may I suggest that you purchase and read Becoming The Person You Can Become. In this book, Mahrer has put together this incredible guide as an introduction to learning how to conduct your own session. There are also audio tapes available, on which you can hear how Dr. Mahrer has his own sessions (see information below).
"Do not just talk about problems. Do not just label or describe problems. Doing these things can be great fun and exceedingly common. They fuel what most people do, most of the time. They fuel an entire field of psychotherapy and counseling. They also ensure that you never discover the deeper potential for experiencing. Instead, stay on track to find a scene of strong feeling. Once you find the scene, there are things to do so that you can discover the deeper potential for experiencing."
Alvin R. Mahrer, Becoming The Person You Can Become..., p.174
Step One
Discovering The Deeper Potential For Experiencing
1. Put yourself in a state of readiness for relatively strong feeling.
2. Find a scene of strong feeling.
3. Fully live and be in the scene of strong feeling.
4. Discover the peak moment of strong feeling in the scene of strong feeling.
In the moment of strong feeling, the deeper potential for experiencing is discovered when there is a qualitative shift in experiencing when you:
- Fill in the critical details of the precise moment of strong feeling.
- Intensify the strong feeling.
- Be the special other person-thing.
- Replace the bad feeling with good feeling.
Step Two
Welcome, Accept, Cherish The Deeper Potential For Experiencing
- Name, describe the deeper potential for experiencing.
-Acknowledge feelings about the deeper potential for experiencing.
- Savor, enjoy the momentary bodily sensations.
- Use other methods given in the manual.
Step Three
Undergo A Qualitative Shift Into Being The Deeper Potential For Experiencing In The Context Of Recent, Earlier, And Remote Life Scenes
- Find a recent, earlier, and remote life scenes.
- Use the deeper potential for experiencing to find scenes.
- Use the general structure of the initial scene of strong feeling.
- Undergo a qualitative shift into being the whole new person in these life
scenes.
- Do so fully, genuinely, with powerful feeling, with joyful feeling, free of all
reality constraints, in context of whole freedom-silliness-zaniness.
Step Four
Be The Qualitatively Whole New Person In Scenes From The Forthcoming New Post-Session World
- Remain the qualitatively new person.
- Find imminent scenes and situations that are outrageously unrealistic, in
which the new person can playfully and fully wallow in being the qualitatively
new person.
- Extrapolate from scenes already used in the session.
- Extrapolate from deeper potential to generate scenes; (e.g. ideal scenes;
mundane scenes; fantasy daydream scenes; impossibly inappropriate
scenes; devilishly wicked scenes; would-love-to scenes).
- Playfully and fully wallow in being the qualitatively new person in the wildly
unrealistic scenes and situations.
The qualitatively new person frames scenes that are realistically fitting and appropriate. Rehearse and modify being the qualitatively new person in these scenes until it is just right.
- Use bodily sensations as a criterion — guide.
- Invite reactions from former person.
- Insert qualitatively new person in initial scene of strong (bad) feeling.
- Commit yourself to being the qualitatively new person, with whole new
ways of being and behaving, in the rehearsed scenes and situations.
- After the session, actually be the qualitatively whole new person in the new
ways in the new extratherapy world.
To learn more about this about this therapy, make sure you read the following:
The Complete Guide To Experiential Psychotherapy
Alvin R. Mahrer, 1996. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.)
Becoming The Person You Can Become:
The Complete Guide To Self Transformation
Alvin R. Mahrer, October 2002. (Bull Publications)
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