For all beginning therapists one of the hardest things to come to terms with is that less is more. It is easy to feel pressured to ‘do’ something to help our client’s suffering. Over the years I have come to appreciate the importance of the skill of attunement and how it is central to a transformative experience.
During the first few years of life the ability of a mother to be attuned to the needs of her infant is crucial to their development. This attunement is important to a child’s ability to learn to regulate their nervous system and deal with distressing events. When a mother consistently fails to be attuned different types of insecure attachment result. One could say that a mother’s attunement is the building block to how one learns to be connected to others, build relationships, and feel safe in the world. This article discusses how the skill of attunement in therapy has similar effects.
A definition of attunement ‘is a kinesthetic and emotional sensing of others knowing their rhythm, affect and experience by metaphorically being in their skin, and going beyond empathy to create a two-person experience of unbroken feeling connectedness by providing a reciprocal affect and/or resonating response’. (Erksine 1998). One could say it is our ability to be present to, and with, another’s expression of their experience. I view attunement as the meta skill of therapy which might have subheadings, such as; empathy, mindfulness, immediacy, active listening, presence, experience and knowledge, and cognitive understanding. Any of these skills on their own is not attunement, but at times come into ‘tuning into’ our clients and sometimes work in tandem as we grapple with understanding and connecting to them. The ability to be attuned really comes down to how connected to our clients we are in the moment to moment process of therapy, and how successfully we can communicate that to them. Our responses and interventions are then a result of this attunement.
Goal of Therapy
An important process in therapy is working through emotional pain. Emotions are the glue that integrates fragmented experiences, especially where trauma has occurred. This requires us to be comfortable with experiencing emotions. Often when people begin therapy they are not comfortable with emotions. We have likely learned to barricade ourselves from our emotional pain to survive. What we have come to understand is that this survival strategy is not conducive to being resilient. It is simple, but true, as we are more comfortable with emotional vulnerability and pain we are more comfortable with adversity. If we continue to defend against pain we will remain powerless and fearful of life and in a cycle of detaching from pain as it arises. Many clients enter therapy when this cycle becomes a crisis.
Therapy provides an opportunity and relationship that highlights the tension between focusing on the person’s experience (including emotional pain) and the strategies of trying to detach from it.
As a therapist self awareness is an important attribute which helps them to remain focused on their clients, and be able to use their internal reactions to understand their client’s re-enactment of their world. A commitment to their own personal work is therefore crucial to a therapist’s development of being deeply connected to their clients.
Tuning in to our clients experience is an essential skill to navigate and facilitate a comfort with their experience and bring to light aspects of their experience they have separated from.
The following example of a transformative moment examines the role of attunement in therapy. At one point in the session a client was talking about how she trusted me and felt safe in response to an inquiry I made. I noticed as she was talking her hands were fidgeting along with a felt sense that her words did not convey that as true. A kind of visceral feeling within me of slight anxiety. I inquired about the feeling in her hands and to slow down as she expressed that she felt safe. As she did this she was able to identify anxiety and the contradiction this brought up. She was able to voice her need to respond to me and people in her life with what she anticipates they want, and to identify feelings of being unsafe in relationships. By tuning in to both myself and her experience we were able to explore what was unsaid and contradictory.
Attunement is a skill that is seeking the truth in every moment. Truth may be in layers. It is easy to get lost in words and content and attunement takes us into the unknown of experience because we are ‘tuning in’ to more than the content. Content that is shared lies in the realm of what is known to the client and conscious. By taking in all of our client’s experience we communicate a deeper listening and attention. As we develop this skill we are more likely to convey an interest in our clients true self and give permission for parts of the clients experience that is hidden or unconscious. In this example the client identified with saying what was expected of her and through an inquiry from an attuned place was able to express her vulnerability.
Trauma led the client to prioritize others’ needs over her own, reinforcing the belief that her experience was irrelevant. Attending to her unexpressed emotions validated her authentic self and began to dismantle this pattern.
My client had learned to split her public persona from her emotions, a split intensified by early betrayal and dependency. This dissociation manifested as self-doubt and confusion. By highlighting the disconnect between her words and actions, I helped her access and express suppressed feelings, fostering deeper connection and emotional vulnerability. This process of connecting to the truth of one’s experience is the heart of therapy.
Now that doesn’t mean it is easy for people. Many have great difficulty focusing on their experience, and for good reason. The experiences that cause a person to constrict are painful and contain fear. So as they focus on their internal, physical, and emotional self, their emotional pain will be encountered. Creating safety to experience this pain in a way that is manageable, is fundamental to transformative moments. When one is emotionally overwhelmed their internal world feels out of control, and therefore unsafe. If this happens we tend to constrict our experience again to gain control.
In order to focus inward and on our experience we need to feel safe enough to take our attention away from what is happening in the environment onto ourselves. Experiences of safety (or not) occur from birth. A child’s exploration through movement and sensory experiences fosters self-discovery, but intrusion or neglect disrupts this process, inhibiting emotional expression and personality integration. Overprotection, a form of intrusion, also fosters fear and stifles curiosity. A safe environment balances protection with encouragement, allowing children to explore freely. Conversely, a perceived lack of safety constricts this exploratory space.
Therapists gauge a client’s psychic space to connect with the immediate experience and meet the client at their contact boundaries (cognitive, somatic, behavioural, verbal, and emotional cues). The therapist expands a client’s comfort as much as the client can tolerate.
Maintaining safety involves regulating the pace of processing uncomfortable material. Therapists must attune to signs of overwhelm or stagnation, adjusting the therapeutic container as needed.
Communicating presence with alongside our clients fosters safety, connection and belonging. Attunement is fundamental to a deeply connected experience.
Safety is enhanced through conscious awareness of the therapist’s reactions and responses. Knowing how those internal responses serve the client or hinder, promotes safety.
Therapeutic priorities shift based on client needs. Attunement allows for real-time adjustments, facilitating transformative moments. For one client, validating unexpressed feelings was paramount, disrupting trauma enactment. For another, establishing safety to express anxiety was crucial. Attunement, central to these tasks, supports clients in developing emotional ease. This emphasizes the profound impact of attentive, attuned practice.
Are you a new therapist or mid career looking to develop your skills. I bring 30 + years of experience to that exploration.