A GoodTherapy.org Featured Column written by Cedar Barstow, M.Ed., C.H.T.
Click here to contact Cedar and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
What a pleasure to go to the site here at GoodTherapy.org and find responses to the Ethics Column from Sam and Sally and Meg and Rob. I want to appreciate you for your interest in ethics and for your thoughtful and thought-generating words.
Grief and the Sensitivity Cycle
Both Meg and Rob were thinking about grief. So a bit more about that. Grief, of course, has it’s own rhythm and pace, and is a process….neither to be rushed nor clung to. I’m reminded of the Sensitivity Cycle from the Hakomi Method. The Sensitivity Cycle describes the process of becoming more and more sensitive and effective. It has four phases: clarity, effectiveness, satisfaction, and relaxation. All four phases need attention and organically move on to the next. In thinking of grief, for example, first you need to be clear about what you’re grieving, then take some kind of effective action, then find and integrate some satisfaction from the action you took, and then relax and let go—so that you will have made space for a new cycle. It is easy to get stuck at each phase and with grief it seems that the most common place to get stuck is in letting go. Getting unstuck and letting go when it is time seems to involves having a “gut” sense of the timing. It also involves trusting that letting go of the process of grieving for a person, thing, or event, doesn’t mean letting go of it all, but rather knowing that you have integrated it, or the learning from it, within you.
In responding to Sally who is looking for some more depth, I’d like to say something about two kinds of ethical decision-making edited from pages 59-61 of my book: Right Use of Power: The Heart of Ethics. I find that we as professionals most often think of ethical decision-making simply and solely as the second kind I describe as complex decision-making without putting conscious attention toward ordinary moment, every day kind of ethical decision-making. Read the rest of this entry