Super-ordinate theme three: Developing Awareness

For all the participants, developing self-awareness arose as a by-product of their experiences of their breath awareness. Self-awareness appeared to be heightened by participants’ observation of their breath. 5 of the 6 participants gained awareness by self-enquiry or by reflecting on their experiences and their client’s experiences. These themes will be discussed in the following.

4.5.1 Developing self-awareness

All the participants spoke about developing awareness and saw this as deriving from their breath experiences. Their breath awareness seemed to direct them toward a greater understanding of themselves as well as, the clients that they interacted with. For Sarah, it appeared that there was an increase into her client’s experiences of feeling ‘more’ understood.

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Sarah: ‘I was more aware of what I was doing internally becoming more aware of what

I was feeling which in turn gave me more insight into how they were so I’m feeling that they felt more understood to explain so much’.

On a more personal level that did not involve direct contact with a client, Sarah spoke of how her breath impacted her.

Sarah: ‘ just needed to just go out just breathe and that did really calm me down , it’s

rolled on it’s made me very aware aware of my life really and that I need to just get back to basics’.

When she said ‘I just needed to’ I felt she had already known that breathing would help her and that she could rely on it.

Her comment of, ‘I need to just get back to basics’ and her mention of her life brought to my mind the relationship between breathing and it sustaining life and perhaps this what was meant by ‘ back to basics’.

Mark specifically spoke about mindfulness and how it related to awareness of himself, his body and his environment. His reflection also indicated the ability to increase mindfulness when he said ‘more mindful’.

Mark: ‘you know it goes to even a point when I become a lot more mindful as well

because being aware of yourself erm being aware of yourself erm and how your body is you become. I think you become a bit more aware of your environment as well as I become more mindful of what’s around me’.

Making sense of breath awareness as a new experience added depth to Stewart’s expression when he spoke about opening up internally. I felt it was a profound experience for him when he said, ‘I think the breathing is sort of opening my chest’. It

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felt like his opening up once experienced was something that moved him emotionally and that he wanted that to continue.

Stewart; ‘you know I open up a little bit more internally, I think I, wanting to, I want to

be really open with the people that I work with that’s what I want to be and I think the breathing is sort of opening my chest’.

For Joanna, her awareness and insight about what was happening for her and around her seem to unfold when she used the breath to ‘pause’.

Joanna: ‘ the breath for me is a little bit like a pause when I return to my breath I’m

having a pause which gives me a chance to notice where I am any sensations in my body, any thoughts, any feelings and in that pause, I’m just kind of coming into an observer position’.

In the way that Joanna described ‘a little bit like a pause’, I felt immediately a sense of space. There seemed for Joanna, that the breath gave her space and time to reflect and as she said, this assisted her to take up an ‘observer position’. I interpreted as her observation before she responds to anything involving herself or her client. Joanna also used a metaphor when she said breath awareness gave her ‘a platform to stand

on’. Her increased awareness seemed considerable when she also stated that she

had a sense of empowerment as it provided her with a window into emotions. For me, I found the word ‘window’ described a way in which to look into her emotions and look outward when she responded to her client. I felt Joanna described both of these happening in juxtaposition.

Joanna: ‘I think it’s empowering because again it’s it’s a tool as I say it gives me a

window onto erm emotions and responses but it also gives me a platform to stand on when I want to erm get a handle on what’s happening’.

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4.5.2 Developing awareness by reflection

Examining the different themes that arose from participants’ interviews, developing self-awareness was different from developing awareness by reflection involving 5/6 participants in the group. Participants Mark and Stewart found that their breath awareness led them to ask themselves questions. While they did not come up with answers, the questioning itself seemed to support them to remain open to what was occurring between them and their clients. Mark called this ‘checking in’.

Mark: ‘if you’re feeling a little bit of anxiety and checking in you know whose anxiety is

this which is fundamental I think in psychotherapy of actually knowing whose whose you know whose emotion does this emotion belong to erm and I think by breathing it helps you sort that as well’.

Stewart also conveyed that he did not find his breath experiences unhelpful or negative, but he expressed that he too would question his experience and attempt to make sense of his interaction with his clients while in therapy with them.

Stewart: ‘so so nothing sort of majorly negative about it just that just that sense of

times when you know am I with me? or am I with them?’.

The questioning appeared to help Stewart to be curious about what was happening between him and his clients.

Linda described instances in psychotherapy with her clients when she was not sure about what to do. She also said that she would question herself and if she doubted herself, then she noticed her breath changed and this informed her that she was anxious. The internal dialogues that Linda described gave her information about her own states that I saw as contributing to her understanding of herself.

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Tracy also spoke of a change in her breath prompting her to ‘just wonder why’ and that then supported further reflection that she might return to with a client in a subsequent session. Hence reflection assisted the therapeutic process between Tracy and her client.