George: Yeah, totally.
Steve: You seem to have good contact with this rescuer part. Is that right?
Comment: He is sharing what he is starting to understand about the part. I invite him back into relational contact with the part where an experiential mismatch becomes possible. Only knowing about emotional learnings does not create an experiential mismatch.
George: Yeah.
Steve: How do you notice the contact? Do you feel the part in your body, feel it emotionally, seen an image of the part in your mind’s eye, hear its voice, or maybe something else?
George: My heartbeat picked up.
Steve: That’s good noticing. So you notice the presence of this part because your heartbeat picked up. What else do you notice that has you feel in contact with this part?
George: Heat.
Steve: Heat? Yeah, I can see you taking your jacket off there. Is there anything else?
George: And a tightness in the top of my chest and at the bottom of my throat.
Comment: While saying this, he placed his hand at his throat. I’m asking these questions to support him in establishing strong contact with this part.
Steve: So right there where your hand is, yeah, there’s a tightness that’s right there. And is it okay to be with this tightness right now?
Comment: I asked this question because I could feel some emotion arising when George put his hand on his throat. When working in real-time with what is arising in direct experience, it is often important to check if the client can be with what is arising. In some cases, when they check, to their surprise they might realize that they can be with their emotions, even with intense emotions. In and of itself, this can create an experiential mismatch in which the client directly experiences their capacity as Presence to be with what is unfolding. In this case, he wasn’t surprised.
George: Yeah, it is. There may be some emotion there, but it feels a bit more like that sense of panic. But it’s okay to be with it.
Steve: Okay. So how do you feel toward this part right now?
Comment: I’m checking to see if George is relating to this part from Presence or from another part. If he is relating from Presence, then we can more easily create an experiential mismatch and open the memory reconsolidation window. If, on the other hand, he is relating from another part, then he is expressing another pre-existing behavior and no mismatch is created.
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