The mysterious alchemy of holding space
And what gets in the way
There are many important components to the therapy process, including a strong formulation1, and various models of intervention. However, one of the most transformative and underrated aspects of the therapy dynamic is the art of holding space and presence.
This is something we struggle to do in the Westernised world.
We live in a world where space is always crowded. Conversations happen while phones are pinging a multitude of notifications. Thoughts racing a million miles an hour. We’re distracted, multi-tasking, over-scheduled. We fill the space with noise.
This way of living is over-stimulating our nervous systems, depleting our energy, and drowning out the quiet voice of our intuition.
It’s disconnecting us from ourselves and each other.
And it’s the antithesis of what’s needed for healing and growth.
When someone shares their story or their struggles, in life or in the therapy room, there are common traps we can fall into that shut down presence, kill the flow of connection, and lead us to dead ends.
These include:
Thinking we know what the other needs to do
Over-identification with the story (I’ve experienced that too, I know what you’re going through)
Advice giving
Fixing (this set of strategies will solve your problem)
These patterns are often born of our anxiety and discomfort. We struggle to be with another’s distress and want to make the discomfort disappear. We want to appear helpful, knowledgeable, useful.
For the recipient, it can feel reductionistic and invalidating when we’re met with these responses. It leaves people feeling unseen and unheard. It takes away agency, communicating that we are not competent or trusted to figure it out.
And the bottom line is, since we have not walked in the other person’s shoes, we cannot fully know their experience or what is needed for their learning and growth.
Deep listening requires that we set aside our desire to fix, however well-intentioned it may be. It requires that we park our ‘good ideas’ long enough to be fully open and present to what we are witnessing.
These patterns can be like a life raft we cling to, offering an illusion of certainty, clarity, and control, in the midst of the chaos of human struggle.
They’re seductive, but misguided. They’re not where the aliveness and possibility live.
I know I’ve just fallen into one of these holes when the creative energy in the therapy room becomes constricted and stagnant. There’s a tussle of trying to wrangle something into shape, often met with resistance, and I find myself over-efforting, heady, bossy, directive.
To be a helpful companion to another in their moment of need, we need to be willing to let go of the life raft, to step into the murky waters with them, and tread water by their side for a time, without seeking to rescue or circumvent the moment.
Uncertainty is part of the magic of the therapeutic exchange.
It’s a close cousin of curiosity, openness, and spontaneity.
The moment we think we are certain, the moment we begin to offer a fix or a strategy that we just ‘know’ is right for this person, we have stepped outside of the flow of co-creation, lost the depth of connection with the other person in the room, and broken the spell of therapeutic possibility.
All these traps pop up often, in therapy and elsewhere, promising a quick fix or shortcut to the outcomes we would love to see for the person in front of us.
And it’s not that they are never useful. Certainly, having had a similar experience can offer profound insights, and there’s a time and place for skillful strategies or advice. But they need to be held lightly, offered tentatively, and sparingly. More of a side show than the main event. If someone is seeking advice, they will usually ask directly. Even then, it’s often more useful to guide them back to their inner wisdom.
The heart of the therapeutic process is leading people to their own discoveries, through steady holding of space, attentiveness of presence, thoughtful questioning, and deep trust in each individual’s innate wisdom and capacity for healing.
To hold space is to treat the conversation a little like a co-meditation. The alchemy happens when we settle back into our own embodied awareness, dropping the distractions, and attuning deeply to breath and body, self and other, listening and receiving.
We receive the other person in the room, their words, rhythms, emotions, and longings. And we also receive ourselves - our breath, body, insights, intuitions, wonderings.
The other person is wordlessly invited into that shared space, slowing down, turning inwards, and beginning to hear and notice themselves. From here, emotions can be met, meaning can be explored, insights and discoveries can arise that do not seem to have come directly from the thinking mind. There’s a co-created field. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
It’s tough to resist falling into the well-worn traps, and I’m much less careful at monitoring for them outside of my therapist role. Yet they’re equally important in other relationships.
Honest, deep, vulnerable communication closes down when we jump in, over-talk, think we know, get lost in our heads, or jump three steps ahead of where the other person is at.
This is where the introverts of this world may have the edge. Most communication can benefit from slowing down and talking less.
It enables life to be processed and metabolised. When we overfill the space with words, it’s like over-stuffing our bellies with food. There’s no room to digest.
The deepest transformation often happens when I step out of the way of the process. When I trust my clients (or partner, or friends) to hold the answers to their own dilemmas and to source these from within. When I allow their body, their intuition, their wisdom to guide the way. When I stay with them in the not-knowing, in the depth of emotion, and bear witness to this place.
It requires letting go of directing and orchestrating, dropping any pre-conceived ideas or plans, and being prepared to be surprised. It requires a trust in the unknown and a willingness to make up the script as we go.
It creates a powerful container, a space where people can truly meet themselves, with the gentle witnessing presence of another acting as a mirror. Many of our wounds took place in relationship, and we need to heal in relationship too.
Deep presence is the language of care.
And it’s a space where magic can happen.
Thank you for reading. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and responses. What is your experience with holding space - as a giver or a recipient? Please join me in the comments to share your insights.
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Disclaimer - Content is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only, and is not a substitute for mental health treatment or advice.
What you have written is something I know, feel in my bones and is the core of the art of the therapy practice , but you wrote in such a powerfully succinct way it reminds me and resonates with me all over again. Hope this is okay to use in supervision with the therapists in my organization. It’s one of the great fundamental agreements of the field: willingness (and ability) to hold a healing space!
Thank you for this great post. For me it’s about developing a tolerance for the horrified anxiety towards my own and others’ distress and our respective processes of getting lost and found…
I don’t think we ever really know, we just try stuff out!