Helping our patients to “hold space” for thoughts and feelings in order to get more clarity for taking action

In counseling, helping patients to “hold space” for thoughts and feelings can be hard for them to conceptualize and understand as it’s a bit abstract. What’s the point of “holding space” any way?

So this is another way to think about it.

“Holding space” is more about zooming out from thoughts and feelings to get more clarity. To see the bigger picture with curiosity. To lessen the impact of our cognitive biases. We aim to see it for what it is and with less influence by our past experiences.

“Taking action” is more about zooming into thoughts and feelings and judging those as good or bad, right or wrong, terrible or not terrible, nice or not nice, helpful or not helpful etc. This will of course helps us or even push us to take action.

Both are important aren’t they? One is more about perceiving for clarity (input), and other one is more about doing (output).

For those who are too “zoomed in”, we balance by zooming out.

For those who are too “zoomed out”, we balance by zooming in.

I wonder if you can relate?
Which one are you biased towards?