The Role of Edge-Sensing in Experiential Psychotherapy

In experiential psychotherapy three modes of experiencing are managed in parallel—experiencing in the domain of explicit knowing, experiencing in implicit knowing, and experiencing in the zone of emergent formation where the other two meet. Gendlin (1996) argued that therapy is a “process that centrally involves experience before it becomes one of a set of defined ‘packages’ and again afterword when it dips back into the prepackaged zone at the edge of experiencing” (p. 4). In Gendlin’s terms, the “edge” is where the prepackaged and packaged zones meet. Encounter at the edge, what we call edge sensing, is dwelling in the meeting point between what is known explicitly and what is known in an implicit bodied way. This encounter extends to dyadic encounter at the interpersonal edge in the therapeutic relationship. Edge sensing is an intrasubjective and intersubjective process crucial for the moving forward process of change.