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Over the years, I have developed co-operatively with several groups a way of working which derives from the Native American healing circle and Buddhist-influenced awareness, or “mindfulness” practice. I have called it “The Process Circle”, and it is proving to be an excellent training tool for working with people, both one-to-one and one-to-group. Although in this article the examples assume a therapeutic or counselling situation, It can also be adapted easily for non-therapeutic situations, such as decision making or gaining a fresh perspective on particular issues or situations.

Mindfulness is about attending to what is happening in the present moment without altering or distorting it. By staying with our present experience without judgement, we tend to notice more and more.

The healing circle also draws on a “key” Medicine Wheel – the Star Maiden’s Circle – an ancient teaching which provides a map of how we become conditioned and the effect this has on our journey through life. According to this teaching, each direction on an imagined compass wheel influences us in a specific way. Attending to these influences within the circle expands our horizons of the possible. People don’t have to believe this. It is sufficient to act “as if” it might be true, and to test it against experience.

In the context of a Healing Circle, the “client” is in the middle of a circle of people, each of whom holds awareness of an aspect of that person. So one person - (or sometimes there can be two in each direction) - will attend what they are aware of at the level of the body, another will attend to the emotions or place of the child, another to what the ancestors are saying, another to what is happening with the energy of the group, and so on. In this way the group as a whole has the potential for operating as a hologram of the person in the middle. The diagram shows all these positions which correspond to the Star Maiden’s circle.

Healing Circles seem to serve at least two functions. Firstly, the client gets feedback on unaware dimensions of themselves. Secondly, the healer or shaman is able to call on or consult energies or dimensions that extend beyond normal waking states of consciousness. In other words the field of potential awareness is larger that it might be if there were only two people involved in the healing relationship. For the people sitting around the circle there is the benefit of only having to attend to one aspect of the person. If I am sitting in the West, for example, then all I have to attend to is Body, and I don’t have to be concerned about whether my observations are accurate or not. Everything noticed is valid and the hologram evens out distortions.

Something rather special seems to happen at these Healings. The boundaries between individuals become diffused. A sense of connectedness develops. There is synergy and a sense of something greater than ourselves in the room. As the recipient of this kind of healing, I have had a strong sense of seeing many faceted reflections of myself as an individual in a context that is wider than my usual perception of myself. There is also something useful, I believe, about the disciplined way in which each person “holds” a direction. The sense of ceremony brought to the healing gives a sense of honouring of the person in the middle, and this in turn gives them an extra feeling of support, responsibility and motivation for engaging with themselves.

The Process Circle derives from the Healing Circle works like this:

The Client takes up a position in the centre, facing the Practitioner who is in the North. The Client is free to use the session in any way they wish.

The Practitioner engages with the Client, primarily simply attending to what is happening. Having clarified a time boundary and a sense of the terrain, the Practitioner might initially draw out the client by asking “What is happening for you now?” and “How is that for you”. This helps keep experience immediate and present. They can also ask what the people sitting around the circle are noticing, and are free to confer with their Support Person who might be sitting beside them.

The person  - or persons  - in the South holds the position of the Client's Feelings, and also the place of their Child. In that position, South may pick up what is happening emotionally for the Client, or they may notice their own emotional responses. When they are sufficiently clear what their response is, if invited, they can communicate this into the circle. The Client can accept that as an accurate reflection of what is happening for them, or reject it as a projection of South’s own state. It is up to the Client. South communicates in the spirit of an offering. If they are not feeling anything or are unclear, then they can communicate that.

The people holding the positions of the Body in the West, and Spirit in the East, do the same thing.

“Body” may be noticing things about the Client’s body or be aware of sensations in their own. An example of a response might be: “I notice you are tight around the shoulders and chest” or “I'm getting drowsy and my body wants to slump”.  Body may also feel it appropriate to make physical contact with the Client  - for example if they seem to need extra suppot - and can check this out with them. Alternatively the Client can request it.

The person in the East attends to what is happening at the level of Images. No matter how seemingly irrelevant or bizarre, they communicate what they are getting into the circle. So the Client might be talking about their relationship with their Father, and East might say “I'm getting a bear shaking a tree”. This will either be East's own material - in which case the Client can ignore it, or it may be relevant for the Client. It never fails to surprise me (and Clients) how these images can be highly relevant - often quite magically so.

The Support person, who usually sits in the North East, acts as a facilitator for the Practitioner and the group. If, for example, they feel that too much information is forthcoming, they can ask people to ease off, or they can ask the Practioner if they would like to hear from the circle. They can also manage the time and check everyone understand the process.

Experience with hundreds of people has confirmed the value of this method. Clients report feeling contained, supported, seen. The effect of the circle is to provide a boundary that is resonating at many levels with the Client's experience. The trainee Practitioners say they too feel supported, and that they do not have to bear all the responsibility of “getting it right” for the Client. The other members of the circle say it helps to have to focus on just one aspect of the Client.

The ideal Practitioner would be able to operate from all positions on the circle, resonating with all aspects of the Client. So one benefit of the method is that it breaks down into manageable bits the areas of the Client's experience to which a Practitioner might attend. If I am in the West, I only attend to the body, and so on. When I am at ease with attending to all the elements, I can put it all together and attend to the whole spectrum of the Client's experience. In this way the circle has the potential for becoming a forum for the building blocks of awareness.

But there is another level at which the method is effective. By holding the positions of the Four Directions, the group is aligning itself with the energies or qualities of those directions. It does not seem to matter whether or not people actually believe this because something happens anyway. Something happens which is greater than the collective awareness of the individuals comprising the group. All the groups I have worked with have noticed this, and some of them have consisted of very down-to-earth people who have little tolerance for new-age mumbo jumbo. Most people say that it seems to be “powerful” and “magical”. The group becomes aligned with Spirit.

Jo May-Prussak

 (This is an edited version of an article which appeared in Self and Society, Vol 23, No 5, November 1995.)