A Stoppage

Note: Everything I have written here is the fruit of many years of study and repeated readings of Gendlin’s book A Process Model. At the same time, what is written emerges from my own learning and understanding. It does not necessarily express additional layers in Gendlin’s writing. The text is intended to make complex ideas more accessible and to support their understanding. It does not replace reading the original source—Gendlin’s book.

Suddenly, a stoppage

Imagine that you are talking on the phone with a good friend, and your friend is sharing a story from the past few days. The story captivates you; you ask questions and are very involved. And right in the middle of the story, at a moment of great suspense, she receives a phone call that she has to answer. Is this a familiar situation? Now you are waiting. Or worse—perhaps she postpone the talk until later later. What is the feeling now? This is a feeling of a stoppage. A Pause.

You feel the implying very clearly (remember what does the implying implies?). The implying for the continuation of the story. You do not know how it continues; you have various possible directions. But you are waiting for your friend to return and continue the story. And meanwhile…

Meanwhile, life goes on. The life process continues, even though the story has stopped for the moment and is waiting to continue. But the implying for the continuation of the story reminds us that this particular process has stopped.

Let us notice a few important things here:

We are in a stoppage

This means that a certain aspect of the body–environment process separates itself by its absence. The story has stopped and is waiting for its continuation. Hearing the story separates itself from the life process and remains implied. Hearing the story is now separated from the whole process and has come to a stop.

Something remains the same

the implying for the story continuation remains the same. It does not change. It will change only when the story carries the implying forward. In the meantime, there is an implying that does not change.

A missing object

What separates the storytelling process from the whole bodily process is one missing aspect . The missing aspect stops the process by its absence. Gendlin calls the missing aspect an “object.”

What happens when we are in a stoppage?

Up to now, the process was flowing and changing continuously. Implying, occurring, and carrying forward, again and again. Now, there is an implying that is not carried forward. The overall life process continues—we continue to live even when the story stops. One aspect—the hearing of the continuation of the story—has stopped. Therefore, the storytelling separates itself from the overall life process. Now there are two separated processes. First, the body’s overall life process. Second, a separate process that has stopped and implies a change that cannot happen now.

Another example – we are hungry and do not receive food. The implying is not carried forward and the feeding process has stopped. It is waiting for something that will carry the hunger forward and change the implying. The body may die, however, it could keep living even when there is a stoppage of a particular aspect. Even when we are hungry and the feeding process is halted, the body may continue.

An implying that remains the same

Up to now, there was a continuous change. As in walking – there is an implying for the next step, and what occurs in the environment carries the implying forward, and so on. When we walk, we do not feel the implying and the carrying forward—they occur within the flow. But what if, suddenly, a hidden hand were to grab our knee in the midst of walking, preventing us from going on? If that were to happen, we would have felt precisely the implying to continue.

The implying is felt when there is a stoppage.

Likewise, when we breathe, we usually do not notice ourselves breathing. But if something stops our breathing, we feel very clearly the implying to continue breathing.

The missing object

If you stop your breath, you will feel the implying to continue breathing. You will also feel a “hunger” for something—for the expansion of the lungs, for a breath of air, something you long for right now—this is the object. This is the missing object whose absence stops the breathing process. It is the missing object that, if it appears, will resume the process.

Gendlin emphasizes that at this stage, in Chapter 3, we can speak of an object only as a missing object. The moment the object occurs and the process resumes, there is no longer an object.

The object is part of Environment #2 and of the functional cycle, but it is not separated from them—it is not an object. Only when it is absent does it separate from the environment as an object.

As soon as the object recurs, the process resumes and changes the implying so that the object is no longer implied. Objects, so far, are objects only as long as they are absent (p. 16).