Attending

Rollo May developed the idea of intentionality in his book Love and Will. The essence of the idea is that we humans are able to pay attention to the things we are interested in. We have an ability to sort through the myriad of sensations we receive and focus on some while ignoring others. What we intend, pay attention to, or focus on is very important in how we “see the world.”

In case you are not convinced that we attend certain things but not others, try this simple but fun exercise:

Attending to Color and Shape

Pick a color, any color… then spend five minutes looking for it. Take a look where you are or go for a walk and “see” the color. See those red books, that red label… get outside and see the red rose. It is amazing how colorful even a room or office can become when you do this. If that was fun try another color, or a shape. Look for all of the “rectangles” that you can find, you may be surprised with details that come to your attention.

Attending to Behavior

Putting this thought to work, I was talking with one of my young clients and their parent. I asked how the last two weeks had gone. The parent went into an emotion laden description of things that went wrong. This was not what I expected since some good progress had been made. When I asked for more specific detail, including time and place, the events described by the parent were from several weeks back. In short, the parent was only looking for and remembering the bad behavior, and had totally missed the new improved behavior. We tend to find what we look for. If we want to see the good we need to look for it, in ourselves and in others.