The Kinaesthetic Pattern, often abbreviated to the K-Pattern, is one of the central practical patterns within IEMT. It is concerned with feelings, emotional states and somatic responses that the client can identify as problematic, unwanted or no longer useful.

The purpose of teaching this section is not merely to give trainees a script to remember. Trainers should ensure that practitioners understand the logic of each question, the reason for the order of the questions, the timing of the delivery, and the kinds of client responses that can easily derail the process if handled poorly.

Before applying the Kinaesthetic Pattern, the practitioner should already have completed a simple eye-movement test exercise with the client. This usually involves asking the client to identify a memory from some time ago that they do not like, applying eye movements, and discovering whether the client reports any change.

This is an essential first step. It establishes whether eye movements are likely to be of use to this person before the practitioner begins a more structured intervention.

Trainers should emphasise that it is poor practice to take a client through the full Kinaesthetic Pattern without first establishing that the basic eye-movement process appears to produce some useful change. Otherwise, the practitioner risks adding another experience of therapeutic failure to the client's history.

Many clients who seek help have already had multiple experiences of therapy, coaching, counselling, medical treatment or self-help approaches that have not resolved the issue. They may already believe that their problem is too deep, too entrenched or too unusual to be helped. The practitioner should not add to that list of failures through poor procedure.

In IEMT, the term kinaesthetic is used broadly to refer to feelings. These may be:

* emotional feelings * somatic feelings * body sensations * part-body states * affective responses * unwanted internal states that the client can identify and reference

The term does not always neatly distinguish between emotion and bodily sensation. Many clients do not make this distinction clearly either. They may say, for example:

* “I get a tightness in my chest.” * “I feel sick when I think about it.” * “I get this heavy feeling.” * “I just feel panic.” * “I feel ashamed.” * “I feel it in my stomach.”

Trainers should make clear that the practitioner is not looking for a technically perfect emotional label. The practitioner is looking for a workable point of reference.

Trainees should understand the difference between a feeling, a state and a mood, even though these categories may overlap.

A feeling is often experienced as a part-body phenomenon. The client can usually identify it as something they “have” or “notice”. For example:

* “I have this panic in my chest.” * “I get a sinking feeling.” * “I feel guilt in my stomach.” * “There is a pressure in my throat.”

In this sense, the client has some separation from the feeling. They can refer to it, observe it and describe it.

A state is more global. It tends to involve the whole person. The person may be “in” the state rather than merely noticing it. For example, a person who is visibly angry may insist, “I'm not angry,” whilst their whole body, voice and behaviour communicate otherwise.

A mood may be broader and more enduring. Moods can involve conflicts between how the person feels and how they believe they are supposed to feel. In some families, relationships or social systems, a person may be provoked into one mood whilst simultaneously being expected to display another.

Trainers do not need to turn this into an abstract psychology lecture. The important point is that trainees learn to recognise whether the client has a sufficiently clear kinaesthetic reference to work with.

Not all feelings are organised in the same way. Trainees should be introduced to the idea that emotional responses differ in structure, origin and context.

These are often the most suitable emotional responses for the Kinaesthetic Pattern. They are feelings that appear to have been carried forward from earlier life and no longer serve the adult client.

Examples include:

* old school-related shame, dread or humiliation * emotional residues from childhood family dynamics * hangover feelings from past relationships * long-standing feelings attached to old social or personal experiences * emotional responses that clearly belong to an earlier stage of life

These feelings may once have made sense in the original context, but they may no longer be relevant to the client's current adult life.

Trainers should teach trainees that IEMT often works well with feelings that are rooted in the past and are still being carried in the present.

These are not quite the same as emotions rooted in the past. Some emotions arise when the person refers back to an event or period of life. For example:

* guilt * nostalgia * regret * sadness * anger about a remembered event

These feelings may be responsive to a memory rather than carried as an ongoing state. The practitioner should be aware that the structure may differ.

Some emotions are generated in the present. A client may be stressed because of a current workplace problem, a difficult colleague, an ongoing legal situation, a family conflict or some other present-day circumstance.

Some of these responses may have historical roots. Others may not. Trainers should caution trainees against automatically pursuing every present-day emotion back into childhood.

If a feeling is clearly contextual, current and proportionate to an ongoing real-world situation, the practitioner should not assume that it must be treated as a childhood-derived emotional pattern.

Some emotions are strongly social. These are often learned, culturally shaped and relationally reinforced.

Examples include:

* shame * jealousy * fear of being excluded * social anxiety * embarrassment * humiliation * status-related anger * feelings of being judged, rejected or exposed

Social emotions may be strongly influenced by culture, family system, peer group, workplace environment or social role. Trainers should emphasise that the practitioner is only one influence in the client's life. The client's culture, society, family, daily relationships and social world may exert a much greater influence than the practitioner ever can.

This should encourage realism and discourage grandiose claims.

Anticipatory emotions are future-based. They include feelings such as:

* anxiety about tomorrow * dread about a future meeting * fear of an expected confrontation * worry about an upcoming event * panic about something that has not yet happened

These are not memories in the usual sense. They are responses to imagined or anticipated futures. The Kinaesthetic Pattern is especially relevant here because the pattern allows the practitioner to locate where a feeling first appears in memory, when that is possible.

However, trainers should make clear that not every anticipatory emotion is necessarily rooted in memory. Some future-based anxiety may be generated by current circumstances, practical uncertainty or realistic risk.

The practitioner should identify the feeling simply and directly. This does not need to become an elaborate induction, ritual or technique.

Suitable questions include:

* “Have you got a feeling you don't like?” * “Is there a feeling that is a particular issue for you?” * “Is there a feeling that has brought you here today?” * “What is the feeling you want to work with?”

The practitioner should avoid over-elaborate therapeutic language such as:

* “Take a deep breath and neutralise yourself.” * “Go inside and access the feeling.” * “Allow yourself to connect with the state.” * “Step into the feeling.” * “Amplify it.” * “Make it stronger.” * “See what you saw, hear what you heard and feel what you felt.”

The practitioner is not trying to create a dramatic emotional experience. The practitioner is trying to identify a feeling that is already part of the client's problem structure.

Once the feeling has been identified, it needs to be sufficiently present for the practitioner to work with it. If the feeling is not present at all, the practitioner may only be working with the idea of the problem rather than the experience of the problem.

The simplest way to bring the feeling into the client's present experience is to ask:

* “On a score out of 10, how strong is this feeling?”

To answer the question, the client has to reference the feeling. This is usually sufficient.

Trainers should make clear that the practitioner does not need to amplify the feeling or deepen the client's association into it. The score out of 10 is enough to establish that the feeling is active in the client's system.

A common response at this point is for the client to ask:

* “Do you mean now or when I think about it?” * “Do you mean how strong it is now, or how strong it was then?” * “Do you mean when it happens, or here?” * “Do you mean in the memory, or in the present?”

The practitioner should not answer this either/or question.

This is an important training point. The either/or question can be a way for the client to keep the feeling at bay. It may be part of how the client manages, distances from or controls the experience.

The practitioner should remain calm and wait. The client will usually answer with a number.

Trainees often find this difficult at first because the silence creates tension. They may feel an urge to explain, reassure, smile, soften the moment or answer the client's question. Trainers should prepare trainees for this moment and teach them to hold the frame.

Once the feeling is active, the practitioner should proceed promptly.

A common error is that the practitioner asks for the score, the client reports a strong number, and the practitioner then allows the session to be hijacked by explanation, discussion, reassurance, theory or unnecessary commentary.

This is poor practice because the feeling may no longer be active by the time the practitioner continues.

Trainers should teach trainees to avoid filling silence with unnecessary words. Much of this filler language arises because the practitioner is uncomfortable, inexperienced or attempting to reduce their own tension.

The practitioner should maintain the frame and continue.

The next key question is:

* “And how familiar is this feeling?”

This is not the same as asking:

* “Is this familiar?”

The question “Is this familiar?” invites a yes/no answer. It does not require much internal searching.

The question “How familiar is this feeling?” requires the client to compare the feeling across time. It begins to link the present feeling with memory and previous experience.

This question helps set up the next stage of the pattern.

Trainers should emphasise that this is a small question with a large function. It is easy for trainees to miss, but it is an important part of the sequence.

The next question should be delivered carefully:

* “And when is the first time you can remember feeling this feeling now? It may not be the first time you ever felt it, but it is the first time you can remember now.”

This wording matters.

The practitioner is not asking:

* “Can you remember the first time you felt it?” * “What was the first time this ever happened?” * “Is there a first time you can remember?” * “What is the earliest memory you can go back to?” * “When did this start?” * “Where did it come from?”

These are different questions and may create different problems.

The phrase “the first time you can remember” does not require the client to identify the objectively first occurrence. It asks for the first occurrence currently available to memory.

This distinction matters because the client may not know when the feeling originally began. If the practitioner asks, “Can you remember the first time?”, the client can answer, “No.” The process may then stall.

The wording should therefore preserve the possibility that the remembered occasion may not be the first time it ever happened.

When the client locates a memory, they may begin to tell the story. This is especially likely if they have previous experience of talk therapy, counselling or psychotherapy where discussing the problem history is expected.

In the Kinaesthetic Pattern, extended storytelling is usually unnecessary and may derail the process.

The practitioner needs to interrupt the verbal discourse without interrupting the internal process. This is done by asking:

* “And how vivid is this memory?”

This question keeps the client attending to the memory while interrupting the move into narrative explanation.

The timing is important. The practitioner should often ask this as soon as there is a look of recognition or the client appears about to begin telling the story.

The practitioner is not being rude. They are maintaining the process.

There is often a relationship between the intensity of the feeling and the vividness of the memory. Stronger feelings often correspond with more vivid memory representations.

The practitioner should ask:

* “And how vivid is this memory?”

The answer may be verbal or non-verbal. The exact number or descriptor is less important than the fact that the client is now referencing the memory representation.

The practitioner can then proceed to the eye movements.

Once the feeling is active, the familiarity has been established, the first remembered occurrence has been identified and the vividness has been referenced, the practitioner should direct the client through the appropriate eye movements.

The practitioner should keep the instruction clean and simple.

For example:

* “Hold that memory there and follow my fingers.”

The trainer should ensure that trainees practise giving clear, simple, confident instructions without unnecessary therapeutic embellishment.