We wish to activate a sufficient amount of stuff that we can handle. We want to get the maximum gain out of the stuff we have activated.
The skill in ending a process is to end it at exactly the point where we have gotten maximum change out of it, and just before the client would resist further work in that manner.
Ending the process at the point where the maximum change has been gotten is senior to any specific phenomena. However, to be able to spot the exact point we look for certain signs.
The main signs of a finished process are:
- The rate of change seems to have died down
- The client is more free on the subject
- The client is again extroverted
- Client smiles or looks satisfied
- Possibly a realization on the subject
Typically you will grant more importance to finishing a subject than finishing a specific technique. You might use different techniques to get a result on a subject. Each technique might get used up and you would go on to another technique. On the overall subject you would not only go for no more change, but also for a new freedom on the overall subject. The client would be willing to take her attention off the subject again, would feel good about it, and would have some realization about it having changed.
Rate of change having died down means that something changed and continued work on the same subject would produce comparatively little or no change at this point.
Being free on the subject means basically that the client no longer has her attention interiorized into the issue. She can let go of it and look outward.
We need the client to show signs of being satisfied with the result. She must be in a more resourceful state than when we started.
Realization means that the client realizes that something changed. Whether or not she has an intellectual explanation of the issue is not very important. That she knows that change happened is important.