In 1926, Milner decided to keep her own journal (a sort of close self-analysis) of the movements of her own mind, which she later published under the name of Joanna Field as a little-known but fascinating book, A Life of One’s Own (1934).

Milner’s motivation for keeping a journal was in order to understand more about the background feelings of anxiety and dissatisfaction with herself that she had experienced for as long as she could remember. In particular, she wanted to understand why:

‘in certain moods the very simplest things, even the glint of electric light on the water in my bath, gave me the most intense delight, while in others I seemed to be blind, unresponding and shut off’ (p.68).

Using a method that would now be widely recognised by the field of positive psychology, Milner decided to track her moods and to identify what was helpful and unhelpful to her well-being. Her approach was not psychoanalytical but practical and behavioral, focused not on analysing the past but on noticing more consciously what is happening in the present.

Journaling

In fact, her journal became an impressive piece of qualitative research as well as a practice of self-care. She kept it faithfully for seven years, at the end of which time she concluded that the single most important aspect of the way in which she experienced any one event or situation was the quality of attention that she brought to it.

She wrote: ‘I found that there were different ways of perceiving and that the different ways provided me with different facts. There was a narrow focus which meant seeing life as if from blinkers and with the centre of my awareness in my head; and there was a wide focus which meant knowing with the whole of my body, a way of looking which quite altered my perception of whatever I saw’ (p.15).

Although, initially, Milner was only able to access this more bodily awareness when she was ‘too tired to think’ and so able to ‘let go of the idea that one ought to have thoughts’ (pp75-76), she gradually developed the ability to induce this state by making what she describes as ‘an internal gesture of the mind’.

For example, when listening to an orchestra in concert, Milner noticed that ‘direct trying’ did not enable her to really listen or to still the chatter of her own thoughts; but by making an internal gesture by which she ‘seemed to put my awareness into the soles of my feet,’ or sent ‘something which was myself out into the hall’ she enabled intent listening to ‘just happen’ (pp.69-70).

Milner describes the series of small, barely perceptible movements through which she arrives at this wider more bodily awareness. Among them, she notes a pressing of her awareness ‘against the limits of my body until there was vitality in all my limbs and I felt smooth and rounded,’ and ‘the
spreading of some vital essence of myself…like the spreading of invisible sentient feelers’ (pp.73-74).

Wide attention

Over time, she realised that she could learn to control this ‘internal gesture’ so that she could move from a more narrow focus to a more bodily ‘wide attention’ at any time she chose.

I can’t think of a more relevant piece of research for the practice of personal development today. Milner’s experiements in attention seem to me to be  fascinating descriptions of discovering the benefits of self-hypnosis and how these can be applied consistently over time.

Felt self

In fact, the latest research in cognitive science might even suggest an underpinning for the kind of ‘internal gesture’ that Milner describes. There is growing evidence from developmental psychology that, as children, we possess interpersonal body schemas (an awareness based on self-other) and a rudimentary sense of proprioceptive self from birth.

If this is the case, then Milner’s idea of ‘wide attention’ – based on a more bodily and felt self-experience (rather than our more habitual conceptual and thought experience) -  might be fundamental to the way that we experience and develop in the world.

It’s possible to see Erickson’s work as building upon this ‘indirect’ approach. By practising wider attention ourselves as hypnotherapists and by helping our clients to learn how to let go of more ‘direct trying’, we may be accessing something that is crucial to our sense of well-being.

Marion Milner – a woman ahead of her time and bold enough to depart from the ideas of her contemporaries to seek ways of understanding how to acquire the attitude and skills of happiness. Her writing is perhaps more relevant today than it ever was.