I haven't used it with kids, but generally speaking, it is much easier to use this kind of method with kids than adults, especially if you frame it as something that is fun and gives them choice and power.

That would depend entirely on what was linked to, or impacted by, the anxiety or other feeling that they started with. If you have a specific thing in mind, I might be able to comment.

Thanks for your comments! The bet compliment is to hear of someone using what I teach. Nick Kemp is the guy who developed these two methods, and I will always be grateful for learning them, because they are so often useful.

Lorraine,
Thanks for your comments. I have almost no knowledge of the kinds of bodywork that you mention, so I can’t comment intelligently about that work. However, I noticed that most of your descriptions of a client’s problem are metaphoric rather than descriptive, most obviously in your summary sentence, “A person may use the phrase, I'm screwed. Or, I'm all wound up. Or, I'm tied in knots inside myself. Or, It's like a nest of snakes in there. The sense of all these phrases is of being all wound up...and wanting to unwind it all.”
The spinning feelings method elicits a description that is not metaphoric but only descriptive, getting the pathway, the shape of the pathway, its color, etc. If the client says something metaphoric like, “It’s like a blood vessel,” we use that only to ask to augment the description, for instance asking, “Oh, so is it red? Or shiny? Or hollow? Or pulsating,” rather than utilizing the metaphor itself.
However, utilizing the metaphor directly can also be a very interesting and useful way to intervene, and if you would like to know more about that, Andrew T. Asutin’s Metaphors of Movement work is fascinating. Here is a short introduction to it:
http://realpeoplepress.com/blog/how-our-metaphors-reveal-creative-solutions
And if you want to know more, Andy’s Metaphors in my Attic is a quite complete and very reasonably-priced online tutorial: http://metaphorsinmyattic.com/
Steve Andreas

I have a videotaped client session on Resolving Night Terrors, with follow-up. Supposedly there is no treatment for night terrors, but I just went for it. A sampling from the session is available here: http://www.realpeoplepress.com/client-session-resolving-night-terrors-p-70.html

Rebecca,
Certainly integration is a central goal; however there are also many different ways to describe what that is—and even more ways to try to achieve it.
I have great respect for Dan Siegal as a person, and I assume that his work in neurobiology is valid. However, I have yet to find anything in his work that directly informs what a therapist does with a client, and when I have viewed his videotaped client sessions, I have been underwhelmed by both the process and the lack of results. For instance, “interpersonal neurobiology” sounds wonderful, but what does that global generalization tell you about exactly what to do with a client? I explore one aspect of nonverbal interaction in a recent blog post describing the nonverbal exchange in a videotaped clip of Diana Fosha, which you can find at:
http://realpeoplepress.com/blog/nonverbal-expressiveness-the-key-to-relationship-and-change
I think “mindfulness” is great—though to this geezer from the 60’s it looks an awful lot like a new name for Fritz Perls’ awareness, or Ram Dass’ “Be Here Now,” or any scientist’s admonition to observe events. Sometimes I have described what I do as “directed mindfulness,” because no matter how long I meditated, I probably would not have noticed the path, spin or color of a feeling. Nor would I have noticed other very important aspects of internal thoughts, like the size and distance of an image or the tonality and tempo of a voice—and there are hundreds of other such process variables that can be changed in order to alter our responses to our internal experience. Most of these distinctions I have learned from others, and would never have discovered on my own—just as most physics and chemistry is the result of many, many discoveries by many different people over more than a century and a half. I think it should be the therapist’s job to know as many of these as possible, so that they can offer these new choices to a client, rather than task them with discovering them on their own. I have a book, Transforming Negative Self-Talk that describes how to use these kinds of sensory distinctions in a wide variety of ways—as well as some of the pitfalls of using them sloppily.
Steve Andreas

Laura,
I had to look up the “Tin Can Monster” exercise, and found the following description by Stephen Hayes, originator of ACT:
“ACT uses a variety of metaphors and experiential exercises, many borrowed from other experiential therapeutic traditions, to help clients get past the judgments and analytical mind-sets that keep them entangled in unproductive problem solving. When a client complains of being in the grip of a particularly painful feeling, which she feels she must get rid of, we're likely to ask her to spend time getting thoroughly acquainted with it instead. One exercise, called the "Tin Can Monster," suggests that overwhelming feelings are like huge monsters made up of tin cans, bubble gum, and rubber bands. The total effect can be overwhelming, but if we stop to examine their individual elements, we find nothing really fearsome there. In this eyes-closed exercise, we ask patients to get in touch with the difficult feeling and then notice carefully what their bodies do. The goal is to drop any struggle and just notice each specific bodily reaction. So, for example, as each reaction is named, the therapist takes the client into that sensation in great detail--where is it located, where does it begin and end? Or we might ask the client to imagine that the bodily sensation is an object on the floor and to describe its color, speed, texture, and weight. When the client is fully open to experiencing each sensation without defense, the next bodily reaction is sought. This dismantling process continues through urges to act, emotions, thoughts, and memories.”
There certainly are similarities, particularly the sentence, “So, for example, as each reaction is named, the therapist takes the client into that sensation in great detail--where is it located, where does it begin and end?” And the general goal of accepting--and eventually integrating--alienated parts of the person is very important.
However there are also some very important differences. Telling the client that “Feelings are like huge monsters made up of tin cans, bubble gum, and rubber bands,” is offering the client a specific content metaphor, in contrast to eliciting the metaphor that the client may already have. That particular content has implications of unreality, which may be useful in making it possible for the client to examine it more closely, and it also has elements of what Michael White called externalization, and others call “distancing.” However, it is also a direct imposition on the client, in contrast to being mindful of an existing metaphor, or of suggesting a modification of an existing one. (For more on using metaphor, see my comment in response to Lorraine above.) While these can be useful interventions in context, they are also brutally inconsistent with, “in ACT, the emphasis is on accepting rather than changing the experience.”
Finally, I watched a live demonstration by Hayes at a conference, and bought a video of it to study in detail later, and I thought it was dreadful. The client did not get her outcome, and it would take a small book to describe all the mistakes Hayes made. If you know of a video of Hayes working with a client that you think might change my opinion, please let me know.
Yes, the method can be used with addictive cravings. But there is an even more interesting method that elicits the detailed sequence of experience as someone enters a drug state. Once that is known, the client can deliberately experience that sequence without needing to use the drug. This makes it unnecessary to continue the addiction in order to enjoy the benefits of the drug state.
Steve Andreas

Andrew,
Yes, these are examples of using subtle process elements of experience that most people are unconscious of, but that they can become aware of if asked the right kind of questions. Any time you become aware of these elements that you can change voluntarily that gives you additional choices, and a real sense of freedom. The “broader talk” you mention seldom (but occasionally) results in this kind of change. However, if you are aware of the process elements, it is possible to use “broader talk” to influence them in a process that is very conversational, and to a bystander often seems like nothing more than that. Although much of this kind of knowledge derives from NLP, I often hesitate to use that label, because there are so many other people using that label whose “work” is not up to my standards. I have been rereading Erickson lately, and although his work was magical, I don’t think he was specifically aware of this kind of distinction.
Steve Andreas