Processing is something you DO. If the client is already doing it, the facilitator will leave her alone and let her do it. If the client is not doing it, the facilitator will act and get the processing going. None of it is anything you wait for. It is what is happening WHILE you are doing it.
The benefit from processing is not a sudden thing that happens at the end. There are certain end points that we steer by, but they aren't the results themselves. They are only the markers that indicate that the results have already been gotten. It is the journey that is important, not the destination. Or, we could say, the journey IS the destination.
Whenever you find the client looking elsewhere for the results, then it is a problem. Even if she is very hopeful and optimistic about the great results we will get. The results are what is happening NOW, so if she is looking elsewhere we are wasting the actions we are doing now. If she sits during the whole session fantasizing about how great it will be when the session is over, we get nothing done. The session will be over, but no processing took place, and very little result was gotten. The positive expectation about the end of the session does indeed produce a positive result, but that would be all that produced a result. We can do much, much more than that.
Never reduce processing to just being an affirmation that this mysterious activity will magically solve everything. It is fine if the client believes that this is a mysterious and magical activity and she expects great results. That is great, that is very helpful. But the problem enters if she isn't present along the way. If she expects miracles AND she is actively involved in getting them, that is the best of all worlds. If she expects miracles BUT she is out to lunch all the time, expecting that it has nothing whatsoever to do with her, that will only give mediocre results.
Processing has a lot to do with the client. Actually it has ALL to do with the client. She is doing it.
If the client has the mistaken idea that processing is something that will happen to her, and that she ought to sit and wait for, then she isn't doing it.
The client doesn't have to do the processing consciously. For that matter it is the sub-conscious processing that is most valuable. If she consciously thinks that something mysterious is going on, but she sub-consciously is engaged in processing, that is very workable. If she is only processing consciously, but not sub-consciously, that is not very effective. If she does neither, we are of course getting nowhere. Ideally the client should be both consciously and sub-consciously processing the majority of the time.
I have used "waiting" here in the sense of doing nothing. Many people have waiting defined as "doing nothing and after a while suddenly something happens". And they will therefore put themselves in some kind of a frozen state waiting for a sudden flash out of the blue.
In this universe desired results usually don't happen instantly. One needs to start a flow in some direction, start a process of some sort, and then after a while, it will reach the end point.
A process will only reach the end point if one doesn't interfere with or stop the flow of it. You need to allow it to continue. That doesn't mean doing nothing. It means allowing the activity to take place without interfering with it.
During a process the end result is not there yet. That doesn't mean we are wasting our time, it just means that the process is still going on. If you bail out right away because we haven't finished yet, then we will never get there.
A process gets somewhere if we start it, continue it long enough, and notice when it is finished. The process is continued by the client remaining involved and the facilitator making sure we stay on track. None of that involves waiting while doing nothing. It is an active process for both the client and the facilitator.