SENSES OF FOCUSING, v.I

In this, the first of the two volumes of Senses of Focusing, a wide range of authors from around the world bring fresh thinking to the meaning of ‘Focusing’ and how Eugene Gendlin’s work grew from and has developed different elements of philosophy and psychotherapy, particularly within the Client-Centred tradition. The meaning of ‘Focusing’ and the ‘Felt sense’ are considered and re-examined; the close relationship between Focusing and Eastern traditions is explored by authors from Japan and China; the relevance of Focusing to the existential challenges that we face are seen not only in terms of personal meaning, but also in relation to current global and political crises; the evolution of new developments in Focusing practice are described; different considerations are brought to bear in relation to working with physical illness and the body and the volume concludes with a section on ‘Body Mapping’ and ‘Children Focusing’.

Focusing, FOT and the Philosophy of the Implicit
Within these volumes many elements of Focusing theory and practice are addressed, including different takes on Focusing and Focusing-oriented Therapy as it is understood and practised in a variety of cultures and contexts.
The thinking and cultural precedents that prefigure and underpin Eugene Gendlin’s formulation of the Philosophy of the Implicit and Focusing-oriented Therapy are explored by a wide range of authors. Drawing on sources from philosophy, science, the Arts and religion, they demonstrate that ‘Focusing’ has existed in various forms across the centuries before it found its mid-twentieth century name and became itself reified into a ‘construct’.
Some of the many applications of Focusing are considered, including the use of body-mapping with children and adults, how Focusing can help when working with physical illness, how Focusing can be applied to dreams, how Thinking at the Edge (TAE) can bring new insight and understanding and how the practice of Focusing can help with decision-making and everyday living.
Gendlin’s own spoken words are interspersed throughout the volumes.

PCA / PCE

Focusing originated in Client-Centred Therapy and in the close collaboration that existed in the 1950s and early 60s between Eugene Gendlin and Carl Rogers. Gendlin insisted that if early practitioners of Client-Centred Therapy had better understood the experiential response, i.e. ‘focusing on the felt edge of experiencing’, there would have been no need for there to be two separate therapies: Person-Centred Therapy and Focusing-oriented Therapy (FOT).
The early research into Client-Centred Therapy demonstrated that it is the ‘focusing’/ experiential response that is the critical factor in successful therapy.
In mainland Europe, Focusing is more commonly integrated into Person-Centred training as Person-Centred Experiential Therapy (PCE), but in some parts of the US and UK (and elsewhere) Focusing is often dismissed as a ‘technique’.
These volumes, which range in many directions to demonstrate myriad manifestations of ‘focusing on the felt edge of experiencing’ in different cultures and contexts also invite a re-evaluation of ‘focusing’ and a deeper understanding of its role in Person-Centred practice.

Contents

About the Editors
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Notes on style and conventions
Foreword, by Catherine Torpey, Executive Director, The International Focusing Institute (TIFI), New York
Prologue
Preface (with ‘A general outline of volume Ι’)

Introduction: What is Focusing and where did it come from? by Judy Moore

Section 1: Focusing reconsidered
1 Pavlos Zarogiannis, Homo experientialis
2 Akira Ikemi, Stop to appreciate Gene’s legacy and then step forward: Developments from Gendlin’s Focusing
3 Hideo Tanaka, Tapping ‘it’ lightly and the short silence: Applying the concept of ‘direct reference’ to the discussion of verbatim records of Focusing sessions
4 Sarah Luczaj, Focusing is not a ‘thing’
5 Nikolaos Kypriotakis, Sense, no-sense, non-sense: Paradoxes, dialectics and inquiry

Section 2: The felt sense reconsidered
6 Campbell Purton, The role of the body in Focusing
7 Donata Schoeller, Felt sense—A beautiful yet misleading term: trials, errors and opportunities
8 Ann Weiser Cornell & Barbara McGavin, Outside our awareness: Focusing with what is not felt

Section 3: ‘Senses’ of Focusing in different cultures and contexts
9 Tadayuki Murasato, Understanding Master Dogen’s ‘Genjo Koan’ from the perspective of ‘A Process Model’
10 Jun Xu, A brief history of the felt sense in East Asia before the appearance of Focusing: The Chinese Book of Changes, Dewu and riddles, Qigong, the way of ‘Hua Tou’
11 Akiko Doi, Recovering your strength, passion and love in life: Focusing for empowering helpers and company workers

Section 4: Focusing and existential challenges
12 Greg Madison & Ernesto Spinelli, The body as phenomenologist: The existential challenge to Identity Politics
13 Claude Missiaen & Siebrecht Vanhooren, Facing our existential demons: A Focusing-oriented and existential approach
14 Alan Tidmarsh, Focusing with elephants
15 Joan Klagsbrun & Julian A. Miller, Acknowledging the dark and embracing the light in the time of Covid-19

Section 5: Developing new practices
16 Kathy McGuire, Empathy Focusing and the power of ‘I-Thou’ in healing self, other, world: A feminine-ist analysis of Focusing together and Focusing alone
17 Mary Jeanne Larrabee, Opening the process, processing the opening: Open Process Focusing and modalities of Creative Expression Focusing
18 Johannes Wiltschko, On Focusing Therapy: Questions about and answers to some essential aspects

Section 6: Different ‘takes’ on the body
19 Frans Depestele, A process theory of physical illness: Medicine and psychotherapy
20 Tine Swyngedouw, Exploring the quality of life with chronic illness or cancer: The experiential four-leaf clover
21 Astrid Schilllings, Focusing with the Whole Body: The Bodying Person

Section 7: Body mapping and Children Focusing
22 Bart Santen, Focusing-oriented body mapping: Scanning the imprint of trauma. My experiences with dissociated adolescents
23 Atsmaout Perlstein, Working with KOL*BE Body Mapping in Focusing-Oriented Therapy
24 René Veugelers, Listening in three directions: A dynamic and fresh way to be in a Focusing process
25 Sara Bradly, Introducing Focusing to children using a story: Enabling children to connect and work with emotional issues in the context of humanistic brief therapy

Gendlin’s spoken words, recorded by Nada Lou
Fragments from video clips: Transcription of extracts from video clips
Focusing is not something that I invented
Focusing comes from philosophy
Tell people about Focusing
Focusing is… the murky edge
Very slight bodily feeling we call felt sense
Focusing fits in Japan
Not knowing
Peace—Our town
Focusing alone
Our bodies are at least plants
Why Focusing works
Does Focusing bring hope?

Index

Contributors to this volume: Sara Bradly, Ann Weiser Cornell, Frans Depestele, Akiko Doi, Akira Ikemi, Joan Klagsbrun, Nikolaos Kypriotakis, Mary Jeanne Larrabee, Nada Lou, Sarah Luczaj, Greg Madison, Barbara McGavin, Kathy McGuire, Julian A. Miller, Claude Missiaen, Judy Moore, Tadayuki Murasato, Atsmaout Perlstein, Campbell Purton, Bart Santen, Astrid Schillings, Donata Schoeller, Ernesto Spinelli, Tine Swyngedouw, Hideo Tanaka, Alan Tidmarsh, Siebrecht Vanhooren, René Veugelers, Johannes Wiltschko, Jun Xu, Pavlos Zarogiannis.

This is a review of Senses of Focusing written by Richard House for the very last edition of Self and Society, the Journal of the Association of Humanistic Psychology in Britain.

​JUDY MOORE & NIKOLAOS KYPRIOTAKIS (eds), Senses of Focusing, Volume I & Volume II, Eurasia Books, Athens, 2021,
1130 pp, ASIN: B09L4SLXTP, price 68.50 euros.

A new two-volume collected work about Focusing by authors from all over the world, who approach Focusing – the experiential psychotherapeutic approach within the tradition of Person-Centered Therapy, developed by Eugene T. Gendlin – in diverse ways. There is much original and ground-breaking material throughout the two volumes. The 24 contributors to Volume I include Nikolaos Kypriotakis, Greg Madison, Judy Moore, Campbell Purton and Ernesto Spinelli. The 28 contributors to Volume II include Peter Afford, Mick Cooper, Nikolaos Kypriotakis, Judy Moore and Brian Thorne.

Volume I offers fresh thinking to the meaning of ‘Focusing’ and how Eugene Gendlin’s work grew from and has developed different elements of philosophy and psychotherapy. The meaning of ‘Focusing’ and the ‘Felt sense’ are considered and re-examined; the close relationship between Focusing and Eastern traditions is explored by authors from Japan and China; the relevance of Focusing to the existential challenges that we face are seen not only in terms of personal meaning, but also in relation to current global and political crises; the evolution of new developments in Focusing practice are described; different considerations are brought to bear in relation to working with physical illness and the body; and the volume concludes with a section on ‘Body Mapping’ and ‘Children Focusing’.

Volume II carries exploration of the many senses of ‘focusing’ in new directions, beginning with ‘spirituality’ and the wisdom of ‘dreams’. The value of living and working from inner experiencing ‘in individual lives and in therapeutic practice’ is explored across a variety of cultures, as well as through different manifestations in the Arts, specifically poetry, theatre and music. A section on Focusing in ‘science and neuroscience’ is followed by cross-cultural takes on the theory and practice of ‘Thinking at the Edge’ and a section on the significance of the body’s knowing in ‘ethics and decision-making’. The volume concludes with an examination of Gendlin’s contribution to Client-Centred Therapy and examples of how his work is now regarded by more recent theorists and practitioners of the Person-Centred Approach (PCA).

According to Manu Bazzano, ‘This stimulating and extensive collection of essays from Focusing practitioners and theorists around the world is the most comprehensive compendium to date of a “sister approach” to the PCA and one that is at the forefront of experiential and humanistic investigations and methodologies. It features both new developments as well as direct quotes from his founder, Gene Gendlin…. Seasoned practitioners and trainees alike from most therapeutic orientations will benefit from a close reading of these two remarkable volumes, even when only selecting chapters close to their field of investigation. They will benefit all the more if they do so with an attentive, critical stance’.