What Is Focusing Orientated
Psychotherapy?
Background:
Focusing is an innovative technique developed by
Eugene Gendlin
from extensive research into what makes therapy work. The
earliest origins of Focusing are found in Gendlin’s
collaborative relationship in the 1950’s with Carl Rogers,
the Founder of Client-Centered Psychotherapy. Gendlin has
been recognized by the American Psychological Association
as the Distinguished Professional Psychologist of the Year
for his work.
Early on Gendlin and his colleagues studied why some
clients succeeded in therapy and many others did not. They
found that improvement in therapy had to do with “how”
clients processed their experiences internally.
With further study, Gendlin identified exactly how these
successful clients processed their problems and this
processing was highly experiential. As these clients
focused on their issues they would go to an unclear bodily
sense of their problems, stay with that unclear feeling,
and focus on it. As they brought this unclear felt
information into focus, they discovered what it meant and
allowed it to open and move forward organically. This in
turn informed them about what next steps were needed.
Research has show that we have many different neurological
systems which process, and store, all the information and
experiences that we take in everyday of our lives. Only a
fraction of this information makes it into our everyday way
of thinking because many of these storage systems speak a
different language to our everyday thinking. This is why it
can feel that we are just going round and round in circles
when we try to solve our problems because we only have
access to a limited amount of information. But it science
is showing that this unclear bodily felt sense of our
issues is actually the meeting point for information
contained in all these different neuronal systems. Our felt
sense is like our translator, it can speak all the
languages of our different processing systems, and allows
these different systems to communicate and work together in
unison.
Gendlin worked out a way to teach the ability to work with
the felt sense to everyone. Focusing allows access to
deeper levels of awareness, wisdom, and self guidance that
reside inside each of us. Through an easily learned,
step-by step process, Focusing teaches how to turn our
attention inside our bodies where we carry all our personal
experiences, memories, sensations, emotions and feelings.
This place of refined mind-body awareness contains an
unlimited source of knowledge, that provides us with the
capacity to solve problems and achieve personal
fulfillment. Simply stated, Focusing allows us conscious
access to that which often remains unconscious or
subconscious, due to the fact that most people do not know
how to access it.
FOCUSING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY:
Focusing principles and strategies have been successfully
incorporated into the counseling and psychotherapy fields.
One of the greatest strengths of Focusing is the ease with
which it can be integrated with other therapeutic
approaches. Focusing does not supplant any established
therapeutic methods but instead serves as a crucial
supplemental element for other approaches to improve their
effectiveness. The Focusing process can be implemented as a
formalized step-by step, stand-alone approach. It can also
be implemented more informally as a focusing-oriented,
integrative approach whose interventions flow naturally
from the emerging client’s experience, therapeutic
framework, and relational interaction.
Regular
practice of this natural process can have profound benefits
for you both personally and professionally. Focusing will
help you feel more at home in your body and be able to
access its wisdom and perspective. You can feel more
present. It is a powerful and effective way to help you
access deep levels of process, bypass intellectualization,
avoid being flooded with overwhelming emotion and go
directly to the bodily source of change."