EMBRACING THE WHOLE,  WELCOMING THE NEW!
WHAT IS FOCUSING?

Picture

Focusing is something we experience.

​What follows here on this page are several ways of talking about it.

There are many ways to learn and experience Focusing and to engage with other Focusers.

We have compiled some other links for you here



​Focusing is direct access to bodily knowing.   
from The Focusing Institute website

The Focusing Process allows us to tap into the flow-of-life process that is always present just beneath the content of what is being experienced or expressed.

At first not fully formed, it makes itself known through a whole-body texture (an edge of knowing) called a “felt sense."  By holding mind and body in this way, a deeper self can emerge, speaking its own truths, allowing a carrying forward of living that is both newly created and hopeful.

Integral to the Focusing Process is a readiness for welcoming, accepting, opening, wonder and even amazement. From this core of deep inner attention and self-knowing, the Focusing Process may be applied to any human endeavor from health care and education to politics, the arts and more.

NY Metro Focusing, 2009
_________________________________________________

FOCUSING is a term used to describe a skill identified by psychologist and philosopher Eugene Gendlin, Ph.D. at The University of Chicago in the 1960’s. He, with other colleagues, recorded and analyzed psychotherapy sessions, trying to determine what produces a positive therapeutic outcome. 

They discovered something surprising. Differences in therapeutic technique mattered little, as did what the client talked about.  It was how the client talked about what they were experiencing that was significant.  This outward sign of an internal process was the determining factor in therapeutic outcome. What the client did was so distinguishable that it could be identified within the first two therapy sessions.  Success or failure of therapy could then be accurately predicted from what was observed.

The good news about Gene Gendlin’s discovery is that this skill no longer has to be something that people inadvertently do or don’t do.  Research has proven that Focusing can be taught.  Furthermore, not only is Focusing useful in therapy, it can be used as a tool for approaching any problem, situation or creative project.  Anyone who knows how can use Focusing to enhance their life.

Elizabeth Lehmann, MA, MSW, LCSW
__________________________________________________

Focusing is paying attention to something not yet clear, but definitely felt or experienced, generally in the middle part of your body.  It is always connected to something in your life, though you may or may not initially know what that is.  By paying attention to and staying with this vague or unclear bodily felt sense, movement or steps forward will occur.  These will produce change, not of the problem or issue, but the way you relate to it or carry it around, both inside your body and in your life. 

Bala Jaison
__________________________________________________

Links to other resources which describe Focusing and the Focusing Process

Joan Klagsbrun
http://focusingnewengland.com/about-focusing/

Robert Lee
http://www.focusingnow.com/what_is_focusing.htm

Ann Weiser Cornell
http://www.focusingresources.com/irf/faq.htm#1

LEARN FOCUSING

Subscribe to our Announcement list to receive email notices of our gatherings as well as other NY City area Focusing Events.