This is the first in a blog series of wide-ranging explorations into applications of Focusing beyond how it is traditionally taught and practiced.

   "Focusing Happens" - Gene Gendlin’s earliest discovery opens up new realms of applications of Focusing

     About 20 years ago, during a meditation, the words popped into my awareness: “Focusing Happens!”

I remembered that this was Gendlin’s first discovery – that Focusing happens - that there is some way of being with our experience that allows movement and shifts.

As many of you know, Gendlin was studying therapy outcomes as a graduate student under Carl Rogers,  and found - to everyone’s surprise - that the difference between success and not-success related to something that the client was doing – not what style of therapy the therapist was using.

(Interestingly, it took another 4 years before Gene and his colleagues began to wonder: ‘perhaps this capacity can be taught’ – and developed what we now call Focusing.)

Starting with “Focusing happens” - that it is a natural process - where might that take us?

Let’s step back and bring Carl Rogers in….

Rogers concentrated on “How does a therapist (Listener) create an optimal environment to encourage optimal unfolding and growth of the client (Focuser)?”  He discovered that when certain conditions were present, people were more likely to get in touch with the More inside of them.

Rogers focused on the listener/therapist’s role, and came up with these three qualities:  https://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/rogers/char-a.html

-Empathy

-Congruence

-Unconditional Positive Regard

 It is no surprise that these three qualities of Rogers - the outer environment created by the companion - are similar to the Focusing Attitude. These qualities complement and support Gendlin’s focus on the inner act of the person (felt-sensing).

If we attend to both the outer environment that encourages natural Focusing, and also to supporting felt-sense formation, we shall be able to encourage more ‘natural, spontaneous Focusing’ in those with whom we work with.

This is where knowing about Focusing can be as helpful as knowing how to do Focusing!

Here are three statements that follow from this, with questions for your consideration:

1)      Whenever the right conditions are met, people are more likely to do their ‘natural Focusing’, whether or not they have been taught anything about Focusing.  What are these factors that encourage our felt-sensing, and how do we bring these conditions into many areas of our lives?

2)      There are conditions that make felt-sensing and Focusing very difficult, if not impossible.

How can our awareness of this help us to design environments that do this as little as possible?

3)      Focusing, as practiced with a listener, is generally done within a therapy/self-help context. That is a great framework for tender emotional work. It may not be as necessary when felt-sensing in other realms, such as creative group work, sports, classrooms, etc… What are other frameworks in which felt-sensing and Focusing can happen?

In future episodes, I plan to explore topics such as: 

teaching Focusing by Instancing (finding places where people are already Focusing in their lives),

accelerated felt-sensing through co-sensing group processes, 

different kinds of reflections beyond ‘traditional’ reflecting and guiding ones, 

different channels of intuition,

and brief tours of some fascinating Focusing-friendly processes that you may not be aware of….

It is my hope that this will deepen your appreciation of the vastness of Focusing, and be able to bring your Focusing sensibility to more areas of your lives and to the lives of others.

Welcome to the adventure!

Bruce