TIFI - Carrying Gene’s Work Forward in Academia: Carrying Possibilities Forward

Friday December 6, 2019 from 12:00 to 2:00 pm Eastern Time

Times worldwide: convert to your time zone

The TIFI Membership Committee is pleased to offer this series of Focusing Roundtables designed especially for members of the Institute. If you are not a member, please join at https://focusing.org/page/join-or-renew, then return to this page to register. This program will afford members a valuable opportunity to engage in casual peer-to-peer conversation with other members who share Focusing-related interests.

This second meeting of Focusing professionals in academia is offered in collaboration with the Gendlin Center for Research in Experiential Philosophy and Psychology.  During our first Roundtable on September 6, we gathered members from around the world to discuss how we might collaborate to create an international presence to make Gendlin’s contributions more universally known in academic settings and—by extension—in the world.  We learned about each other and the multiple ways in which we are already bringing Focusing, the Philosophy of the Implicit, TAE and other aspects of Gendlin’s work into our own work into academia.

Through our discussion at the first Roundtable and the questionnaires we gathered, we now have a more informed picture of who is already Carrying Gene’s Work Forward in academic settings.  From this beginning, two strong branches emerge more clearly:  Research and Teaching.   In this second academic Roundtable we will carry our discussion further in smaller breakout groups aligned with our shared mutual interests.

Whether or not you attended the first Roundtable, we invite you to join us as we continue to explore the richness of collaboration and co-creation of Carrying Gene’s Work forward in Academia.  Some questions we might explore together are:

•    Where is your fresh edge in the field of Focusing and Academia?  
•    What support and collaboration can you gather at the Roundtable to create your next steps?
•    How might this meeting stimulate fresh thinking within our international network and create ripples of growth to Carry Gene’s Work Forward and make it universally known and findable?

Other questions may emerge from our mutual exploration during the Roundtable.

Who might be particularly interested in attending this Roundtable?  This Roundtable is specifically designed for members who are already bringing—or hoping to bring-- Focusing, TAE, the Philosophy of the Implicit or other aspects of Gendlin’s work into their teaching or research at the college or university level.  Please come if you want to:

o    Explore a research idea or project and find common ground together;
o    Collaborate and enrich your teaching strategies;
o    Sense further into the unclear edge between what’s already begun and  your next steps toward Carrying Gene’s Work Forward;
o    Envision new ways to build on Gene’s work to cultivate social and emotional wellness and growth in academic settings and throughout the world.

With the planting of these seeds--literal or metaphorical--we set intentions for what we would like to grow.  We hope you will join us for this very Important International gathering of Academics joining forces to bring this potential energy into some kind of kinetic reality! 

CONNECTION>CONVERSATION>COMMUNITY

What to expect from Focusing Roundtables:  Each Focusing Roundtable is designed to promote informal peer-to-peer conversation. Rather than acting as expert presenters, the Hosts will serve as conversation moderators to encourage sharing and exploration of the topics from the participants’ own perspectives.  All participants’ sharings are welcome and valuable, no matter what level of experience or knowledge you have on the topic. To preserve the nature of informal conversation, the program will be offered live only and no recordings will be available. Registration is limited and on a first-come, first served basis. Participants are encouraged to create follow up opportunities for connection among themselves after the Roundtable.

About your hosts:

Beth Mahler is a Certifying Coordinator in New Jersey, USA, and has been a Licensed Clinical Social Worker for over 20 years. She has taught in the undergraduate Sociology Departments at William Paterson University and County College of Morris in New Jersey, USA. She writes, “In my life’s work, I am invested in studying and enriching human potential for social emotional wellness and growth. As an octopus stretches in eight directions while swimming through the sea, I too find myself stretching to meet and share ideas while collaborating with other professionals in Academia who are invested in carrying Gene’s work forward in uniquely valuable ways.”

João Carlos Messias is a professor and researcher at the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas’ Postgraduate Program in Psychology, where he leads the group "Psychology and Work: Experiential Approach". He had the opportunity to participate in the TAE workshop with Gene Gendlin and today, seeks to apply his theory in the context of work relations in general and to create dialogues with Jost and Banashi’s System Justification Theory and Savickas’ Life Design, for instance. Prof. Messias is now guiding undergraduate, masters and doctoral students in research projects about Work-Family Relations, Career Choices, Meaning of Work, Leadership and Truck Drivers’ Work Quality of Life. 

Salvador Moreno-López is a professor at Universidad Iberoamericana-León, México, in the Clinical Psychotherapy Masters program, where he promotes the learning of modes of interaction based on the Philosophy of the Implicit. He has worked in the academic field more than 25 years. In 2004, he introduced Gendlin’s philosophy into a new Psychotherapy Masters Program at ITESO University, in Guadalajara, and coordinated the program for six years. Later he researched suicide from an experiential perspective. He has facilitated developing competencies in human interaction from an experiential and person-centered perspective to graduate students in several Human Development Programs. A Certifying Coordinator in Mexico, he is a psychotherapist and workshop facilitator. His interests include relating the Philosophy of the Implicit and Focusing to everyday life and health care and crossing Focusing with Mindfulness and neurosciences