Focusing & Neuroscience: Exploring the Crossing of Focusing with Neuroscience

Sorry - registration for this event is closed as it is a full and we have a lengthy wait list.

Friday, May 1, 2020  from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm Eastern Time

Live attendance required - no recording.

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/course/membership, and 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.

The practice of Focusing, and our understanding of it, comes from observations of clients in psychotherapy and from Gendlin's philosophy of the implicit. It has led us to a large pool of shared experience of practicing Focusing and a well-elaborated philosophical foundation. And then neuroscience came along...

Neuroscience has much to tell us about our Focusing experience, and many Focusers are interested in it. It is also true that our Focusing experience can help us understand this subject that can become overwhelming in its complexity.

In this Roundtable, we will discuss the crossing of Focusing and neuroscience and hear your ideas about it. We will address the following questions:

• What interests you about neuroscience in the light of your Focusing experience?
• Does your Focusing experience help you understand aspects of neuroscience?
• How does the felt sense relate to what you have learned about the nervous system and the mind-body connection?
• Does Iain McGilchrist's thesis of the divide between left and right hemispheres (The Master & His Emissary) shed light on your Focusing experience?

Since it is common for a discussion to tilt our brains towards our left hemispheres, we will pause midway for a guided attunement around embodiment and presence that will tilt us towards our right hemispheres.

Who might be particularly interested in attending this Roundtable? 

• Any Focusers who are curious and interested in this topic.

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:

Peter Afford has been practicing and teaching Focusing for a long time. Based in London, he is a Coordinator for the International Focusing Institute and a founding member of the British Focusing Association. He also works as a counsellor and therapist in private practice, and has been studying neuroscience for 20 years. He is the author of a new book, Therapy in the Age of Neuroscience, and has written articles on Focusing and neuroscience. For more information and to access many of Peter's articles, see www.focusing.co.uk/neuroscience.html.

Jeffrey Morrison is a Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapist and Focusing Coordinator practicing in Seattle and Vashon Island, Washington. He specializes in working with complex trauma and teaching Focusing-Oriented Therapy (FOT) to therapists and other healing professionals. He has developed a training program which blends Focusing, mythology, mindfulness and other embodied practices for unwinding trauma and restoring spirit. For more information, please visit Jeffrey's website at www.morrisontherapy.com.