Therapist Roundtable: Focusing and Other Models: Forging the Optimum Relationship

Thursday, June 10, 2021  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 Therapist Roundtables, a Roundtable series designed especially for members who work with clients in therapeutic settings. If you are not a member, please join at this link and then return to this page to register.

Regardless of modality, we therapists hold in common the ethical and professional accountability and responsibility for our clients’ welfare and growth. It is with this understanding that we come together to explore both the challenges of our work and the opportunities that arise through bringing a Focusing orientation to our practices. These conversations are not intended to be professional supervision sessions, but rather an opportunity to share ideas and experiences with like-minded professionals.

In Focusing Oriented Psychotherapy (1996), Gendlin brilliantly explored the challenge and benefit of Focusing existing in a therapeutic field replete with a multitude of schools and theories. He made a strong case for maintaining what is unique about what Focusing has to offer: finding and working with the Felt Sense and its connection to what he called “life forward direction” as Focusing-Oriented Therapy ‘s central aim. He also encouraged the understanding and development of skills from other models in the service of that aim.

Twenty-six years later, the number of therapeutic models has exploded even further.  As Focusing-Oriented Therapists, we ask ourselves, “Is there an optimal relationship between Focusing and other Therapeutic Models?

Questions we might explore together are:

• What is the lens you use to understand your clients and how change happens in therapy?
• Do you use therapeutic models, theories and approaches in addition to Focusing, in your work with your clients?
• If so, how do you weave them together in your therapeutic approach and how well does that work?
• Does integrating Focusing into the agendas of other models compromise the integrity and strength of what Focusing-Oriented Therapy offers?  How can we protect against this?

Other issues and ideas may emerge from our mutual exploration during the Roundtable.

Through this exploration and sharing of experiences from our own professional practices, we hope that participants will glean insights and practical strategies for increasing their therapeutic efficacy.

Suggested advance reading: Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method (Gendlin1996), chapter 11 “A United View of the Field through Focusing and the Experiential Method” (pp. 169-180).

Who might be particularly interested in attending this Circle?

Therapist Roundtables are intended to serve the needs and interests of a specialized subset of our membership community who use or have used therapeutic modalities deepened by Focusing. Current and former therapists are welcome, including psychotherapists, counselors, coaches, somatic practitioners, spiritual directors, occupational or physical therapists, nurses and the like. If you have an area of interest, curiosity or passion that you would like to explore in a future Circle, please let us know.

CONNECTION>CONVERSATION>COMMUNITY

What to expect from Therapist Rountables:  Each Therapist 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:

Mary Anne Schleinich, MPS, BScOT is a counselling body psychotherapist in private practice in Calgary and online. She is certified with the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association and The International Focusing Institute as a Focusing Oriented Therapist. She teaches Focusing and has worked with pain, anxiety and trauma for 20 years.

Julie Ramsey, LICSW, FOT, is a psychotherapist in private practice in Wellesley, MA. She works with adolescents and adults in individual and couples therapy. She also teaches Focusing in small groups and enjoys bringing Focusing to all aspects of her work and life. She is a Coordinator-in-Training.

Steve Moscovitch MSW is a therapist in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He has been a Certified Focusing Trainer since 2002. He has integrated Focusing and a Focusing orientation into his work in individual, couple and family therapy for 20 years of his 38-year career. Other significant recent trainings are Emotion Focused Couple Therapy and Internal Family Systems.