Do you want to understand more about why you’re drawn to Focusing? Do you have a sense it can play a greater role in your life? Do you feel a wanting to bring it into the world? In this 8-week course you will have a safe space, guidance and companionship to discover something about yourself crossed with Focusing. We will give you support to connect with your inner knowing, a kind of certainty you feel in your body but that you are not yet able to express.

The course is an opportunity to spend time with your wanting or project to integrate Focusing into your life—whether personally or professionally—in both an embodied and more than logical way. Like being in contact with a yet undiscovered treasure box. With FOCUSING, a practice laid out by philosopher and psychotherapist Eugene T. Gendlin, you will get in touch with your Felt Sense and be able to develop surprisingly fresh understandings that make a difference, especially in how you are with your special project or issue. By adding certain moves of THINKING AT THE EDGE (TAE), another practice Gendlin created, with Mary Hendricks and Kye Nelson, we will show you how you can speak more and more precisely from your Felt Sense. In doing so, you will discover important details by redefining key terms, becoming aware of paradoxes or clarifying the richness of your lived experience.

You will end with your own concept map of your project ‘Focusing and You.’ The concept gives you a language to speak about your project, in a deeply embodied way. It works like a guiding map into your everyday life in order to help you to define concrete action steps that feel right.

The teaching will include basic terms of Gendlin’s philosophy, as well as an overview of the first 12 TAE-steps. We will introduce exercises which you will practice in breakout rooms, using rotating partnerships. Partners will take notes for each other to capture words and ideas, ensuring they are available for the ongoing process. To deepen your practice and allow for further unfolding, it is encouraged to form a partnership with another participant to meet between classes.

As needed, we will use Focusing to unpack how doing TAE is affecting us.

To further your practice, it is encouraged to also form a Focusing partnership with another participant. This involves meeting between classes to practice, in an exchange of Focusing and listening. This course counts towards the requirements for the TAE Proficiency Award provided through TIFI. Students are welcomed to speak with Monika to learn more.

Course Teachers

Annette Dubreuil, PUPA
Coordinator-in-Training

Annette Dubreuil is an Embodied Creativity Facilitator, Focusing Teacher (Certified Focusing Professional) and environmentalist living in Toronto, Canada. She teaches pausing, intuition and embodiment to catalyze creativity and sustainable change in individuals and their teams—for their organizations, communities and the planet. With organizations she uses a host of embodied creativity facilitation tools, including Theory U/Social Presencing Theatre, Dynamic Facilitation, and Open Space Technology. Annette teaches Focusing to individuals, one-on-one and in groups. Her previous work was communications for sustainability and climate change research projects, most recently as communications director at Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission. Annette is certified to teach Focusing through The International Focusing Institute. She has completed the Presencing Foundation Program in Theory U at MIT. She has an MBA in sustainability and non-profits from the Schulich School of Business, and an undergraduate degree in environmental science from the University of Waterloo.

Monika Catarina Lindner, Dipl.-Päd. Univ.
Coordinator-in-Training and Experiential-Concept-Coach (ECC)

Monica is an educationalist with a focus on intercultural learning and works as a project manager for German courses and lecturer at a university. She is a certified Focusing trainer and as an Experiential Concept Coach/Trainer (ECC) she specializes in teaching the philosophical practice "Thinking At the Edge" (TAE). She trains in Focusing and in ECC, a 5-part coaching training based on "Thinking At the Edge" that teaches the application of the 14 steps for individual processes, for use in groups, and for creating an innovative (corporate) culture. Her offering includes individual sessions, advanced training in Focusing and TAE, and facilitation of groups who want to develop a project in a creative and experiential way. The courses take place in German, English and Spanish, at different course locations and also online.  Her intention as coordinator in training is to offer Focusing and TAE to educators and the broad field of education. As a member of the international research group "Embodied Critical Thinking" (ect.hi.is) at the University of Iceland, her research is motivated to open up pedagogical questions with Gendlin's Philosophy of the Implicit. monicalindner.com

Timing and other details

Dates:

• Thursdays, February 22-April 11 2024
  Time: 12:30-2:30 pm Eastern Time
• TBD - email Annette at [email protected] if these dates and times don’t work for you to find out about future offerings of this course with Monika.

Course location: Zoom

Course size: this course is capped at 16 people

Who is this group for? The group is designed for all levels of Focusers. Some previous Focusing training is required as you need to be able to access your Felt Sense and hold space (have practice in Focusing partnerships). This beginner training can be learned in Annette’s 4-week beginner course.

The course provides one's own experience with the thinking movements of TAE, which is the basis for guiding others. Therefore it is an introduction to Monica’s series "Experiential Concept Coach" , an application of Focusing and TAE in coaching individuals and groups.

It is also part of Annette’s PUPA Journey and Focusing training (see below)

Language: English (The instructors have fluency in German, French and Spanish languages, and can translate for english as a second language speakers as needed.)

Sliding scale pricing: This course has sliding scale pricing, offering multiple price points to make the course more accessible and reduce financial barriers for people with different levels of income. Please view the sliding scale fees page for details and discount codes.

Notes:

• You can take this class as a stand alone experience, continue on with the whole PUPA journey, or whatever course or courses resonate with you.

• Consisting of five courses, the journey covers learning Focusing, learning about who you are, discovering who you want to be and what you want to bring into the world with TAE (this course), transforming a large block using the 8Cs of self-leadership, and finally a course on taking action with embodied leadership.

• The journey can also be extended to the PUPA Focusing Training Programme, which includes additional requirements to become a Certified Focusing Professional with The International Focusing Institute.