Two-Year Online Focusing Certification Program

Start Date: Sept. 13, 2020

Time:10 am - 1:30 pm Eastern Time

Class Schedule for first 3 classes: Sept. 13, Oct 11, Nov 8, 2020. Remaining dates to be decided as a class.

Who is eligible to take this course?

• Therapists, Counselors, Health Care Workers, Coaches, Body Workers, Dancers, Yoga teachers, Professionals of any field interested in incorporating Focusing into your professional work.
• People wanting to deepen and improve both the inner relationship to themselves as well as with others.
• Those going through transformational periods in their lives wanting to relate and move forward with more integration between their heads and hearts, and between their thinking and feeling selves.
• Individuals who want to train and guide others in Focusing.

PROGRAM DESIGN:

YEAR ONE:

One Individual 1 hour session with Charlotte before starting classes.

Ten 3.5 hour classes with teachers and coaches (approximately monthly)

Ten 2-2.5 hour online meetings in smaller groups of approximately 4 students often with a coach.    Here, students will do experiential exercises. 

YEAR TWO:

Ten 3.5 hour classes with teachers and coaches (approximately monthly)

Four practice sessions with Focusing-Oriented Therapist (FOT) Charlotte over two weekends.

Ten 2-2.5 hour online meetings in smaller groups of approximately 4 students. Here students will do experiential exercises often with a coach.

Six sessions with an FOT supervisor to be paid for in addition to course fees (we have a list of experienced supervisors who work on a sliding scale).

One Individual 1 hour session at the end of your second year with Charlotte to get feedback on your final video tape with a client.

International teachers include: Lynn Preston, Greg Madison, James Strohl, and Ann Weiser Cornell.

Additional requirements over the course period: 

Students will maintain a weekly Focusing Partnership during training. Partners will be rotated approximately every three months.

Assignments: 

1) Video-taped session with a client in second year.

2) Option to teach Focusing to two or more students over three or more sessions and write it up in second year.

3) Various readings, videos, audio between classes (when assigned, approximately 1-2 hours per month) both years. 

4) Weekly partnership Focusing in dyads (1-hour per week) both years.

There will be opportunities for experiential supervision of work with clients, or problematic relationships in your life, live demonstrations, and opportunities to practice with both teachers and together in class.

Attendance: 

All training and supervision sessions are required.

One excused absence per year is permitted as long as the recorded video and assignments are completed. In the case of a second absence, there is a required make-up session with the Program Coordinator Charlotte Howorth at an additional fee.

One excused absence per year is permitted of the small group 2-hour online meetings.

Course completion and Certification:

Completion of the requirements does not automatically lead to certification. Charlotte Howorth and the Trainee must agree on readiness. 

6 Individual supervision sessions with a certified focusing professional to be paid for separately (list of practitioners with a sliding scale for fees will be provided.

Upon recommendation for certification, the student is required to pay a one-time certification fee. The Certification Fees: US $500, Europe $375, South America (and developing countries) $250.

Attendance at the annual Advanced Certification Program is encouraged (but not required) and tuition to the Weeklong includes the above-referenced certification fee. If students are unable to attend the Weeklong, the certification fee may be applied to the Weeklong tuition for up to two years following certification.

Program Coordinator and Instructor:

Charlotte Howorth, LCSW (www.howortherapy.com)

• The International Focusing Institute’s teacher and trainer for their 2-year certification program for the past 12 years
• Facilitated numerous focusing retreats and workshops internationally.
• Teaches and supervises psychotherapists in how to use Focusing in their practice internationally.
• Is on the faculty of The Relational Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy program headed by Lynn Preston in New York City, where she teaches and supervises psychotherapists taking the program.
• Has over 20 years’ experience teaching, counseling, supervising and writing.
• Lecturer in Social Work, Columbia University, NY.
• Clinical Consultant, CHDFS (Center for Human Development and Family Services).
• Private Practice for adults, children, couples and families in NY.

FEES:

Total for 2-year program      US $5,200, payable in installments. 

Year 1                                     US $2,600 for the first year. Students are welcome to attend only the first year to learn the foundations of Focusing partnerships and guiding, then decide if they want to take the second year to complete their certification. 

Year 2                                      US $2,600 for the second-year students who would like to earn their certification in Focusing. 

Make-up session                    US $200

Certification                            US $500, Europe $375, South America (and developing countries) $250 to be paid to The Focusing Institute.

Requires an additional 6 sessions with a certified Focusing professional (fee not included in this course). 

REGISTRATION:

Registration may be done by contacting Charlotte at [email protected] or calling or texting her on (USA) 347 489 9587.

COMPLETION and CERTIFICATION:

Upon satisfactory completion of the program as defined by the Instructor, a participant may request recommendation for certification. Candidates for certification are encouraged to attend The Advanced and Certification Weeklong, an advanced 6-day program offered annually to celebrate, honor and welcome newly Certified Focusing Professionals into the Focusing community while giving them an opportunity to gain advanced skills. If a candidate does not attend the Certification Weeklong, a stand-alone certification fee may be paid. 

Charlotte's History With The International Focusing Institute:

Mary Hendricks, Eugene Gendlin’s wife and former teacher of TFI’s certification course, and former director of TFI, handed the role of teaching and responsibility for certifying focusing professionals for the Institute to Charlotte. She has now been teaching for the Institute for the past 12 years and has a wealth of experience as a focusing teacher and has worked as a focusing oriented therapist herself for 25 years.

TESTIMONIALS:

Jeff Evans

Psychotherapist, USA

I truly cannot put into words what this course has and continues to mean to me. For myself, I can just begin to feel, to taste, to sense that something that is beyond all words and concepts - in this course, I have had brushes with something immense and vast and I am grateful for this. For me as a therapist, this course has illumined this subtle but powerful “felt sense” that is present and available to both me and the client that has only deepened my reverence for the beauty of being and interaction. As I close, what comes to me is the last few lines of an e.e. cummings poem: 

‘now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened.’  

MacPherson Worebec
Acupuncturist and Yoga therapist, USA
The course exceeded my expectations.  Everything ultimately worked well - guest teachers, the online platform, weekly partnerships, monthly small group sessions, didactic sections and demonstrations. All guest teachers were incredible. Looking back, I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to experience each of their styles. I think this was the perfect amount, because Charlotte was able to constantly weave herself through in between the guest teachers, to provide the stable thread. 

Simon Spire
Contemplative teacher and human development facilitator, USA
Charlotte’s teaching was excellent. I loved the range of guest teachers who are innovators and masters of their craft—this was a huge highlight. Getting to practice with a variety of other participants was also very helpful. The reading materials and convenience of the online course were also pluses.  

Dan McKinnon
Psychotherapist, USA
Charlotte is a wonderful teacher and facilitator.
Thank you.

Maria Vetuzhskih
Psychotherapist, Russia
I want to say that my expectations from the course were not only fulfilled, but also exceeded itself. I got much more than I expected. I thought that the course will mainly contain some demonstration video materials and discussions of these materials. I didn’t really believe that focusing can be done online. But despite my doubts, I got so many hours of focusing practice. Not because I was active and immediately took two focusing partners, but because this course was designed this way. This course can be called practice-oriented for sure. The theoretical part is presented in the course in a very balanced way, it complements and guides the practice in the right direction. But still practice, as it seems to me, is having as a leading position. And this is really great. So, I may say that practice worked well for me. And of course I’m really happy to know so many wonderful people.