Weeklong for Advanced Focusers 2024

Weeklong for Advanced Focusers
Weeklong para focalizadores avanzados

October 6 - 11, 2024
6 al 11 de octubre de 2024

Online and with an in-person option in Madison, CT

The 2024 Weeklong will be a hybrid model with two choices.

(1) All online / Todo en linea  including your Home group / incluido su Grupos Hogar
or

(2) In-person in Madison, Ct   (English only - solo inglés) You will go online on Zoom on your own computer to experience the plenaries, but all else will be in person

(including Home Groups and in-person workshops offered by fellow participants).  You have the option to attend additional workshops online, but the daily plenaries are the only times you are required to be online. Location: Mercy by the Sea Retreat Center - Madison, CT (about 2 1/2 hours from New York City)

The Weeklong is the flagship event of The International Focusing Institute (TIFI) and began in 1979.  It is a warm and intimate event, and features a certification ceremony. In the early days, anyone who wanted to become certified by the Institute was required to attend a Weeklong.  Now, the Weeklong is still a celebration of certification with TIFI, but it is so much more. At the Weeklong, you will connect or re-connect with our warm and diverse international community.  It is a rare opportunity to be with an intimate group of advanced practitioners, to learn from one another, to share your wisdom and to live Focusing in community for a week.  Español

More information about the history of the Weeklong here

Cómo funciona el Weeklong

It is intended for all those who are certified by The International Focusing Institute (TIFI) or will be recommended for certification by the start date of the Weeklong.

The Weeklong can reinvigorate or launch your work, and strengthen the foundation of your life-long participation in our global Focusing community.  It is led by a Facilitation Team of Coordinators from different countries and backgrounds.  They are supported by several Collaborating Coordinators, and together this team creates an event rich with learning and sharing.

At the Weeklong, you will deepen or learn new skills, connect with others through common interests, experience a variety of cultural perspectives, and build upon the legacy of Focusing and The International Focusing Institute. There are also ample opportunities to share your skills and your particular Focusing approach.

At the Weeklong, you will gain:

A deeper understanding of your special place in the ongoing evolution of Focusing and the worldwide Focusing community;

Deep and life-long connections to Focusers from around the world who share your passion and interests and can offer you continuing support and contact as you take your next steps;

Practical skills to help you to deepen your Focusing practice, professionally and personally;

A new or renewed sense of clarity and confidence about how you can offer your own gift of Focusing freshly to the world.

At past Weeklongs, people found they were able to more deeply discover themselves, their gifts, and their aliveness through the experience of deep connection in a profoundly accepting and supportive community — a community that has continued long after the week was completed. The Weeklong is about deepening our understanding and practice of Focusing; deepening our understanding of ourselves and what we bring to the world; and deepening our ability to create together a community based on felt sensing.

"I really enjoyed the weeklong. I found it extremely supportive, educational and valuable. I love spending a week in a Focusing environment with Focusing people."

"I found the WKL a very nourishing and inspiring experience because it touched many dimensions: loved meeting people I knew in person, loved the Focusing personal interactions in Home Group - with deep listening and respect, loved the connection with others via online. To have the felt experience of the internationality of the WKL both in person and online is always a wonderful gift, we touch on the much more of a person. I am extremely grateful for the work of the whole team and the success of the WKL is really a fruit of their work attending to each detail with dedication and foresight. Thank you and Congratulations! It was a success!!"

Daily Plenary Presentations (required) – Each day the plenaries will be offered live but will also be recorded for those who cannot attend live due to timezone.  These presentations will include simultaneous translation to Spanish.  If you choose to be with us in Connecticut, you will go onto your computer to experience these online.

Home Groups (required) – These are small groups (not more than 15 people), facilitated by one of the Coordinators on our Facilitation Team.  The Home Groups are an important part of the Weeklong because they give you a chance to process what you are learning and experiencing and to connect more deeply with some of your fellow participants.  Each will differ slightly based on the personalities of the leader and the group, but each will include Focusing time, sometimes as a whole group and sometimes in dyads or triads.  Those online will have online Home Groups; those with us in Connecticut will have Home Groups in person.

Opportunities For You To Present Workshops (optional) – Once you have registered, you can submit a workshop to offer during the Weeklong.  Please e-mail to [email protected] the following information: (1) your workshop title and a one line description, (2) if you are attending online, include the time zone you will be in during the Weeklong (so that we can assign you an appropriate time). Normally, we provide the Zoom room and Zoom support. We will do our best to accommodate all who wish to give a presentation.  They are first-come, first-served, so please send in your information as soon as possible.  Participant workshops are offered online for those attending online; for those with us in Connecticut, you can offer your workshop online or in person.  (In-person workshops will not be live-streamed, so you will be offering them only to those with you in Connecticut.)

Opportunities To Hang Out For Fun, Conversation Or Focusing (optional) – For those online, we will create times during the week when the Zoom room will be open for you to be spontaneous with one another.  For those in Connecticut, these will of course happen spontaneously.

Closing & Certification Ceremony including Honoring Milestones - We finish our week with a celebration in two parts.  The first part is Honoring Milestones.  This is open to all members to attend worldwide online. We will celebrate those of you who are being certified, as well as new Coordinators.  We also include brief memorials for any Coordinator who has passed away during the previous year.  This is followed by a warm and intimate event exclusively for those who have attended the Weeklong. Included in this is an opportunity to locate yourself and your teachers in the history of the Focusing movement on our Focusing timeline.  Those with us in Connecticut will additionally have an in-person ceremony celebrating those newly certified and bringing an end to our time together.

Who gets celebrated at the in-person Weeklong certification ceremony? - If your certification date falls after the cut-off date from last year’s Honoring Milestones ceremony, then you fall into this year’s “class.”  If you were certified by TIFI prior to that date (the last cut-off date was August 31, 2024), and you’ve never had your certification celebrated in person at a Weeklong, then we will happily add you as an “honorary” member of this year’s ceremony if you make that request.  We will print out a copy of your certificate from our files to present to you symbolically.

Click to read Schedule

Horario

IMPORTANT: IF YOU SIGN UP, YOU ARE COMMITTING TO ATTENDANCE  – The hallmark of the Weeklong is the building of community cross-culturally among Focusers from all over the world.  To maintain the nature of the intimacy of the Weeklong, if you sign up, you must commit to attending all Home Groups and all Plenaries. (Plenaries may be watched after-the-fact if you live in a place where the time of day is impossible for you, but we ask that you do your best to watch them prior to your Home Group.)  We also ask you to make an effort to attend as many of the optional events as possible.

René Veugelers from the Netherlands is a Coordinator specializing in Children’s Focusing for more than 20 years, also a Focusing-Oriented Therapist (FOT) and Art therapist with an emphasis on the non-verbal world. René teaches worldwide parents, therapists, teachers and others how to be with children in a Focusing way, how to (re)connect to their own inner child experiences and how to integrate creativity and flexibility

into their life and work. Specializing in working with children with ADHD, ADD, trauma and attachment disorder. His work and experiences as a psychiatric nurse and as an art therapist with children, of any age, embraces an expanded richness of creative elements and support a natural

unfolding of creative process. He is an inspiring teacher who brings considerable experience, subtlety and joy to every person attending his workshops or training. www.childrenfocusing.org      Español

Plenary: A Seriously Playful journey    Español
Does it sometimes seem like a challenge to find words to fit your Felt Sense? Wouldn't it be relaxing to invite your body to express itself in color and/or in movement, instead of words?  Nonverbal communication, bodily expression, creativity, and Focusing seem like four different categories.  In René’s work as a Children & Focusing Professional and Art Therapist, he combines and connects these four aspects into one integrated approach: Dynamic Expressive Focusing. This approach supports "the living forward energy" to glow – to move and grow.  In this presentation, René will invite you to create your wondering space – an open, unconditional acceptance towards the unfolding Felt Sense and its          expression through colors, images, gestures, sounds, and words.  This non-verbal attunement supports your natural process and carries forward surprising new dimensions and depth to the Focusing process. René se presenta 

Beatrice Blake became a Certified Focusing Trainer in 2000 with Robert Lee, Joan Klagsbrun and Neil Friedman. She went on to study Thinking at the Edge and the Philosophy of the Implicit with Eugene Gendlin in 2004. Kye Nelson, Nada Lou and Evelyn Fendler Lee also contributed to her TAE training. She became  a Certifying Coordinator with The International Focusing Institute in 2011.

Beatrice loves sharing TAE online with people all over the world. She offers small 4-month TAE classes to Focusers who partner with each other, and gives individual sessions as well. Her 2024 recorded TAE course has short lectures, demonstration videos of each step, and written

transcripts of each class. 

Beatrice and fellow Coordinator Marta Fabregat are partners in New Paradigm, a three-year Focusing training program that includes TAE.

Beatrice says: “Focusing is the birthright of human beings. I envision a world in which children are raised to be open to their felt sense of situations by parents who know how to trust and listen to their own felt sense.”  Español

Plenary: Thinking at the Edge — a  soul growth process   Español

Gendlin urged us to use our felt sense to explore situations and come up with new concepts about life. But most people become familiar with TAE by applying it to personal concerns. Coming back over time to ones evolving felt sense is a soul growth process.

Beatrice will lead you through two “invitations” or moves of TAE that are often not covered in Focusing training. These moves bring you closer to the power of felt sensing as a source of direction and transformation.

For example, “instancing” demonstrates the incredible power of the felt sense to take us to moments in our lives that can shed light on our current concerns. We tend to take these moments for granted, but the felt sense shows us details that we hadn’t taken into account. This deeper understanding allows our old, patterned behaviors to fall away.

You’ll explore several instances from your life in a Focusing partnership exchange in order to get a feel for the process. Beatrice se presenta

Cecilia Burgos, Buenos Aires, Argentina.  For Ceci, Focusing has been a sense of "coming home"; and being able to find a delicate way of being the felt experience. She explores movements and gestures as doorways to the living process that wants to unfold. She was introduced to Focusing in 1999 as part of the Body Centered Counseling training she undertook in Argentina. She continued her training and in 2003 got her certification as Focusing-Oriented Therapist and Focusing Trainer. She has been a Coordinator since 2019. Interested in the felt and conscious body, she explores different methods such as Eutonia, Tai Chi and Hakomi. She has been teaching Focusing since 2004.   Español

Plenary: Letting movement and gestures unfold    Español
In this workshop we will explore the power of gesture and movement as they arise from the Felt Sense - this dialogue or zig-zag between the Felt Sense and these movements. As Gendlin writes: “Having made a movement, one can make another. If an image has come, it easily leads to another. Having said something, one moves into something more to say. Instead, however, one can turn one´s attention inward to try to sense what the movement came out of (or what the image or words came out of). After the movement, too, a Felt Sense can form. It is the sense of the source of that movement.” Movement, objectification and Focusing Experiential Psychotherapy and Focusing, Cap 17, Ed Desclee De Brouwer.

Feeling your body from within can bring fresh richness to life. Kindly inviting the body to open up to integrating fresh body movement in all its multiplicity. In Ceci´s  own process and by accompanying others she has discovered that movement can propel next steps, allowing them to deepen, broaden, and find the direction that life is wanting to live.

Movement can also bring memories that have been stored in the body, waiting for the loving and spacious listening that Focusing gives. Cecilia se presenta

Monica Gómez Galaz, Mexico City. Monica is a Certified Focusing Coordinator, Comprehensive Coach who is passionate about writing. Since 2009, when she started Focusing, it has been the pillar from which she develops her life. A curious, endless learner, she has become interested in how personal evolution connects us to something bigger. Through WholeBody Focusing and Biodecoding, she has come to have a better understanding of her own body. Español

Workshop: Exploring our Given Names

Chris Van De Veire (1953), Belgium. Chris is a retired clinical psychologist, Person-Centered and Focusing-oriented psychotherapist, Focusing trainer and coordinator for TIFI. Before her retirement she had a psychotherapy practice and was teaching Focusing in Bruges (Belgium). She was involved in various psychotherapy training programs and was mentor at the e-learning program ‘Counseling in Existential Well-being’ at the University of Leuven. She still is an active member of the Focussen Vlaanderen network (www.focussenvlaanderen.be). 

Workshop: Focusing on growing old(er)
It has been clear to me for some time now: I am in the fourth, and last, quarter of my life. No wonder that the theme of getting old(er) concerns me in many ways. 

In this workshop I want to create a space in which we can explore this theme in all its complexity and richness. As a starting point, I would like to share some personal experiences, followed by some reflections on how practicing Focusing can be of enormous value at this stage of life. Afterwards there is plenty of room to focus on the theme in pairs. I am confident that younger generations who currently face very different challenges, will also feel involved and addressed by this topic. Español

Peter Ryan, US. Peter was certified as a Focusing Trainer in 2016, training with James Strohl, and as a Certified Coordinator in 2022 with Beth Mahler. He studied A Process Model with Rob Parker's 2020-2023 group. Peter is a licensed professional counselor in the Philadelphia area and a Zen Buddhist instructor at Community Zen in Doylestown, PA. 

In 2021 he started Counseling Confidence & The Experience Studio in Doylestown with several Focusing and Zen students as as a place to offer affordable mental health services, a hub for training people in Focusing, and to host Focusing informed social groups for individuals who are isolated due to disability, trauma, and post-Covid loss of social networks.

A long time educator, Peter founded perhaps the first Buddhist high school in the US in 1997, Tinicum Art and Science, which closed in 2016.

The studio publishes a newsletter, Zen Lessons, and will be launching a Focusing newsletter and podcast in August, Way Beyond Words, available through Substack and all major podcast platforms.

"Focusing is, for me, the most practical philosophy I've studied, and as a clinical modality, the most useful. It strengthens trust and intuition like nothing else, and helps a person hold all the trouble in the world in an untroubled way."   Español

Yehudit First, Israel. Yehudit First is a qualified Body Psychotherapist and Group Facilitator specializing in Somatic Experiencing. Yehudit is a Focusing Coordinator and an experienced Focusing therapist for individuals and couples, a dedicated teacher and practitioner. Several years ago, the desire to expand the Focusing space to include interpersonal interaction led Yehudit to develop Social Oriented Focusing (SOF). In a gentle Focusing environment, SOF opens a ‘playground’ where delicate issues of human relationships can be met while really meeting each other. Yehudit teaches SOF all over the globe, and uses it to facilitate individual, group and couple therapy processes in her clinic and via Zoom.

Workshop: Between You and Me: From Intrapersonal to Interpersonal with Social Oriented Focusing (SOF)
SOF teaches us to untie the knots that interfere with relating to others, enabling us to overcome our fears, barriers, and automatic behaviors. Imagine being truly present in the here-and-now, free to be yourself and experience authentic joy instead of repetitive, stressful patterns of interaction.

SOF skills for life expand our Focusing experience, teaching us how to be authentic with ourselves and each other while feeling grounded and safe.

It has become a tradition at the Weeklong to invite an "Elder" to join us.  An "elder" is someone who has been around long enough to have a lot of wisdom to share; someone who has extraordinary Focusing knowledge and stories to tell from their interactions with Gene Gendlin, with other pioneers of Focusing, and from their own experiences of living Focusing. This year we are delighted that Anna Karali will be our Focusing Elder.

Anna Karali, Athens Greece.  B.A., PG. Dip. in Counseling, psychotherapist (E.C.P. holder), trainer and supervisor in Person Centered and Focusing Experiential Psychotherapy. Co-founder and co-director of the Hellenic Focusing Center, which introduced and established in Greece (2003) the experiential method of Focusing, and the first certified Focusing Experiential Therapy (F.O.T.) training course.

Being multi-lingual is an important value of The International Focusing Institute and of the Weeklong.  We will offer simultaneous translation to Spanish for all plenary presentations.  We will offer a Home Group in Spanish online.  Certainly, a Home Group could be created in another language as well, if there are enough participants who wish to speak that language; please contact us if you would like to explore this option in your language.

Mercy by the Sea Retreat Center - Madison, Connecticut (about 2 hours outside of New York City)

Mercy by the Sea is located on 33 acres along the shore of Long Island Sound. The campus includes lovely grounds, a labyrinth and lovely beachfront. In October during the Weeklong our timing may be just right for colorful fall foliage. This retreat center offers a casual and friendly atmosphere.

GETTING THERE Click here for directions - note that Mercy's website does not list Newark Intl Airport and JFK Airport but those choices are also ok.

ROOMS Both single and double accommodations are available each with an en suite bath. Guests should plan to bring their own personal items such as a hair dryer and toiletries.

MEALS Our reservation includes dinner on the Sunday you arrive, 3 meals a day for the week and breakfast on Friday the day we check out. Check-in is 4:00 pm with dinner served at 5:30 pm. On our last day Friday, our last meal will be breakfast.  Click here to read full information about food and dining

ROOM & BOARD Single room rate with meals $825
                               Double room rate with meals $725
(Note that tuition is a separate additional charge)

EARLY ARRIVALS OR LATE STAYS If you need to arrive early or stay late,  please plan to stay off-campus. Click here for a list of nearby hotels.

Zoom host back-up to support main zoom host (minimum 2 workshops). (Please apply no later than September 6)

Bilingual (Spanish/English) written or spoken support based on individual experience

In person helper at Mercy by the Sea, Madison, CT - (general assistance for director and teaching team)

In person photographer Mercy by the Sea - use your own digital camera or high quality phone for event photos

Yoga teacher at Mercy by the Sea - lead interested participants in a yoga offering (preferably daily but flexible)

To apply for or ask questions about workstudy: email [email protected]
 

Dr. Janet Klein

For many years, Janet Klein taught the Weeklong alongside Mary McGuire.  Together, the two of them developed Interactive Focusing, a method of Focusing which honors and enhances the relationship which develops between Focusing partners.  She was so committed to making the Weeklong accessible to all students, regardless of ability to pay, that she frequently paid the tuition for students out of her own pocket.

When Dr. Klein died unexpectedly in 2010, her family and The International Focusing Institute felt that the best way to honor her was to create a scholarship in her name to assist students to attend the Weeklong.  That fund continues to this day to make the Weeklong accessible.

Note: Applications are closed at this time. Application and more information (in English and Spanish)