Transformational Focusing -Themes from a Study of Focusing Memoirs

Friday November 15, 2019 from 2:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern Time

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/page/join-or-renew, 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.

Many people describe profound transformational experiences in their lives, but little research exists on the role of the felt sense in the transformational process. We studied transformational Focusing experiences reported in 19 memoirs published in The Folio (Vol. 24, #1, 2013). Through the qualitative method we call Felt Sense Inquiry (a group interactive process), we discovered five themes of embodied transformation: expanded bodily self, attuned attention, novelty, interactive exchange, and elastic time.

In this Roundtable, we will present our new method and results with experiential examples. Our results point to a “new kind of body” that challenges the traditional way “body” is distinguished from “mind”.  Results suggest a way of experiencing that does not divide, but rather connects each person to a unified felt process unfolding in its own way.

In this Roundtable we will experience a guided Focusing exercise on transformation and reflect together about possible applications of these results to the practice of FOT suggested by this research. Based on the exercise, we will take some time to reflect on a significant Focusing experience you had which you would say was transformational.  Then we will sit with your recollection of that experience on a felt sense level and sense into what felt transformational about that Focusing. Questions we will explore together are:

• What stands out for you about this sense of what was transformational in your Focusing experience?
• What avenues (i.e. dreams, partnerships, art, inspiration, etc.) were tapped into?
• How can the results of this study inform FOT practice?
   

Other questions may emerge from our mutual exploration during the Roundtable.

Who might be particularly interested in attending this Roundtable?  All Focusers who are interested in deepening their understanding of Focusing and the dynamics of Focusing-based transformation.

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:

Doralee Grindler Katonah, Psy.D., M.Div., is an FOT psychologist and certifying coordinator whose life passion is the integration of an embodied spiritual approach to healing. Practicing for over 35 years, Doralee has published articles and chapters on this topic and taught at the graduate university level and internationally. She was the first Director of The Focusing Institute.

Kevin Krycka is a Professor of Psychology in the Graduate Psychology program at Seattle University in Seattle Washington, USA. He supervises psychology graduate students in their research and is himself an active human science researcher. Kevin is a Certifying Coordinator for the Institute and has recently ended a three-year term on its Board of Trustees. He currently chairs the recently formed Eugene T. Gendlin Center for Research in Philosophy and Psychology, whose mission is to support research which carries on Gendlin’s work.

Mary McDonald, Ph.D. has had a lifetime interest in personal growth, transformation, and spirituality. She worked as a teacher and trainer with the Focusing Institute, edited the Folio, and served on the Institute’s first board of directors. More recently, she has taught human development, psychology, and ethics for Sofia University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.