Therapist Roundtable - Coming Home Through Focusing Listening: How Therapists Can Engender an Experiential Step

Wednesday, March 29, 2023  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.

Program Description

This Therapist Roundtable will draw from the chapter 5 entitled “What a Therapist Can Do to Engender an Experiential Step” from Gendlin’s book, Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method (1996), pp.41-56. A copy of that chapter will be sent to you after you register.

As a Focusing-oriented therapist, you know how much richness can be discovered in the felt sense and how the client’s experiential response is the key to positive therapeutic change. You also know that when your clients are able to fully access and stay with their felt sense, they can experience a “shift”, a step forward in their change process. As Gene wrote, “The felt shift changes the constellation of the whole problem and the person’s attitude toward it.” (p. 26)

Yet are you sometimes frustrated when your clients “stay in their heads” and have difficulty accessing their felt sense? Focusing listening is a skill and an art. In this Roundtable we will "learn from the master" by reading and watching Gendlin as he demonstrates his Focusing listening approaches to bring about an experiential response in his client. To ground your reading, we also recommend watching “Coming Home through Focusing”, a video of Gene working with a client at the link listed below.

In preparation for this Roundtable please read chapter 5, “What a Therapist Can Do to Engender an Experiential Step” pp.41-56, in Gendlin’s book, Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method (1996). In that chapter Gene offers a concrete explanation of the ways in which the therapist’s listening responses and guiding suggestions can help the client to find and work with their felt sense.

While some of what you will read and see will not be new to you, we trust that our reading, watching and talking together will serve to freshly deepen the ways we help our clients come home to themselves through Focusing Listening. We look forward to hearing your own reactions and experiences with your clients.

At the Roundtable we will have an opportunity to share our reactions to the reading, the video and our own experiences with our clients. Some questions we will consider together include:

• Which of Gene’s practices work well for me?
• Are there things I struggle with?
• Have I discovered other ways to help my clients find their felt sense, have “shifts” and take steps towards positive therapeutic change?
• What might I take away from our experience today to my work with my clients?

Of course, other issues and ideas may emerge from our mutual exploration during the Roundtable. We look forward to a rich and enlightening conversation.

Advance preparation: (1) Please read chapter 5 entitled "What a Therapist Can Do to Engender an Experiential Step" in Gendlin's book, Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: A Manual of the Experiential Method (1996), pp. 41-56. A link to the reading will be sent to you after you register.
(2)The video can be viewed at this link.

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.

Regardless of modality, therapists hold in common the ethical and professional accountability and responsibility for our clients’ healing 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.

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 integrates 14 years of work as an Occupational Therapist in palliative care, somatic psychotherapy with Bill Bowen and Internal Family Systems classes and group work.

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

Julie Ramsey, LICSW, FOT, is a Focusing Coordinator and 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.

Susan Lennox, PhD, CPC, is a psychotherapist and coach in private practice in Westminster, Colorado. She is a Focusing Coordinator and has been a Certified Focusing Professional since 2000. In her practice Susan integrates Focusing and Internal Family Systems into her work with clients with developmental trauma.