April 2016 Newsletter

Nominating Committee Seeking Names and Ideas

The Nominating Committee wants you to know that we have a few members on the Board and International Leadership Council (ILC) to replace. At this stage, the Committee is now seeking names or any thoughts or ideas that could be helpful for this process of collecting suggestions of who will be nominated for the Board and ILC.  Please send your suggestions to [email protected].

Thanking you for your input,

Marine de Freminville, in the name of the Nominating Committee
Jim Iberg, Edgardo Riveros and Catherine Torpey

Connections and Crossings
Advanced and Certification Focusing Weeklong 2016

Featured Article: Pigs and Roses - Principles of Meditative Listening

by Rob Foxcroft

(This is the opening excerpt of a 2016 article)

Before I can listen to you, I have to be able to listen to myself. Why is this? It is because I can only understand your feelings on the basis of my own. I have direct and immediate access to my own feelings. Yours are hidden from me.

You convey these hidden feelings to me in words, images, sounds and gestures, and I receive them both by feeling with you and by feeling in response to you. My feelings enable me to make sense of yours, but I have to be able to tell which of my feelings echo yours and which are my own responses.

I call it meditation when I listen to myself with self-empathy and self-acceptance, when I attend to the flickering insouciance of life in my heart and feelings.

I call it meditation when I have the courage of my emotions, when I listen to their wisdom, and when I put myself in the hands of the unknown.

Read more

Update from the Board

—Jim Iberg is a member of the Board of Trustees. Jim rotates off the Board this summer. The Institute is deeply grateful for his service during these crucial two years.

Substantial work on the strategic plan for the Institute was done last summer in Seattle. We got a considerable amount of input from the Coordinators and the community at large. Recently, we’ve been working hard at trying to sift through that input.

We are generally feeling good about the progress that has been made so far, and about the amount of thoughtful input we received. Along with the International Leadership Council, and recently with the help of Rosa Zubizarreta, we are sorting the input into how it fits under the four major goals for the Institute we’ve identified. We’re also open to discovering that we may need to define other goals to avoid leaving out anything important.

We’re working to get the next stage of this work done soon, and to move on to clarify the strategies and metrics that will be used to accomplish the goals.

We have an early draft of the Strategic Plan in process, and had intended to publish it in April; however, we see now that it will take us a bit more time to felt sense into consensus on a few important issues among our diverse international team. We value your input and intend to share a draft with you as soon as a document is ready for your review.

We’re also now in the beginning parts of the process of nominating new people to replace those who will be finishing their terms on the Board and the ILC, and we hope to do this in a way that preserves and increases the international representation from our worldwide community of Focusers.

Respectfully submitted,

Jim Iberg

Excerpts from the FOLIO 2016 Potpourri,
Part 2

We, the editors of The Folio, are delighted to introduce you to the amazing breadth and depth of articles in our most recent edition of The Folio. We would like to share with you an excerpt of three paragraphs from one of its 13 articles so you can enjoy the scholarship and insights of some of our most articulate writers in the Focusing community. We are hoping that you might want to read the entire article by purchasing a hard copy or Kindle version of the 2016 Folio. Learn more

     — Bala Jaison and Paula Nowick, Editors of The Folio

UNDERSTANDING SENSORY MOTOR AMNESIA:
A Combination of Focusing and Touch

Jack Blackburn, MTS-SD, LMP

Introductory paragraph:

Thomas Hanna, philosopher and protege of Moshe Feldenkrais, is the originator of the concept of Somatics, which has been incorporated into hands-on therapy, as well as the verbal interactive therapies. He used a concept called "Sensory Motor Amnesia" to refer to the lost abilities to articulate physically because the client has lost the ability to feel into certain parts of his/her body. In my work with touch and verbal interaction, I have found that what we call a lack of felt-sense in Focusing is directly related to the absence of somatic awareness in the body. We can work verbally with the client, using the steps of Focusing while not touching the client's body. Or we can ask the client to notice which parts of the body does he or she notice are triggered as he/she works on a particular issue.

An interesting paragraph:

What is amazing in this process is that the companion or practitioner, as it were, can actually feel the contact of the client's proprioceptive interactions as well as the client's growing ability with felt-sense and verbal description. Just as we mirror the client's words in Focusing, we can also in parallel, mirror the client's somatic interactions with our hands and our words! We can affirm that we can feel the client's direct engagement with our hands (or their own) because there is a warming and softening of the tissue as well as a flow of energy back and forth. Also amazing, is that as the client approaches insight or a felt-shift, both we (the practitioners) and the client can feel that change in tissue and perception approaching.  We can feel it because the tissue in the body is accompanying the mental and physical changes.

Another interesting paragraph:

Another factor, which may be playing a larger role than we know at this point, is the emerging theory that connective tissue in the body is a vast communication system which is faster, more dependable, and much more attuned to consciousness then our brain-neural forms of communication. These new studies may be proving that we have only scratched the surface of what we call consciousness. One example of what I am talking about is the recent films of ever-active fascia in living tissue. These fibrous webs form a vast, ever-changing latticework, which weave together every cell in the body in such complexity that we are totally baffled by its ever-present state of change and adaptation. Many researchers are now speculating that this latticework is responsible for the many complex mixtures of thoughts, feelings, and awarenesses, which we commonly call proprioception, instinct, intuition, or anticipation.

Order your Kindle or hard copy of The Folio here.

Update Your Listening and Therapy with Focusing:
synopsis of a new work

—Akira Ikemi, Ph.D., is a Professor at Kansai University and a member of the International Leadership Council, which has been busy working with the Board on Strategic Planning for the Institute

I’m excited today. I’ve just finished proofreading the galleys for a forthcoming book that I wrote with my doctoral students, Update Your Listening and Therapy with Focusing: The Fundamentals of Sensing, Speaking and Listening (Kyoto, Nakanishiya). Oh, the book is in Japanese, by the way, so here’s the gist of it.

The book opens with a personal autobiographical essay about me growing up bilingual, wondering if my “real self” was in my English channel or in my Japanese channel. And how this quest for the “real self” took me to psychology, deeply into Sigmund Freud and philosophy then to Carl Rogers’ writings. Chapter One covers the three “schools” of therapy, psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology (in essay style) and behavior therapy (by Toshihiro Kawasaki). (I hope to use this book as a textbook in college courses so I cover the 3 major classical theories).

Chapter 2 delves into “just how does sensing exist?” It covers how what we sense is not emotions, is not yet formulated in words or concepts. Sensing is bodily awareness, but before the division into the concepts of “body” or “mind.” The pre-conceptual sense is a living in situations and projects new ways of living further. The book advises the readers to hold on to this nature of sensing as we go forward into speaking and listening. Chapter 3 addresses “What happens in speaking?” To understand speaking from the implicit, Dilthey’s philosophy and experiencing (Hideo Tanaka) is explained, the process by which meaning is generated with metaphors, i.e., the characteristics of Gendlin’s metaphor theory (Shimpei Okamura) is overviewed, and the relation between speaking and the manner of experiencing (Maki Miyake) is shown.

In Chapter 4, “What happens when we listen?” I advocate the threefold meaning of reflection: to reflect as a mirror does, to reflect (look back) upon a situation, and reflexivity in Gendlin’s philosophy. I then discuss, quoting Gendlin and Dilthey, the significance of re-experiencing (nacherlerben) and how crossing the listener’s re-experiencing with the speaker’s experiencing creates a “better understanding,” a new story, greatly richer than the speaker’s original narrative. Here I offer a new interpretation of the Greek myth of Narkissos and Echo. In Chapter 5, I revisit Gendlin’s Listening Manual, and the Focusing Short Form. I then quote Carl Rogers’ 1975 article where he redefines empathy: “to help a person focus on this special kind of referent (felt meaning)” and how Rogers admits that empathy can be “subtle conceptually” but in practice, Gene Gendlin and Mary Hendricks had made it “perfectly understandable” through the Listening Manual, published in the book Focusing.

Chapter 6 introduces some of the Focusing methods invented my myself and my Japanese colleagues: Blue Sky Focusing (Ikemi); Dream PCAGIP (Yusuke Tsutui); Kanji Focusing [by Ikemi] and Riddle Focusing—the use of metaphors—(Shimpei Okamura); Experiential Collage Work [by Ikemi] and Focusing Oriented Arts Therapy [by L. Rappaport] (Kie Yano); Focusing for Therapists [originally by Y. Kira] (Tomoko Hirano); and studies with the Focusing Manner Scale [originally by Fukumori & Morikawa] (Tsuyoshi Aoki).

So that’s it! Your reading assignment is done! For further reading, here is an article I recently published with Kevin Krycka, called "Focusing-Oriented-Experiential Psychotherapy: From Research to Practice," available in the book, Humanistic Psychotherapies: Handbook of Research and Practice 2nd Edition, edited by D. Cain, K. Keenan, and Shawn Rubin.

Enjoy!

Focusing Conversations — Hosted by Serge Prengel

Lynette Lancini In a recent Focusing Conversation, Serge Prengel talks with Lynette Lancini about infusing Focusing into living and creative arts. Listen to podcast These conversations are part of the "Conversations" series hosted by Serge Prengel.

TFI Membership Committee News

The Institute has created a Membership Committee to examine its relationship to its members and to develop ways to connect with and serve them more effectively. Chaired by Board member Susan Lennox, the Committee’s present members are Hejo Feuerstein (Germany), Mary Jennings (Ireland), Jocelyn Kahn (US), Wendi Maurer (US), Jane Quayle (Australia), Florentina Sassoli (Argentina), Sally Tadmor (Israel), Executive Director Catherine Torpey, and TFI staff member Elizabeth Cantor, who handles most membership communications and issues for the Institute.

Since its first meeting last November, the Committee has met five times. Its earliest gatherings were devoted to learning about the overall global membership base and brainstorming areas of concern and interest regarding members. We discovered that not all members are availing themselves of the many services already available to them, for example, trainers having a profile page on TFI’s website. Part of the Committee’s task is to ensure that members are more aware of what is already freely available to them.

More recent meetings have been devoted to developing plans for several initiatives and projects, including updating TFI’s new member welcome package and creating a richer set of online resources for trainers.  We also plan to launch a series of informative and inspirational talks and interviews on a variety of topics of special interest to trainers.  We are especially excited about offering a Spanish-language series of such programs for our Spanish-speaking members. 

Also under consideration are ideas for building connections and community across cultures by creating online opportunities for members to come together virtually to share their experiences and thoughts on Focusing topics and applications of mutual interest. If you have ideas for topics that would be good for such gatherings or would be interested in helping to organize or facilitate a gathering around a topic you are passionate or knowledgeable about, please let us know.

The Committee warmly welcomes member input and ideas.  If you would like more information or would be interested in serving on the committee or helping with a particular initiative, please contact Susan Lennox at [email protected].

The synergy of the International Focusing Conference

The British Focusing Association
invites the worldwide Focusing community to the

27th International Focusing Conference 2016

at Robinson College, Cambridge, Great Britain

The International Focusing Conference comes to the UK for the first time this year, hosted by the British Focusing Association. We have been asked many times to have the conference here, so finally people’s wishes have been granted, and we look forward to welcoming Focusers from around the world to Cambridge in July.

These conferences are the big tribal gatherings of the Focusing world. There have been 26 previous ones, beginning in the 1980s in Chicago. In between Chicago and Cambridge, they have popped up in many countries around the world - Japan, Argentina, Israel, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Canada, Costa Rica, as well as the USA.

You get a sense of the real power of Focusing when you meet a lot of people from a lot of countries who all have this heart-centred practice in common. I have returned home from conferences filled with warmth and positivity, which has boosted my little local efforts to spread Focusing. I have felt inspired to have a sense of being a part of something so much bigger. These conferences are like large, good-natured family celebrations where there is not enough time for arguments to begin!

Unlike usual conferences, there are no keynote speakers wowing the audience in the morning and sending it to sleep after lunch. They mainly consist of a series of workshops led by participants where you have to keep choosing which one to go to - because you cannot go to them all! This year there will also be interest groups each morning, each one exploring a particular strand (children Focusing, community wellness Focusing, wholebody Focusing, Focusing-oriented therapy, thinking at the edge etc.).

The conference is a great way to sample the different strands of Focusing, and to deepen your experience of Focusing. And it is an excellent opportunity to present your own ideas by leading a workshop yourself - you are guaranteed the most friendly and receptive audience you could wish for. To break up the intensity, we are planning some entertainments, including a dinner at Kings College with music in its famous chapel, a ceilidh (traditional dancing for everyone), and the everyone-can-contribute Focusing Follies cabaret show.

We will do our best to avoid two potential difficulties. One is that if you do not know many people, you can feel alone and isolated in a big crowd. So we will have a place you can go to find someone to talk to, someone to do Focusing with, and someone to have dinner with.

The other difficulty is that the participants with little or no English do not understand what is being said. So we are helping some countries to bring translators with them. Instead of having simultaneous translation, which means constant background talking, we will be asking speakers to speak and then pause, speak and pause... which seems to engage everyone’s felt sense much better, whether they need translation or not.

Although many of us keep in contact internationally via our computer screens these days, it is a poor substitute for meeting ‘in the flesh’ over five days. As Ann Weiser Cornell put it after the 2013 conference in Switzerland:

“I am freshly convinced of the great importance of Focusing conferences, as I can feel in all the conversations the weaving together of our shared world and what we are creating. These things are just not possible by phone, email, or Skype. Not the same way.”

In the past, there was an international conference every year. Now there are longer gaps between them, and at the moment we do not know when and where the next conference after Cambridge will be. No doubt this helps to reduce the carbon emissions from air travel of our international community. It also means you might like to take the opportunity of coming to Britain for this conference, and not wait for the next one, whenever that may be!

Peter Afford

Pause For Peace: Arabic Language Project, and El Salvador Project

Pause for Peace is an initiative of the Institute to honor Mary Hendricks Gendlin, whose passion for the Pause and for bringing Focusing to under-served populations motivates us to support two community wellness programs: one which is bringing Focusing to Arabic-speaking people from strife-torn areas, and one bringing Focusing to El Salvador." You may donate to either program or both here, and click on "I would like to make a donation to a specific project."

Healing and Resilience for Arabic Speaking People

—Mary Jennings

Working with the Palestine Trauma Centre (PTC Gaza), the Institute has been working on developing funding proposal for a project that will enable facilitators to develop a programme of psycho social support to Arabic speaking people who have experienced upheaval or trauma. It is based on the proven programme in Gaza. You can learn more here about the work that has been done in Gaza.

The work in Gaza has proven that Focusing is effective in reducing symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) even in environments of widespread trauma in the population. The way that Focusing is being taught in Gaza reflects the local culture as well as the Muslim faith. We are confident from successes there that other peoples in the Arabic-speaking world will benefit from the same gentle and compassionate way of dealing with inner and outer turmoil that Focusing offers.

Progress to date in bringing Focusing to more Arabic-speaking people include preparation of a video and letter of interest for potential funders. We are actively looking for NGO partners in the field who will work with us to identify programme facilitators whom we will train to deliver the Focusing-based programme.

If you are aware of any organizations who might want to partner with us, or if you can help to fund this initiative or connect us to potential funders, please contact me or the Institute. We have watched upheaval and displacement of peoples in the Arab world with concern, and we are eager to bring the gifts of Focusing to help address this international crisis.

El Salvador Project

—Beatrice Blake

The El Salvador Project was recently able to give 6-week classes in Generating a Culture of Peace to three groups of wonderful people—psychologists and people that work with youth—thanks to funding by Eeq Anil, the self-care and learning network for helping professionals in El Salvador. The participants are so smart, enthusiastic and dedicated to making things better in their country. It is exciting to work with them because they are very engaged and ask great questions! All of them say that learning Focusing and NVC (Nonviolent Communication) has made a difference in their lives. They are asking for a next level class, and we need to find funding in order to offer a certification program. 

Three students have started an online Changes Group on Thursday nights. Now that it is established, they are willing to open the group to others. We hope that the students who just finished Generating a Culture of Peace will use the group to deepen their practice. 

Some quotes from the people who recently finished the class:

"I have discovered in myself a sensitive person that is starting out on the road to liberation. I give more attention to how I feel inside about different situations. On the outside, I see that I treat people better, trying to understand their needs and listening without having to say anything. I feel happier with myself.”

“I am a little more tolerant. Before the class I used to blow up at anything that made me uncomfortable. Now I think before I act.”

“I can identify my feelings and I have been able to find their origins."

Heazel Martinez, who was able to attend the Weeklong in 2015, has been funded to work 25 hours a week this year. She is helping things move along, and we are developing a great team. We have recorded all the classes and hope to make a manual soon in Spanish. 

Since 2007 we have put down roots in El Salvador, and now the tree is growing. There are many possibilities for expanding out into the community. We need funding to keep up with the momentum of the work. Each donation of $25 will give a two-hour Focusing class to a person who will learn to use Focusing in his or her own life, and then be in a prime position to share Focusing and NVC with people who really need it. You can learn more here.

The Eleventh Annual Focusing Institute Summer School (FISS 2016)
August 21-27, 2016 in Joshua Tree, California!

At the Focusing Institute Summer School (FISS), you'll study each morning with an internationally respected Focusing teacher, and enjoy a variety of classes each afternoon.

Ann Weiser Cornell

Nada Lou

René Veugelers

Laury Rappaport

Soti Grafanaki and William Hernández

Join us at the beautiful Joshua Tree Retreat Center (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and his son, Lloyd) in the California desert where it is dry and warm during the day and cool at night. All rooms are air-conditioned and there is a swimming pool on premises.

Watch this short video to learn more about the Summer School experience.

Beginners and experienced Focusers are welcome. We can't wait to see you there! Please join us!

Awards and Certifications - July Offers an Abundance of Options

Being a member of The Focusing Institute is one way of staying connected to the International Focusing Community and its latest developments. The Institute is a supportive matrix whose purpose is to help the human community integrate Focusing into its many ways of living and working, and to see to the continued thriving and evolution of Focusing and Focusing teaching.

We organize what has already been done so that people have access to it. We support a thriving philosophical community centered around the Philosophy of the Implicit.

To introduce Focusing to people requires reaching out on many levels: publicity; archiving resources; bringing focusing into schools, medicine, churches, businesses and other areas. As Focusing is introduced in these areas, we connect people who need to know about each other worldwide. Membership is a way to support our work, and, as we are a non-profit organization, your contributions may be tax deductible.

Each member of our International Community is special to us. We deeply appreciate that you care enough about this work we are doing together to put some of your life energy into it, whether in the form of training, personal development, organizing projects, money or in other ways.

Learn more here.

From the TFI Office

Upcoming Conferences, Retreats and Workshops

	Two Year Focusing On-line Interactive Certification Program for Mental Health Professionals Starting May or June, 2016 (approximate date) With Charlotte Howorth, LCSW and International Guest Teachers.
	Open and Contained: an experiential exploration of the Implicit Shared Field Saturday, April 30, 2016 from 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm Eastern Time Interactive Online Class facilitated by Nina Joy Lawrence and Serge Prengel. Part of the new Focusing Highlights Series of pay-what-you-can classes.
	Changing the Unchangeable through Domain Focusing Saturday, May 7, 2016 from 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm Eastern Time Interactive Online Class facilitated by Robert Lee. Part of the new Focusing Highlights Series of pay-what-you-can classes.
	Creating a Culture of Relationality: Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy Sunday, May 22, 2016 from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm Eastern Time Interactive Online Class facilitated by Joan Lavender. Part of the Focusing Highlights Series of pay-what-you-can classes.
	Focusing Basics: An 8-week interactive online course. A course for beginning Focusers starting May 10, 2016 An 8-week interactive online course (no special computer skill or equipment required) taught by Ruth Hirsch, MSW, MPH, CMP.
	Follow Your Flow: A Focusing Retreat alongside Niagara Falls, Canada June 10-12, 2016 Mount Carmel Spiritual Centre Niagara Falls, ON, Canada Enliven your Focusing Flow in the presence of one of the most powerful flowing rivers and waterfalls known to the US and Canada, Niagara Falls.
	The 27th International Focusing Conference The 27th International Focusing Conference in 2016 will be held in England in the beautiful old university town of Cambridge. The dates are Wednesday 20th to Sunday 24th July 2016, with a coordinators meeting starting the day before on Tuesday, July 19.
	Focusing Institute Summer School August 21-27, 2016 in Joshua Tree, California! Join us at the beautiful Joshua Tree Retreat Center (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and his son, Lloyd) in the California desert where it is dry and warm during the day and cool at night. All rooms are air-conditioned and there is a swimming pool on premises.
	The Advanced and Certification Focusing Weeklong October 1-7, 2016 at Garrison Institute in Garrison, New York.
	The 9th Children and Focusing Conference Athens, Greece from October 26 - 30, 2016 The 9th Children & Focusing Conference will take place in the surroundings of Athens, by the sea-side, at Cabo Verde Boutique Hotel, Mati.
	4th International Conference on Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapies June 22-25, 2017 at The Garrison Institute, Garrison NY. Tentative Coordinators Assembly prior.

Resources

4/2016 Implementing Focusing with Kindergarten Students in an Elementary School (PDF) by Diane Baumgart, PhD

4/2016 Minutes from The Focusing Institute Board Meetings April, 2016

4/2016 Search the Certified Focusing Professional Database - Français version

3/2016 Minutes from The Focusing Institute Board Meetings January and February, 2016

3/2016 July 2015 - In Focus Newsletter

3/2016 The Presence of Presence: The Presence of Presence in life's more challenging moments. By Ruth Sar-Shalom, Israel. Translation from Hebrew: Jill Jonassi

3/2016 Seasonal newsletter from the Japan Focusing Association: Focusing in the World. The newsletter includes articles from China, Switzerland, Netherlands and Argentina.

3/2016 Folio: POTPOURRI PART 1. Now available as a free digital eFolio or as a printed version which can be purchased in the TFI store.

2/2016 Transcript of a conversation between Eugene Gendlin and participants at the 2015 Weeklong.

2/2016 Catherine Torpey, the Executive Director of The Focusing Institute, was interviewed by Deborah Turner, from the show Connections with Deborah Turner broadcast by the radio station RocklandWorldRadio.com. The discussion, on January 6, 2016, was about Focusing and the work of the Focusing Institute.

2/2016 February 2016: The February conversation is with Lynette Lancini. This is part of the "conversations" series hosted by Serge Prengel which you can access from the "Felt Community" menu or from www.focusing.org/conversations.

2/2016 December 2015 - In Focus Newsletter

2/2016 Felt Sense Experience Model of Emotional Regulation by Jan Winhall

1/2016 Minutes from The Focusing Institute Board Meetings December, 2015

1/2016 Serge Prengel hosted a thought-provoking conversation with Greg Madison about existential therapy and Focusing-oriented therapy.

1/2016 December 2015 In Focus Newsletter is now on the website.

1/2016 Focusing and art as ways to explore the implicit and non-verbal aspects of women's abortion experiences by Miriam Rose Brooker.

1/2016 We are currently in a nominating process to replace outgoing members of the Board and the International Leadership Council. Read more here: English Chinese Español Français

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