2-Year Focusing Certification Program with International Guest Teachers (66.5 CEU credits)

Taught by Charlotte Howorth, LCSW previously longtime certification teacher for the Focusing Institute with International Guest Teachers (awards 66.5 CEU credits to social workers).

Mary Hendricks, Eugene Gendlin’s wife and former teacher of TFI’s certification course, and director of TFI, handed the role of teaching and responsibility for certifying focusing professionals for the Institute to Charlotte several years ago. Charlotte led the Institute’s certification program for over 13 years and has a wealth of experience as a focusing teacher and has worked as a focusing oriented therapist herself for 27 years.

Who is eligible to take this course?

Therapists, Counselors, Health Care Workers, Coaches, Body Workers, Yoga teachers, therapeutic practitioners interested in incorporating Focusing into their professional work.

Individuals who want to train and guide others in Focusing.

Prerequisites:

Applicants need to have had some introductory training/experience with focusing.  It you haven’t we can arrange for you to take some preliminary training with one of our experienced coaches.

Class Schedule: The course has started already but we have only had 2 classes.  If you want to join it will mean watching videos of the missed classes and having a session with one of the course coaches catch up on some experiential practice. The next class is Sunday May 7th 10am-2pm EST, then June 11th, July 9th & no class in August, resuming on September 10th. 

PROGRAM DESIGN:

An extensive and comprehensive library of demonstrations and session videos, with their accompanying transcripts, as well as a wealth of additional resources (audio, video, written) are shared throughout the course. 

YEAR ONE:

This course has started already but is easy to join at this early stage.

In the first-year students learn the core essentials of focusing guiding and how to help their client’s ‘go inside’ to find, open, and move forward a felt sense, leading to transformation and lasting change.

Topics include – presence, focusing attitude, resonant reflection, fire engine words, making a something, acknowledging and keeping company, Clearing a Space, right distance, Critic, how to use reminders/cushions, finding the ‘spot’ to go in, working with different levels of experiencing in clients, avenues into the felt sense, shift questions, working with the leading edge, working with resonance, the different phases of a focusing session and how to work with them, working with parts, working with younger places.

One Individual 1-hour session with Charlotte before starting classes (to be transcribed by student).

Twelve 3.5-to-4-hour classes with teachers and often including 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:

In the second-year students learn how to weave the guiding they learnt in the first year seamlessly into the more fluid and improvisational style of a therapeutic conversation.  In addition, we learn how to work with the ‘one interaction’ that we are together by using the felt sense of the relationship (the felt sense of the ‘I’, of the ‘You’, & of the ‘Us’) to move the interaction and the client forward.  We further learn how to be ‘the interaction that makes it better’ which is the concept and practice that Eugene Gendlin talked about being the center of his work with clients.

Topics include – facilitating the ‘deeper point’ of a session, working with trauma, teaching projects, organizing principles and conflicts and dilemmas, focusing conversations and ‘one interaction’, expressive relating using the felt sense of the ‘I’ and ‘you’, expressive relating using the felt sense of the ‘us’, being the interaction that makes it better, being on ‘its’ side in the therapist and in the client, the end of the second year culminates in several practice weekend sessions together.

Eight 3.5-to-4-hour classes with teachers and often with coaches (approximately monthly)

Four (or more - depending on numbers) 4-hour practice sessions with Charlotte over at least 2 full weekends.  Here students practice the skills they have learnt over their training together and receive support and feedback.  These practice weekends help students develop their skills working in therapeutic conversations to another level.

Nine 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 a certified focusing 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 50 min 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, Jim Iberg, James Strohl, Isabel Adon, Akira Ikemi 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 3 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, demonstrations, and opportunities to practice with both coaches and together in class.

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