Focusing Roundtable - Focusing on Politics: “Focusing Needs a Structural Political Consciousness”

Thursday, March 4, 2021 from 1:00-3:00 pm EST (New York - US)

Times worldwide: convert to your time zone

Gene is clear: our Focusing NEEDS a structural political consciousness.  In his work, “The Political Critique of Awareness” (Gendlin, 1984, p.154), he wrote, “Our practice of Focusing (and every inward practice) needs a conscious political context around it.”

Using brief Gendlin quotes, this Roundtable will help us develop an explicit structural political consciousness. The goal of our hosts is to increase awareness of the political context in which we live, and to make sure our Focusing work is truly expressing our values as well as our needs.

Some questions we might explore together are:

• Since Focusing cannot be apolitical, what political processes are already happening in my Focusing, especially those out of my awareness?
• What are ways Focusing needs “a conscious structural political context”?
• Why does Gene say Focusing/individual development, politics & spirituality need each other?
• What are body signs of political indoctrinating that are infecting (blocking, covering up, interfering with, ....) my Focusing, my everyday experiencing, and my sense of wholeness?

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

Who might be particularly interested in attending this Roundtable?

• Focusers who want to identify their socio-cultural-political indoctrinations and to consciously make their felt-sensing more aligned with their values and with the needs of all people & ecosystems.
• Focusers interested in making the practice & teaching of Focusing more relevant & available to people & ecosystems oppressed by racism, classism, sexism, able-ism, homophobia/transphobia, …. 
• Focusers feeling oppressed, overwhelmed and/or hopeless about today’s politics and who want ways to mourn & to re-engage with their “toward more-right living.”
• Focusers engaged in – or contemplating engaging in — political activism, as well as Focusers interested in gaining deeper understanding of Gendlin’s thinking on the role of Focusing in politics.

Advanced Reading (optional): Gene Quotes For Politically Responsible Focusing

Assembled by Dave Young & Gisela Uhl at https://focusing.org/sites/default/files/upload/2020-07/Gendlin-Quotes-on-Focusing-and-Political-Consciousness_0.pdf

CONNECTION>CONVERSATION>COMMUNITY

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.

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 http://www.focusing.org/membership, 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.

About your hosts:

Dave Young is a retired Licensed Clinical Social Worker, who worked with individuals & families. A Focuser since 1981, he was in close contact with Gene Gendlin during the last several years of his life. Dave and his wife Jane were trainers in Gendlin’s Focusing workshops and in McMahon & Campbell’s Biospiritual Focusing workshops, as well as leaders in the Hyde Park Changes Group for several years. Dave has published and presented on various Focusing-related issues for 35 years. He also worked with Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication. 

Gisela Uhl became a certified Focusing teacher in Toronto in 1997. Originally a German city-planner, she has always been very interested in psychology, social questions, and philosophy, areas which she studied extensively while living in England, former British Guyana/South America, and Toronto/Canada. She studied Gendlin’s philosophy with Rob Foxcroft in Scotland, and became a friend of Gene Gendlin, with whom she was especially close during the last 1-2 years of his life. Gene introduced her to Dave, and since then, the two of them have had regular intense discussions about the relation of Focusing and Politics.