Thinking at the Edge (TAE) Symposium

Thinking at the Edge (TAE) Symposium
April 4-6, 2025

Exploring Experiences and Applications of TAE
 

Call for Proposals
Please submit your proposal by January 20, 2025

TAE has a social purpose. We build our inter-human world further. It is not true that merely developing as individuals will somehow change the patterns in which we must live. We need to build new social patterns and new patterns of thought and science. This will be a mutual product no single person can create. -Eugene Gendlin, Introduction to Thinking at the Edge

A NEW KIND OF TAE GATHERING

This symposium is meant as a chance for those who have at least a basic knowledge of TAE to share your knowledge, your insights, your enthusiasm, your questions and your edges with other attendees.  If you are a student of TAE and have made progress with a TAE project which you’d like to share, we encourage you to see below the opportunity to have 15 minutes to share about your TAE project.  We will have chances for informal TAE-based conversations or partnerships as well.  Those who do not know TAE are welcome to attend, but should be aware that this symposium will not include any direct teaching of the TAE steps.

A BIT ABOUT THINKING AT THE EDGE (TAE)

Thinking at the Edge (TAE) is a systematic way to think about our world and ourselves by directly referring to a felt sense.  The TAE process starts from a knowing for which we don't have words yet.  The words and concepts that we know from public life tend to paint with a broad brush; public language seldom captures precisely what we are experiencing. The steps of TAE help us to develop a fresh use of language, to find just the right words which truly fit what we want to say.  We learn through TAE to let words emerge gradually from the felt sense.

Then, from our unique expression, TAE helps us to find ways to express our knowing in generalized terms as well, so that our insights can be communicated to others.  In this way, our work in TAE can open new possibilities not only for ourselves but for others as well.

You can read more about TAE here: focusing.org/tae

SYMPOSIUM ATTENDANCE IS OPEN TO ALL

It is a time for:

• teachers of TAE to share the insights they’ve gained about how best to teach TAE
• practitioners of TAE to share about their projects
• teachers and practitioners to share their insights into how TAE affects their Focusing practice
• all participants to share time together in small groups or TAE partnerships
• all participants to explore the meaning and potential of TAE for our personal lives as well as for society

THE SYMPOSIUM WILL FEATURE:

• 90-minute workshops offered by TAE teachers
• 15-minute presentations by TAE practitioners
• Panels discussing topics relevant to TAE
   

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

RECORDINGS

All sessions will be recorded.  Recordings of all sessions will be made available within a few hours of the end of the session (except in the case oftechnical difficulty).  You will have access to recordings of all sessions through September 4, 2025. 

PRESENTERS

Dana Ganihar and Baruch Brenner
info coming
 

Panel - Heinke Deloch, Satoko Tokumaru, Monika Lindner
info coming

Hanspeter Muehlethaler - The paradox - a door to the felt sense
Paradoxes have always played an important role in philosophy and in science. The Liar’s paradox (‘All Cretans lie and I am a Cretan’) is an example that already preoccupied ancient Greece. Many variations are found in literature (see illustration).

In science, experiments that disagree with current theories show the their limits. A well known example in physics was the fact that the speed of light is constant, regardless of whether the light source is moving towards or away from the observer. This contradicts the classical theory of light. Only Einstein's special theory of relativity resolved this paradox by introducing new properties of space and time that seem paradoxical to common sense.

Jokes live from paradox: the absurdity of a situation makes us laugh out loud. If, after this initial (usually pleasant) reaction, we patiently engage with the paradox, accept and enjoy our not understanding, deeper meanings, new words can emerge.

In the experimental workshop Hanspeter would like to share some of his joy in jokes and paradoxes. And he will encourage the participants to detect their own illogical aspects in their living and thinking and discover their creative potential. Maybe you will find your own joke that unfolds a deeper meaning for you.

Donata Schoeller
info coming

Panel - Hanspeter Muehlthaler, Beatrice Blake, Evenlyn Fendler-Lee
info coming

Evelyn Fendler-Lee - Thinking at The Edge and Beyond
Innovations in TAE and How to Teach

During the workshop, Evelyn will discuss innovations she has implemented in her teaching of Thinking at the Edge (TAE) and the TAE method over the last 20 years. Participants will be invited to experiment with some of the innovations.

She will show how the early adaptations incorporated flexibility in the order of the TAE steps and included self-care options for the person performing TAE. The latter change was inspired by Robert Lee’s Domain-Focused Approach.

Her studies of Eugene Gendlin’s philosophy, especially Thinking Beyond Pattern: Body, Language, and Situations, inspired her to modify and add to the TAE steps. It has also deepened her understanding of the essence of TAE, which she will share.

Finally, she will demonstrate how practicing TAE—using TAE myself and guiding individuals and groups through TAE processes—has led to the development of additional “steps” that help expand the application of TAE.  

She will present the intent behind each innovation so you may find other solutions that better fit your context and application.

Dr. Evelyn Fendler-Lee is a self-employed organizational psychologist, certified counselor and Focusing trainer. As a coordinator in training she offers the program "Deep Thinking to Move Life and Thought Forward". As a coach, trainer and team facilitator for professional and personal growth, she encourages deep and interactive thinking for original creation, profound change and sustainable solutions.
She is a pioneer in the application of Thinking at the Edge (TAE) to innovation, teamwork, and leadership. She introduced Focusing to students teaching self-management and social skills and taught TAE courses at universities and 4x4 day TAE programs at the DAF, Würzburg.
In 2020, she founded Thetaland®-Academy to bring Gendlin's philosophical principles and practices to a broader audience, using Thetaland®-The Game of Inquiry, which she co-developed in 2018. She teaches TAE in a 3-person format, offers practice-oriented philosophy classes, and presents at international conferences.
Contact: [email protected]; www.fendler-lee.com, www.thetaland-academy.com

Monika Lindner - Exploring Multiple Edges in Your Thinking at the Edge Journey

If you take the steps of Thinking at the Edge to a meaningful edge of what cannot yet be said, then you embark on a journey of discovery that is as effective as it is vulnerable.  Something new comes through the creative act of receiving. 

In the process, you may encounter a variety of surprising and challenging thresholds, "broken" edges, ridges and the like, which you had perhaps not expected nor anticipated, and which indeed seem as though they might lead you off the path. In such situations, it is helpful to take a step back, as it were, and adopt a meta level view.  This view from the meta level can clarify the situation, and the way you are -- and want to be -- with your TAE topic.

This workshop offers such a meta-space for searching for traces of experiences, aspects, practices and qualities of what one can call a "reflective (self) care." Developing a culture of reflective (self) care supports the evolution of a process at the edge of what can be said, and then itself becomes nurtured by that very process.

Monika Catarina Lindner is an educationalist and project manager with a focus on Intercultural Learning and Second Language Acquisition. She is a certified Focusing Trainer and currently a Coordinator-in-Training. As an Experiential Concept Coach/Trainer (ECC) she specializes in teaching "Thinking At the Edge" (TAE). She is part of the trainer network “Focusing Netzwerk“, is on the the Membership Committee and participates in the international research group “Freedom to Make Sense“ at the University of Iceland and the Iceland University of the Arts.
Contact: www.monicalindner.com, [email protected]

Beatrice Blake - Why TAE should be integrated into Focusing training

Today, it is important for human beings to understand the power of felt sensing, not just as a self-help tool, but as a way of bringing aliveness to any situation or issue. 

People can do Focusing for years without ever experiencing the power of felt sensing that develops in TAE:
1.Working with a project over time allowing the felt sense to deepen, broaden and carry forward; 
2. Asking the felt sense to take us to moments in our lives that show us relevant information about our projects (TAE Step 6, Instancing);
3. Extracting or “mining” the information from those instances so that we can understand their deeper meaning (Step 7, Extracting Patterns from Instances);
4. Crossing the patterns, deepening meaning and understanding even more;
5. Realizing that we can say what we mean by going beyond patterned words and phrases;
6. Using the felt sense as a “geiger counter” to show us which words need further elaboration;
7. Becoming familiar with our ability to work on what seems paradoxical or impossible.
Find out more at https://possibility-space.com

Beatrice Blake is a Certifying Coordinator with TIFI. She loves sharing TAE online with Focusers all over the world, offering 2-month and  4-month interactive small group classes and individual sessions.
TAE provides time and space for what cannot yet be put into words. This spacious listening allows new ideas to develop, evolving from the implicit intricacy of each person.
To make TAE more accessible, Bea’s new recorded TAE course has short lectures and demonstration videos of each step. Nada Lou’s videos of Gene Gendlin going through his own TAE process are included, with commentaries meant to be helpful to people new to TAE. 

Satoko Tokumaru
info coming

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  Sigga Thorgeirsdottir
  info coming