ANNUAL REPORT 2023

(This page is also available as a PDF)

We are proud that 2023 was another year of forward movement at The International Focusing Institute (TIFI).

Most notably:

• The Board created a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) scholarship fund, as one means of making concrete the DEI Statement that they had finalized the year earlier.
   
• The October 7 attack by Hamas in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza left many of us in shock, horror, grief and confusion.  TIFI held several “Compassionate Conversations,” led by members of the Board and International Leadership Council, one in Spanish and the others in English.  In these conversations, we came together to process it all in a Focusing way. 
   
• We came together for the first annual “Honoring Milestones” online event to acknowledge all our new Certified Focusing Professionals, our new Coordinators, and to remember Coordinators who have passed away.  This ceremony is tied to the Weeklong for Advanced Focusers, taking place on the last day of that event.  All members are warmly invited to the Honoring Milestones online ceremony, whether or not they attend the Weeklong.
   
• Members received a new benefit in 2023: “Reading Freshly.” This is a free-for-members opportunity to read together Gendlin’s indispensable, foundational work Focusing.  The high registration rate shows us that this meets a felt need.  Members can learn more about that and other benefits on the Members-Only page of our website.
   
• We continued to educate the public on all aspects of felt sensing through such events as:
  • the Children & Focusing “Moments of Wonder” conference
  • the Felt Sense Conference on “Spirituality and the Murky Edge”
  • the Gendlin Symposium “Deliberative transformation: Embodied Phenomenology and Process Thinking”
  • the first Thinking at the Edge “TAE-fest”
  • the beginning of a collaboration with Rob Parker, to offer his long-term study of A Process Model through TIFI

Read more about these and more in this report.

For those who are members, donors or volunteers, THANK YOU for joining us in making Focusing, Thinking at the Edge and the philosophy of the implicit findable.

MEMBERSHIP & CERTIFICATION

A total of 242 individuals received certification in 2023 from 30 countries: Argentina (8), Australia (4), Belgium (3), Brazil (12), Canada (18), Mainland China (7), Hong Kong, China (10), Colombia (1), France (3), Germany (5), Greece (5), Iceland (2), Ireland (1), Israel (33), Italy (20), Japan (11), Kazakhstan (1), Mexico (3), the Netherlands (5), Gaza, Palestine (2), Poland (5), Romania (5), Russia (15), Singapore (1), Spain (24), Switzerland (12), Taiwan (1), Turkey (1), United Kingdom (6), USA (16), Venezuela (1).

We have 2325 members (an increase of 8.6% over last year)

• 244 Coordinators
• 75 Coordinators-in-Training
• 1,068 Certified Focusing Professionals (Trainers and FOTs)
• 449 Trainees
• 500 affiliate members (Friend, Supporter, Associate)
• 7 honorary members

 

EQUITY IN MEMBERSHIP

New rates for membership were implemented in the previous year (2022). Read about this important step toward worldwide equity at https://focusing.org/membership/equity-membership.  Sixty-two of the individuals certified in 2023 were able to pay lower certification fees because of the existence of 3 new levels, tied to the average income in their countries. Despite lower fees – or perhaps because of them – income from certification is growing as a percentage of our total income.

COORDINATORS

A listing of all our Coordinators can be found by going to Find a Focusing Professional on our website and choosing "Coordinator (Can certify through the Institute)." Coordinators hail from 36 countries: Argentina (12), Australia (3), Austria (2), Belgium (9), Brazil (5), Canada (17), Chile (3), mainland China (4), China Hong Kong (6), Costa Rica (1), Denmark (2),  Finland (1), France (1), Germany (17), Greece (5), Guatemala (1), Hungary (3), Ireland (3), Israel (20), Italy (16), Japan (19), Luxembourg (2), Mexico (3), Netherlands (7), New Zealand (1), Norway (1), Poland (1), Portugal (1), Romania (2), Russia (1), Slovenia (1), South Korea (1), Spain (7), Switzerland (6), Taiwan (1), the UK (11), and the USA (34).

Click here for a link listing Coordinators and Coordinators-in-Training who certified students in 2023, with the number of students certified.

We welcomed 19 new Coordinators in 2023. See their names and photos here, and read more about them on the Milestones page of the website (https://focusing.org/more/milestones). 

TOP ROW (L-R):  Stephen Adler (Brazil) - Isabel Adon (USA) - Baruch Brenner (Israel) - Rosa Catoio (Italy) - Florian Christensen (Switzerland)
SECOND ROW (L-R): Sigal Golan Ketsev (Israel) - Sandy Jahmi Burg (USA) - Regina Jürgens (Germany) - Katherine Kot (Hong Kong) - Yasushi Kuba (Japan)
THIRD ROW (L-R): Christine le Coutre (Germany) - Neva (Xue) Li (China) - Georgeta Niculescu (Romania) - Florentina Palada (Romania) - Serge Prengel (USA)
FOURTH ROW (L-R): Josep Santacreu i Tanyà (Spain) - Boaz Shavit (Israel) - Maria Skoufas (USA) - Kie Yano (Japan)

MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE

You can read about the Membership Committee on their web page.

 

CHAIR AND MEMBERS: Mariana Písula of Argentina continued as Chair. Members of the committee are from Spain, Ireland, Germany, the United States, Romania, Palestine (Gaza), Argentina, and Switzerland.

WELCOME CONVERSATIONS: New members are invited to request a one-on-one conversation with a member of the Membership Committee.  There were 13 of these in 2023.

MESAS REDONDAS & CAFECITOS: These are free for members online Spanish language conversations and interviews.  The organizing team is Alejandro Juroczko, Lucia Águilar and Flor Sassoli, all three from Argentina. There were 5 Mesas Redondas and 7 Cafecitos in 2023.

READING FRESHLY: A new member benefit began in 2023: “Reading Freshly,” which are monthly gatherings, free for members, to read together the book Focusing by Gene Gendlin.

ROUNDTABLES: There were 10 Roundtables (free online conversations for members) which were part of a Roundtable Series: Oceania, French, Therapists’, and Children & Focusing and 6 one-off roundtables on a variety of topics. 

The team which organizes the Roundtables is pictured here: Margaret Quinn, Mary Jennings and Elaine Goggin.

 

THINKING AT THE EDGE & PHILOSOPHY

One of our priorities over the last several years, which the Board of TIFI made explicit this year, has been to strengthen our offerings in the philosophy of the implicit and Thinking at the Edge (TAE).

TAE (Thinking at the Edge) PROFICIENCY AWARD

The TAE Proficiency Award was first at the first TAE Academy and in the 2022 Annual Report.  It was developed by the TAE Advisory Group in consultation with a worldwide group of established teachers of TAE, then approved by the Board of TIFI.  It was implemented in 2023.  An inaugural award was given to the teachers who are approved to offer the award:

Beatrice Blake (USA)
Teresa Dawson (Switzerland)
Heinke Deloch (Germany)
Evelyn Fendler-Lee (USA/Germany)
Hejo (Heinz-Joachim) Feuerstein (Germany)
Dana Ganihar (Israel)
Monika Lindner (Germany)
Nada Lou (Canada)
Hanspeter Muehlethaler (Switzerland)
Kye Nelson (USA)
Donata Schoeller (Switzerland)
Satoko Tokumaru (Japan)

and our first three student recipients of the award were Bill Gayner (Canada), Mariya Hoffman (United States) and Chris Van de Veire (Belgium)

CLASSES & COURSES ON PHILOSOPHY AND TAE

Key offerings about Gendlin’s philosophy of the implicit and Thinking at the Edge in 2023:

• In April 2023, we had a TAE-fest where 7 of our TAE teachers taught classes over 4 weeks. (Teachers of the TAE-fest are pictured above.)
   
• Donata Schoeller offered “Acknowledging and Reconnecting,” an online interactive 3-day workshop based on Gendlin’s principle of “interacton first.”
   
• We began a collaboration with Rob Parker, a psychologist who has studied Gendlin’s philosophy for many years, and who was one of Gendlin’s most trusted friends.  Rob has led reading groups of Gendlin’s A Process Model for many years.  In 2023, he began to offer them through The International Focusing Institute.

GATHERINGS & CLASSES

focusing.org/events

 

SCHOLARSHIPS: We once again gave thousands of dollars in scholarships for the Gendlin Symposium, the Advanced and Certification Weeklong, the Children & Focusing conference and the Felt Sense Conference.

CHILDREN & FOCUSING CONFERENCE: “It Takes a Village” took place in February. The recap of this event can be found in our April 2023 newsletter. We are especially glad that Lucy Bowers was able to present at the conference. She was a pillar in the Children & Focusing community and passed away about a year later. She’s pictured here on the upper left, during her presentation.

HYBRID WEEKLONG FOR ADVANCED FOCUSERS:
We had our second hybrid Weeklong, in Dublin and online.  This is the first year we featured “Honoring Milestones.”

HONORING MILESTONES:
A special part of the Weeklong this year was our first Honoring Milestones.  This is an online celebration of all those certified over the past year, new Coordinators, and Coordinators who have passed away.  Since it was the first Honoring Milestones, we honored any Coordinator who died any time since 2015.  The departed colleagues we honored were Janet Pfunder, Zack Boukydis, Mairead O’Brien, Marta Stapert, Christel Kraft, Marie Sherry MacDonald, Agnes Wild-Missong, Lucy Bowers and Bala Jaison.  Of course we acknowledged Gene Gendlin and Mary Hendricks who died within that time frame as well.  There is a link to the ceremony on our Focusing Heritage page.

HIGHLIGHTS AND CLASSES: We offered 13 Focusing Highlights along with 9 other online courses. Thank you to all our volunteer presenters! To see a list of all the Highlights we’ve offered over the years, go to focusing.org/focusinghighlights. If you are a certified member, we’d love to have you offer a Highlight. Look on our Volunteer Opportunities page for information about offering a Highlight.

 

THE EUGENE T. GENDLIN CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN EXPERIENTIAL PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY

www.gendlincenter.org

The 2023 Gendlin Center committee: Akira Ikemi (Chair), Kevin Krycka, Mary Jeanne Larrabee,  Donata Schoeller, Sigríður Þorgeirsdóttir, Siebrecht Vanhooren, Evelyn Fendler-Lee as Board Liaison.

Read more about them here.

PSYCHOLOGY GRANT
The Gendlin Center gave its third Gendlin Grant for Research in Psychology to Kumiyo Sakai, a professor at Wayo Women's University in Chiba prefecture, Japan, where she teaches Clinical Psychology and Focusing-Oriented Counseling.  The Gendlin Research Center funding will allow her to study the effect of Interactive Focusing Counseling on how one handles stress.  Read more and see a brief interview with her at gendlincenter.org.

REVISED EXP SCALE
Work continued on a revised Experiencing (EXP) Scale, which will encourage more research on the effectiveness of Focusing.

GENDLIN SYMPOSIUM
The second Gendlin Symposium took place in September.  It was entitled “Deliberative Transformation: Embodied Phenomenology and Process Thinking.” It was co-sponsored by DePaul University, the University of Iceland, the University of Koblenz and Kansai University.  There were 203 registrants and a wide variety of excellent presentations.  You can read the event description here.

 

VOLUNTEERS & DONORS

We are once again thankful to our incredible donors and volunteers.  We have a handful of “angel” donors who give large gifts which encourage us and encourage others to give as they are able.  Likewise, we have some “angel” volunteers and many who do a little volunteering here and there.  All together, we make things happen!

We had 141 donors giving a total of $131,399.  We had 233 volunteers. We couldn’t do what we do without your generosity!

You can find our donors listed on our January 31 In Focus News Feed and our volunteers in our January 8 In Focus News Feed.

You can donate to our general fund or to specific funds.  Go to focusing.org/donate and you can choose a fund at the bottom of the page.  To volunteer, look at our list of volunteer opportunities. THANK YOU!

The TIFI BOARD

focusing.org/board

As 2023 ended, the members of the Board were: Nelle Moffett (President, USA), Darryl Commings (Treasurer, USA), Veronica S. Urioste (UK/Bolivia), Evelyn Fendler-Lee (USA/Germany), Florentina Sassoli (Argentina), Eveline Moor Züllig (Switzerland), and Patrick Duffy (Advisory, Ireland)

 For the third year, the Board held online meetings for members in the fall.

At the beginning of the year, the Board expressed the intention of TIFI to use the term “Experiential Focusing” for official, written, online communications, for the purpose of generating better automated translation of the term “Focusing,” which is frequently mis-translated by automated services.  After considering the great amount of feedback from Coordinators, the decision was made to use both Experiential Focusing and Focusing and to continue to experiment and watch what the future holds for automated translation.

Read more about the Board at  focusing.org/board

DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION (DEI)

After publishing its DEI statement in 2022, the Board created a DEI Scholarship Fund in 2023, to increase participation in our programs of people from under-represented groups.  They are especially eager at this time to encourage participation from young people, and from members who identify as Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC).

Programming which furthered our efforts in 2023 to be more inclusive included:

• “Journeying with the Felt Sense and the Medicine Wheel to Mino-Biimaadiiziwiin (The Good Life),” a better3-part series given by Dennis Windego, from the traditional lands of the Anishinabeg community of Nigigoonsiminikaaning First Nation in northwestern Ontario.
• “Focusing As A Liberatory Process,” a Focusing Highlight led by Miko Brown
• “El cuerpo como escenario de experiencias: heridas ocultas del trauma racial” (“The body as a stage of experiences: hidden wounds of racial trauma”) – a Mesa Redonda (Roundtable in Spanish) led by João Paulo de Souza y Cristiana Rodrigues Martins in Portuguese with Spanish translation.
   

The INTERNATIONAL LEADERSHIP COUNCIL (ILC)

focusing.org/ilc

As 2023 ended, the members of the ILC were: Laura Bavalic (Hungary), Massimo Zarghetta (Italy), Guilherme Tostes (Brazil), Claude Missiaen (Belgium), Nancy Falls (Canada)

In 2023, the ILC decided to convene Coordinators in meetings twice a year.  Prior to this decision, ILC ran meetings with Coordinators when specific needs arose, but they believe that there will be value in having regular meetings whether or not there is specific business to conduct.  This will allow chances for allowing for communication, camaraderie and felt sensing forward steps for any number of wants or needs.

The ILC worked on a document to more clearly define its roles and its relationship to the Board, the Executive Director and the Coordinators.

The ILC and Board have determined that they want to be more connected with one another.  Every other month, a member of the ILC now attends the Board meeting, and on the alternative month, a Board member attends one of the ILC’s meetings.

Read more about the ILC at focusing.org/ILC.

FINANCES

Below is a snapshot of our financials.  We are pleased that this year we continued to end the year “in the black.”  This allows us to build back our reserves, which will allow us to weather possible future lean years, or to fund important work that our operating funds don’t fully cover.