"... the most wonderful part of Bala was her generous Focusing approach..."
Bala Jaison died on March 7, 2023 after a lifetime devoted to championing Focusing by teaching, writing, editing, and helping others in her Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy practice.
In the 1980s, she had started a small newsletter with a few articles written by her colleagues who were exploring a fascinating philosophy proposed by Eugene Gendlin. She typed, mimeographed, stapled, and offered the few pages to the young Focusing community in Chicago
Beatrice Blake: Hello Veronica, I’ve been looking forward to this interview about your new position on The International Focusing Institute Board. I always start by asking, how did you come to Focusing?
Veronica Toescu: I trained as a Humanistic Person-Centered psychotherapist. There was a very brief mention of Gendlin as part of the training, which I was really, really curious about. When I finished my training, I attended an introductory workshop as part of a continuous professional development workshop. It just completely made sense…completely made sense! I came across Gendlin’s Focusing book, then a year later after I finished my Master's, the London Focusing Institute was starting a new course led by Greg Madison in Focusing Oriented Therapy. It felt like I had come to the right place at the right time, and I enrolled. (READ FULL INTERVIEW)
I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all the faculty, organizers, volunteers and participants of the first Thinking at the Edge (TAE) Academy, which took place November 10-13, 2022. I feel very grateful that The International Focusing Institute (TIFI) and the TAE community are carrying forward Eugene Gendlin’s and Mary Hendricks-Gendlin’s pioneering work[1] for the Focusing community and larger public on how to reflect deeply on what we know well from our own unique path and explorations, what has been working and what has not, what has been transformative, what we have carried forward from this, how to think for ourselves effectively from our bodies’ deepening participation in the world. TAE is a philosophical method that deepens experiencing and engaging in life, so that our understanding of our path continues to transform as we transform. How fortunate we are that a philosopher of Eugene Gendlin’s unique depth worked so hard to share with us his phenomenological methods that had already provided us with clearing a space and Focusing!
