Bio
Hideo Tanaka, Ph.D., is a lecturer at Kansai University, Japan. He has been focusing for nearly 30 years. He spoke with Eugene Gendlin about the background of “Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning” (Gendlin, 1962/1997), such as the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, Wilhelm Dilthey, John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, and Susanne Langer in a TAE workshop (2004) in New York. He completed his master’s degree with Prof. Naohiko Mimura, studying Gendlin's philosophy. He completed his doctorate with Prof. Akira Ikemi, studying Gendlin's psychology. He received the Incentive Award of the Japanese Association for Humanistic Psychology in 2021. He has been invited to be a featured speaker at the Gendlin Symposium 2023.
Blog post: Focusing practice
Hideo Tanaka (2024, June). “Reflective listening” without necessarily “empathic understanding”
Hideo Tanaka (2024, May). Gendlin's View on “Gut Feelings”
Hideo Tanaka (2024, April). When the level of the Experiencing Scale "rises too high"
Hideo Tanaka (2023a, September). Comparing Felt Sense to Cotton Candy
Hideo Tanaka (2023b, September). Listening to "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's 9th Symphony in a Focusing-Oriented Way: Commentary Using an Official Video
Hideo Tanaka (2023c, September). Focusing-Oriented Listening and "Positive Regard"
Blog post: Gendlin's philosophy
Hideo Tanaka (2024, September). Retroactive time: Bergson as a precursor of Gendlin.
Hideo Tanaka (2024a, June). Collection of links: On “Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning” (Gendlin, 1962/1997)
Hideo Tanaka (2024b, June). Retroactive Time: Gendlin's Critical Position on the “Unit Model” and the “Content Paradigm”
Hideo Tanaka (2024a, May). Entitizing and Universalizing
Hideo Tanaka (2024b, May). Very old (“primitive”) sequences in dreams and with hypnosis
Hideo Tanaka (2024a, April). A Preliminary Examination of the Concept of "Object": From G. H. Mead to Gendlin in the 1980s
Hideo Tanaka (2024b, April). Gendlin's “focaling” and Dilthey's “purposiveness”
Hideo Tanaka (2024c, April). Emotion and felt sense
Hideo Tanaka (2024d, April). Pragmatistic origin of Gendlin's en#0: with reference to Dewey and Mead
Hideo Tanaka (2024a, March). Dewey's position towards the "spectator" and Gendlin's position towards the "idealized observer": based on their views of old and new physics
Hideo Tanaka (2024b, March). Dewey's "transaction" and Gendlin's "interaction first"
Hideo Tanaka (2024c, March). Gendlin's writings that prepared "A Process Model"
Hideo Tanaka (2024d, March). Generative History of Chapters II and I Uses of the Term 'Implying' in "A Process Model"
Hideo Tanaka (2024e, March). Responding to a picture as a picture: Susanne Langer and Eugene Gendlin
Hideo Tanaka (2024f, March). "Reversal" and the History of Metaphor Theory
Hideo Tanaka (2024, January). Words and visual patterns: in light of Gendlin and Langer's discussions
Hideo Tanaka (2023, Novenber). Poet's Elaboration
Hideo Tanaka (2023, October). What does "direct" in "direct reference" mean? Determine the difference between "reference" and "checking"
Hideo Tanaka (2023a, September). Gendlin's basic term, "explication": Q&A with Dr. Donata Schoeller
Hideo Tanaka (2023b, September). Vague image of "experiencing": with reference to W. James and H. Bergson
Hideo Tanaka (2023a, August). Comprehension and Metaphor in “Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning” (Gendlin, 1962/1997)
Hideo Tanaka (2023b, August). The Past in the Here and Now: Lecture at the Japanese Association for Humanistic Psychology
Hideo Tanaka (2023a, April). Anthology: Dilthey as a Precursor of Gendlin.
Hideo Tanaka (2023b, April). Recollections of My Visit to Dr. Gendlin with the English language supervision of Yoshiko Kosaka, Luke Jaaniste, Yacine Haffar, and Jeff Falzone and with the Greek language supervision of Nikolaos Kypriotakis.
English publication
Akira Ikemi, Shimpei Okamura, & Hideo Tanaka (2023). The experiencing model: saying what we mean in the context of Focusing and psychotherapy. In Eric Severson & Kvin Krycka (eds.), The psychology and philosophy of Eugene Gendlin: making sense of contemporary experience (pp. 44–62). Routledge.
Hideo Tanaka (2021). Tapping 'it' lightly and the short silence: applying the concept of 'direct reference' to the discussion of verbatim records of Focusing sessions (with the English language supervision of Akira Ikemi) [Abstract]. In Nikolaos Kypriotakis & Judy Moore (Eds.), Senses of Focusing, Vol. 1 (pp. 125-38). Eurasia Publications.
English presentation
Hideo Tanaka (2023, September). Gendlin's philosophical background and the development of his thoughts [Presentation slides and quotes]. Presented at Gendlin Symposium “Deliberative Transformation: Embodied Phenomenology And Process Thinking” (Gendlin Symposium 2023).
Hideo Tanaka (2023, August). Introduction to 'Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning' for Focusing practitioners (with the English language supervision of Akira Ikemi). Presented as one of the Focusing Highlights series by the International Focusing Institute.
Hideo Tanaka (2021, April). Tapping 'it' lightly and the short silence: applying the concept of 'direct reference' or ''creative regress' to the discussion of verbatim records of Focusing sessions (with the English language supervision of Akira Ikemi). Paper presented at Saying What We Mean: A Symposium on the Works of Eugene Gendlin (the Gendlin Symposium 2021).
Hideo Tanaka (2015, July). The significance of just touching 'this feeling' (with the English language supervision of Akira Ikemi & Naoko Brown). Presented at The 26th International Focusing Conference, Seattle University, WA.
Japanese publication
Hideo Tanaka (2018). The early days of Focusing and the theory of experiencing: studies on the background of how Focusing was formed and practiced [in Japanese, English summary & table of contents]. Doctoral Dissertation, Kansai University.
Hideo Tanaka & Akira Ikemi (2016). Two streams in the early period of Focusing: the sources of the Experiencing Scales and Focusing instructions [in Japanese, English abstract]. Psychologist: Bulletin of the Kansai University Graduate School of Clinical Professional Psychology, 6, 9-17.
Hideo Tanaka (2015). Some issues about the term 'congruence' and the solutions proposed by Gendlin [in Japanese, English abstract]. The Japanese Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 33(1), 29-38.
Hideo Tanaka (2004-5). A bibliographic survey about E. T. Gendlin’s early theory of experiencing: influences on his psychotherapeutic studies from W. Dilthey’s philosophy [in Japanese, English summary & table of contents). Bulletin of Meiji University Library, 8, 56-81 &, 9, 58-87.
Hideo Tanaka (2004). What does "direct" in "direct reference" mean? Determine the difference between "reference" and "checking." [in Japanese. English translation] The Focuser’s Focus: Japan Focusing Association Newsletter, 7(2), 1–6.
Japanese presentation
Hideo Tanaka (2022, Septemper). The past in the "here and now" (The Incentive Award commemorative lecture, in Japanese, English abstract and quotes). Presented at The 41st Conference of the Japanese Association for Humanistic Psychology.
Hideo Tanaka (2020, Septemper). The transition between statements via creative regress to felt sense: with Gendlin's commentary on Plato's Dialogues as a guide [in Japanese]. Presented at The 39th Conference of the Japanese Association for Humanistic Psychology.