Embodiment in Coaching Workshop

Gendlin's insight was never simply about a technique. It was a claim about the nature of meaning: that knowing begins in the body, that the felt sense carries more than we can yet say, and that genuine change requires working at the edge of what language can reach. This workshop takes that claim seriously.

The Embodiment in Coaching Workshop is a two-day experiential virtual intensive for coaches, therapists, facilitators, and practitioners who want to work with the whole person — not just what clients can articulate, but what they carry implicitly, somatically, below the threshold of conscious narrative.

Gendlin's Focusing and Process Model form the philosophical and methodological spine of the workshop. The explicit teaching of Focusing's steps takes place on Sunday morning in an extended dedicated session, but the orientation Focusing cultivates runs through the entire program: a quality of receptive, non-grasping attention; a willingness to stay with what is not yet clear; a trust in the body's capacity to know before the mind has words for it. This is not Focusing as an add-on. It is Focusing as a way of working.

What the workshop covers

The two days move from theory to practice to integration. We begin with the science—the enactivist and 4E cognitive frameworks that give Gendlin's intuitions their contemporary grounding: the work of Varela and Thompson, embodied simulation, the body as organ of meaning-making. This isn't background filler. Understanding why the body knows changes how you attend to it—in yourself and in the people you work with.

From there the workshop becomes increasingly experiential:

• Somatic inquiry as a coaching methodology—learning to work with what arises in the body rather than routing everything through cognitive reflection
• Resonant reflection as a listening practice—presence as more than technique, as an embodied quality that the client can feel in the room (or across the screen)
• Visualization and somatic integration—using imagery not as metaphor but as a means of mobilizing the body's own knowing
• Body language not as a decoding system but as an invitation into the client's implicit world
• Focusing as explicit practice—Gendlin's steps worked experientially, with attention to the places where the method opens onto something larger than method
• Presence as a meta-competency—how the coach's own embodied state shapes the entire field of the coaching conversation
• Working in the present moment as preparation for future action—how felt-sense work generates movement that cognitive planning often cannot

The workshop also includes an introduction to the broader somatic coaching landscape, with particular attention to how Gendlin's work both precedes and deepens what contemporary neuroscience and embodiment research have since articulated.

Who this is for

The workshop is designed for coaches seeking genuine depth in somatic and relational work — especially those already familiar with Focusing who want to understand how it translates into coaching practice. It is equally relevant for therapists, facilitators, somatic practitioners, and educators working with processes of change and growth.

No prior coaching training is required. Prior experience with Focusing is welcome but not assumed—the Sunday morning session is structured to be accessible to newcomers while offering depth to those already in the practice.

Facilitation

The workshop is facilitated by Rod Francis and Sherry Trebes, senior faculty of InterActualizer's Emergent Coach Training — an ICF-accredited program built on embodiment, process philosophy, 4E cognition, and relational practice. Both bring decades of experience working at the intersection of somatic practice, coaching, and adult development.

Format and credits

Two days, live on Zoom. Both days: 7am–1:30pm US Pacific / 10am–3:30pm US Eastern.

Next offering: May 2 & 3, 2026. 10 ICF Core Competency Units (CCEUs). Cost: USD $350.

Previous participants in InterActualizer coach training programs qualify for a 50% discount. Contact [email protected] for the discount code.