Exploring The Fundamental Principles That Guide the Therapy Relationship

In this ongoing online seminar we will explore the radical underpinnings of Focusing‑Oriented Therapy (FOT) and its rich dialogue with Relational Psychoanalysis. Through discussion, video demonstrations, role‑play and selected readings, we will enter the vast and often mysterious terrain of the therapy relationship. How is it that one or two meetings a week can gradually transform a person’s life? How do we form the kinds of bonds with our clients that allow us to become partners with them in profound processes of healing and development? And how do we navigate the delicacy, uncertainty, and inevitable struggles that are part of this intimate work?

In this first module of the seminar, we will ground ourselves with several of the foundational principles of Focusing‑Oriented Therapy. These ideas, together with the experiential skills that bring them to life, open a door to Gendlin’s radical process‑oriented way of thinking. Our whole sense of reality expands. The therapy relationship itself becomes something more than a set of methods. It becomes a process in which both participants are changed.

We will explore these 5 tenets:

• The person is not an entity, but an interactive, “implicit intricacy.”

• “Interaction First” Therapy takes place not only inside the client but inside the living interaction.

• We need to make a relationship not only with the client, but also with what Gendlin calls the “Client’s Client” or the “One In There.”

• Change unfolds through small steps of organic development—what Gendlin calls “forward movement.” Life inherently moves toward more life.

• We can sense the bodily “edge of awareness”—the place where something new is forming and can begin to be spoken — “the felt sense” of the client, oneself and the partnership.