Akira Ikemi - Crossing with Animals and the Experiencing Model: On the Freshly Emerging ‘Now’ that Changes ‘What Was’
“Crossing with Animals”, an exercise which I devised in order to highlight how ‘Experiencing’ works, will be demonstrated. I will then critique Gendlin’s Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy on the grounds that the ‘relationship‘ which he held to be of primary importance is not clearly articulated. I will then present the five assertions of the ‘Experiencing Model’ using the material from the Crossing with Animals demonstration to highlight what happens in the relationship. The five assertions about experiencing pertain to: the refutation of the unconscious; implying; Re-experiencing (Nacherleben) the other’s experience; Re-experiencing one’s own experiencing; Saying; and the ‘carried forward was’.
Akira Ikemi, Ph.D., a former student of Gendlin at the University of Chicago, Akira worked in medical settings and in corporate mental health in Japan before taking on full time academic positions. He is currently professor of psychotherapy at Kansai University Faculty of Health and Well-Being and the Graduate School of Psychology. He has served on the board and the ILC of TIFI, as well as board membership of several other academic organizations in Japan and UK. He was named ‘Living Luminary’ by the Journal of Humanistic Counseling (American Counseling Association) and was awarded the prestigious Japanese Association for Humanistic Psychology Award.