The Focusing Process
Focusing is a mode of inward directed awareness that allows the unclear in any situation to become clearer. What this means is that in any circumstance in life we carry a felt understanding of it AND how it can change.
Most often we do not wait for the next step to come and find that we need a way to tap into our natural ability to dwell with it prior to action. The most intelligent action comes from dwelling.
Focusing was first developed by psychologist and philosopher Eugene T. Gendlin. While conducting research into what makes for successful psychotherapy, Gendlin’s research team noticed that persons who did better in therapy often took these odd pauses during sessions. These ‘odd pauses’ were further tracked and a characterization became clear: persons paused to refer to some vague physically felt experience while they were talking with their therapist. After this research project concluded, Gendlin refined how to teach this interesting pause to people who knew nothing about it into what we know today as Focusing.
Focusing is taught worldwide now, most often in a sequence of experiential courses in small groups. The process itself is easy to learn and is particularly helpful in discovering ways to live life more fully through integrating thought, feeling and action.
Focusing has been taught with success to persons in all walks of life: business leaders, professionals in creative arts, psychotherapists, health care providers, and medical doctors. Focusing works well in any situation or profession where managing change creatively is essential. It is a gentle process that establishes a friendly attitude within and welcomes what is new.
Learning Focusing is not hard, yet it requires practice. 
Courses are offered throughout the year and are part of a comprehensive approach to learning the skills required to use Focusing for self improvement and more. If you want to pursue certification, you will be taught how to use Focusing first for yourself, then in helping others, and finally to teach Focusing to groups and individuals by interning at Focusing workshops locally or elsewhere as are available. This is a hands-on approach to learning.
Eugene Gendlin 1926 -
Remember, Focusing is an innate process that helps deepen and expand awareness. First identified in the context of researching psychotherapy by psychologists Carl Rogers & Eugene Gendlin, it is now widely used in a variety of settings where people want to be in their lives more fully and with greater compassion for themselves and others.
Please visit the Focusing Institute for more information and to access the Gendlin On-line Library.
