日本フォーカシング協会

The Focuser’s Focus Vol.17 No.1 Spring Issue 2014

Focusing in Argentina

By Elena Frezza Argentina
(Certifying Coordinator, Argentina)

How did I get to Focusing?

My body was my guide.

After many years of terrible back pain, having tried all kinds of help including physical as well as emotional treatments and a fruitless disc herniation surgery, my doctors sentenced me by saying: “You have to learn to live with this”.

Given all that pain, I needed to find a loving way with myself; a way in which I could  listen to myself without judgment nor in a disqualifying manner.

I needed to find Elena again. I had lost her somewhere in that pain and loosing her was what hurt the most.

During all those years I was living in the United States. Coming back home to Argentina, through my own suffering I wanted to understand, listen and learn about the great human suffering. My journey started by studying Carl Rogers’ Person Centered Approach. Getting to know Carl Rogers’  gave me back trust in human nature and taught me a way to establish a relationship with myself that could be accepting, respectful, tender and at the same time powerful.

As part of my continuing growth, I deeply wished to attend  the International Forum of the  Person Centered Approach in Brasil during August 1989. I was excited because I was going to meet a lot of interesting people from many different countries working with this approach. My pain and I went together, happy and with great expectation..

Then the miracle ocurred!  By chance I met my dearest friend and teacher, Ann Weiser Cornell, who was introducing a workshop about Focusing. Something in me, maybe the part that always knew that the doctors were wrong, led me to that workshop, where I touched an inner place that I had never visited – certainly not in a loving and tender way. My body said: “I want more of this!”

So in 1990 I started my trainning in New York where Ann taught Focusing levels 1 and 2. I bought all her audio tapes, I translated them to Spanish and started teaching my colleagues. In those times there were no computers, nor cell phones, not even a Focusing book in Spanish. So I would travel, tape, record, take notes, type them and complie the information so I could teach.

It was in that same year that I co-founded “Holos”, the first Argentinean Center of Humanistic Psychology and Counseling, using the Client Centered Approach. I had also been in Chicago and received trainning from Mary Mc Guire and Janet Klein, two wonderful teachers.

Returning home I translated their notes and exercises to Spanish and gradually started teaching it to my Counseling students,  finding a way to introduce  Focusing adapting it to our culture. In the process of creating this trainning program I would integrate the contributions of each of my teachers, as well as great deal from my pupils and their body wisdom.

After adapting and working with Focusing I was  finally able to meet Eugene Gendlin at a “week long” in Chicago in 1992. I was so moved! I was in the presence of a genius; this humble, loving, revolutionary human being and his ground breaking philosophical idea. It was  such an honor.

In 1996 Eugene Gendlin named me  Coordinator for Argentina at the International Conference in Boston. I recall vividly being sooo moved.  My eyes were full of tears, met Gene´s  and asked him: “And now what am I supposed to do? How do I go on, all by myself in Argentina?”. He hugged me and said to me:

“Trust your felt senses, and give yourself time”.

Our next step was to obtain official approval from the Ministry of Education in Argentina. Although I was teaching Focusing openly to professional therapists who had learned the Client Centered Approach (not just at Holos), we were just a few in those days like a family.

Over the next five years we were inspected by the Education Ministery until finally Focusing became official in its first two levels of the Counseling Career program in our country.

I developed a program of five levels and created the first Focusing School in Argentina. In the year 2000 Marion Hendricks Gendlin, director of the Focusing Institute International supported and encouraged me to found “The Focusing Institute Argentina”.

In  2010, Gene invited me to be part of the Board of Directors saying: “I hope you accept”, Isn´t he incredible! How could I not accept such an honour coming from him and the wonderful members whom I know and admire so much!!!

To this day, we have 6 Coordinators in Argentina, a large comunity of Focusing Trainers teaching all over the country developing their own teaching programs, and a countless comunity of students.

Amongst other accomplishments we have organized events such as the First Iberoamerican Conference in 2007 and the First International Conference in South America in 2012.

Focusing has been developing in many areas besides Counseling or Psychoterapy. In low resource communities, poor neighbourhoods, groups of mistreated or abandoned women, children’s dining rooms, small projects, education, hospitals, neurosciences, professions related to the body and alternatives therapies, among others, Focusing is now applied.

There is a lot more to do in this lively and growing community. We are continuing to develop together the implicit and marvelous processes of Focusing.

As for Gene Gendlin, my love and gratitude towards him will transcend my life and my country. One day the world will be ready to listen and understand his creation and then, “something” in the world will change

So, I found Elena again thanks to Focusing! I can find her whenever she gets lost and her body starts to hurt…..

As some of my students say, “Focusing exists in Argentina thanks to Elena’s back pain……..”!

The Focuser’s Focus Vol.16 No.4 Winter Issue 2013

Focusing in the Netherlands

By René Veugelers
(Certifying Coordinator, Children Coordinator, The Netherlands)

The Focusing Oriented Psychotherapy was in the beginning the main stream in the Netherlands, organized in a group for consultation and spreading FOT out. Among them, Ada Herpst, René Maas, Nini de Graaf, Ton Coffeng and Bart Santen.  Since about 1985 Erna de Bruin en Marta Stapert, and a little bit later Christine Langeveld, joined a changes group in Amsterdam, initiated by Ada Herpst. Ada came fresh from Chicago, where she studied for 3 months with Gene Gendlin, Mary Mc Quire and Janet Klein. Later Mary Armstrong from Canada, Reva Bernstein (Focusing and Dreams) and Ann Weiser Cornell came to the Netherlands to give workshops.  In 1993  started Erna and Christine with the first focusing courses. Following a conference in Pforzheim in 1997, Erna de Bruyn, Mia leijssen and Christine Langeveld decided to form a group for the Netherlands and Belgium. After some small steps and group meetings they organized the first Focusing day for 42 people in April 2000, with Focusing colleagues from the Netherlands and Belgium, who were already connected with TFI. This was the start of the Focusing Network in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Over the years they have developed a solid structure for this network with a quarterly news letter containing all kinds of information about trainings possibilities, new subjects, Focusing development in the world and personal interviews with supporting information. The network also organized a yearly Focusing network day starting in November 2000 and so last year we celebrated our 12th anniversary. These meetings are especially important for maintaining a living connection and active sharing possibilities that helps to keep the Focusing attitude and skills base alive.

Since 2003 they also created an up to date website: www.focussen.info  Network members pay a yearly fee and are able to promote their trainings. Over the past few years the CC have trained many new Focusers: about 75 new Focusing Trainers-one-to-one Practioner  and about 35 new Focusing trainers group.  We’re now in a real transition to a younger generation and as a result the network structure has changed with Belgian focusers now having their own network: Focusing Vlaanderen

In the Netherlands there are now 5 CC: Marion van de Boogaard, Aaffien de Vries, Erna de Bruyn, Christine Langeveld and René veugelers. Also 3 CC in training: Ria ten Hage, Aukje Strandstra en Harriet Teeuw. They all have monthly phone meeting and are organize bi-annual supportive training days for professionals and trainees. They are developing new ways to offer Focusing to therapists and professionals and are also in transition.

Children Focusing

Marta Stapert, being a child psychotherapist, started since 1987 to integrate Focusing in her child therapies at a school for children with learning and social-emotional disabilities.  Being in Chicago for the training to become a Focusing trainer, she saw a Japanese video of ‘Clearing a space in the classroom’ in 1993 and subsequently began introducing Focusing to her teacher colleagues in the Netherlands. She developed a program for teachers to use Focusing in the classroom and on how to teach Focusing to children in a group. During the International Focusing Conference in Gloucester (near Boston) in 1996, the first workshop centered on ‘Clearing a space in a group of children through drawing’, took place. During lunchtime in this conference the children focusers came together around a table in the corner of the room. The ‘Children Focusing Corner’ had just been born.

From 1996 till October 2006 Marta Stapert was the coordinator for Children Focusing. After her retirement in 2000, René Veugelers became a new board member. Since 2007 René took over her work in the Netherlands and internationally, and became Coordinator, also for Children Focusing. Look for more information about Children Focusing at: www.focusing.org/children

Working with Harriet Teeuw and Jos van de Brand in 1998 in the Netherlands René also started the Children Focusing Foundation: stichting Kinderfocussen www.kinderfocussen.info

They are developing new programs, writing articles and offering the 60 hour international Children Focusing training developed by Marta and Ynse Stapert. Harriet and René are also offering this training in the Netherlands in English (July/August ) and René travels all over the world to train others in this unique seriously playful attitude including the FISS in August in New York for the past few years.

He will also be teaching at the 8th Children Focusing conference in Ireland / Dublin in 2014.  See our website www.eistchildrenfocusing2014.ie for details. The effort of organizing such a conference is, however, a substantial job as it is an important meeting-point to present and exchange ideas and experiences so that Focusing with children can develop further and gain a more influential role out there with the intention of creating a better world for children.

For more questions about Focusing or Children Focusing in the Netherlands or training possibilities don’t hesitate to contact René or look at his English website: www.ftcz.nl

The Focuser’s Focus Vol.16 No.3 Autumn Issue 2013

My Experience from the Focusing Workshops in Japan
(August and September 2013)

By Pat Omidian (Certifying Coordinator, USA)

Its been a month since I left Japan with its matcha tea, red bean paste sweets, iced coffee, soba and sashimi, temples, castles, forests of bamboo, subways and hot baths. As I sit here in rainy and cold Oregon to write, I miss all of it — but mostly I miss the hot baths. Pause… No, that’s not right. As I check inside I realize that I miss my Japanese friends and all the people I started to get to know and who shared so much of their hearts and lives with me. Yes! That’s what I miss, close connections and so much kindness. Ah, yes… this feels right.

I feel gratitude for having had the chance to share Community Wellness Focusing and the way Nina Joy Lawrence and I collaborated with Afghans to develop Focusing programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the workshops and gatherings with nine different groups from Sendai to Kyoto and back to Tokyo I shared two key aspects of our approach: 1) that one does not have to wait to be “fully trained” in order share what one knows and experiences in Focusing; and 2) ways to design a local program that meets the needs of a community as people make use of their own metaphors to ground Focusing so that it makes sense to them and is easier to learn.

Teach what you already know how to do—Focusing Bits:

It turns out that the best time to start teaching anything is when you are just beginning to learn the new skill. It is at this time that you are most excited, enthusiastic and close to the most basic concepts of the process. Peer teaching and learning is effective as it helps the “teacher” hone new skills/knowledge as you share what you learn. The learner also benefits because the way of sharing relies on the experiential. The longer one waits before sharing what one has learned about Focusing, the harder it becomes. It’s easy to be intimidated by the depth of the philosophy and the intricacies of approach. By the time one has had level 3 or 4, it seems so complicated. How could you possibly teach it without making mistakes? Yet, Nina Joy and I were teaching Focusing to Afghan refugees in Pakistan in 2001 when she had only taken two levels and I had none. The needs of the Afghans were so great that we could not wait to learn all the levels before sharing something that might help them. I learned from Nina Joy as we went, helping lead workshops in an exploration of a concept and then joining in as a participant to practice the technique we had just discussed.

What we discovered is that it does not matter what parts of Focusing you decide to teach first. What matters is that you share what you know whenever you see a place for this knowledge. Focusing fits into our everyday lives with many important skills and attitudes. In the Kyoto workshop, the group listed the following skills (and there are many more that could be added to this list):

• Pausing
• Reflection
• Listening
• Inviting
• Feeling a felt sense
• Giving words to the felt sense

Then they listed the following Focusing attitudes:

• Welcoming
• Interested
• Curious
• Being gentle
• Let the felt sense teach you
• Kindness
• Non-judgmental (and many others…)

We then noticed that any skill can be matched to any attitude and that any of these can be the entry point into teaching Focusing in a community, classroom or other. In small groups, the participants then explored ways they might do this in their everyday lives. Nina Joy and I call this “Teaching Bits.” One participant said she called it chobitto (tiny bits) in Japanese. This method facilitates the introduction of Focusing into any teaching or sharing context because you don’t have to teach everything. Instead, you use the parts of Focusing, the skill and or attitude, that are needed for that situation. As the group’s abilities and needs develop, you add more bits

Collaboration with the community:

When Nina Joy and I started teaching in Pakistan, we did not know what we were doing. Nina Joy knew that Focusing could be a powerful tool for healing. I knew nothing about it. But, not being skilled Focusing teachers meant that we relied on our Afghans colleagues to help share Focusing in a way that would make sense for them in their daily lives. It was serendipity that we included the Guesthouse imagery in the training, based on the Rumi poem that Nina Joy had on her computer. Little did we know how important that single metaphor would be in our training. As it turned out, the way Afghans view guests (to be treated respectfully and with kindness) is just the way one would want to hold whatever comes inside as we Focus. To be with a guest in the guesthouse with kindness and without judgment fit very well with Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin’s notion of “self in presence” of Inner Relationship Focusing. And in Afghanistan the guesthouse is the place where guests can be cared for that is separate from the family’s living space, allowing for a place of privacy that guests would not enter without permission. In the same way, one can sit with the felt sense guest in the inner guesthouse, but move into a safe place away from it if it feels overwhelming (akin to Clearing a Space).

As I introduced this notion to Japanese participants, many said that this was the traditional way guests had been treated in their communities and that the method helped them in their own Focusing. Yet, the purpose of teaching Guesthouse Focusing was to illustrate the value of finding local metaphors and symbols that fit so that people can give voice to their inner “guests” in a way that feels natural and meaningful. For the Afghans, having a “something inside” carried less meaning than to say “I have a guest in me that wants attention.” When checking inside for what comes, the steps in Inner Relationship Focusing include “noticing something”, being with the “something” and describing the “something.” With Guesthouse Focusing, one “says hello to whatever guest comes”, “describes the guest”, “gets to know the guest” and “listens to what the guest wants the Focuser to know.” My challenge to participants in Japan was to think about what would give meaning to that which is inside in a Japanese way. What is the language that works? It’s not about translating this Guesthouse Focusing into Japanese; it is about paying attention to what is happening on the inside and articulating what comes through local metaphors, language and customs. Words came, as well as images that might work— such as evoking the felt sense through haiku poetry, kendo or some types of Buddhist mediation. Each group had their own lists and there may come many different ways to be with what comes that can be articulated in a very Japanese way.

Early in my trip I realized that many Japanese were attracted to Focusing and I asked Hikasa San, why. She told me that the Japanese people already have a sense of the basics of Focusing—it is after all a human process—and this ability only needed a voice, which Focusing gives to it. That makes it easier to share. Many participants came to me after each workshop with ideas of how they want to share Focusing in new ways–friend to friend, colleague to colleague, community to community.

As I take this in, I feel energy and connection. I come back in my body to gratitude for all I learned from participants in the many workshops. I want to thank each and every one who helped on this journey. What I sense underneath this is potential. I can imagine the world filled with people who can stop, listen and pay attention to what comes inside as they reach out to those around them.

By Christiane Geiser (www.christianegeiser.ch)
and Eveline Moor (www.evelinemoor.ch)
(Certifying Coordinators, Switzerland)

Christiane Geiser and Eveline Moor

When you tell a story, you tell it through your own lenses, and it will be coloured by your own experiencing. We tell the story of Focusing in Switzerland through the eyes of the 2nd (Christiane Geiser) and 3rd (Eveline Moor) generations.

Beginning:

Switzerland has a long history of Focusing: Gene Gendlin came to Zurich to do a presentation as early as 1975. He was invited by Agnes Wild-Missong, who had a shared practice with Urs Wittmer. Soon these two started to give the first Focusing workshops in Switzerland. Agnes translated the little “Focusing” book into German; it appeared in 1983. Cooperation with the German speaking countries then began, and Gene chose the first generation of coordinators: Agnes Wild Missong from Switzerland, Johannes Wiltschko from Austria and Friedhelm Köhne from Germany. In the German-speaking countries, as in Switzerland, Focusing by and by was integrated into person-centred workshops or taught on its own.

Development:

1980 Ernst Juchli and Johannes Wiltschko (later joined by Christiane Geiser) started to design a training for therapists and counsellors, in which Focusing was deeply “crossed” with the personcentred approach and person-centred bodypsychotherapy (www.gfk-institut.ch). At the same time a Focusing Network began to offer annual training courses. Important new strands enriched Focusing: bodywork, a cyclic way of thinking and model development, working with structure-bound processes, the social and political relevance of Focusing. Teresa Dawson invited Gene in the 90ies 3 times to Zurich. She became a Coordinator, ran TAE courses in German together with Gene and translated the videos. Eveline Moor is a professional adult educator, and as a Coordinator, she has created the Focusing Centre Casa Civetta (www.focusingausbildung.ch) to teach all levels of Focusing and to build a community. For more than 30 years, there was no “overall association” for Focusing in Switzerland. Today there are different institutes, little schools, and private persons teaching Focusing and TAE, translating relevant texts, training trainers and developing methods for applied Focusing e.g. in psychotherapy, health professions, social work, music therapy and art.

Future:

By organizing the 25th International Focusing Conference 2 months ago, Swiss Professionals from different institutes came together for the first time to build a large committee. They got to know each other at the conference and are now creating new ways of connecting: www.focusingswitzerland.ch and www.focusing.ch will be the “home”pages for finding a trainer, formation, development and for research into Focusing in Switzerland.

A dream has come true:
The 25th International Focusing Conference Switzerland 2013

Eveline Moor Züllig, Coordinator in Switzerland

It all started at the International Focusing Conference in 2004 in Costa Rica. What I experienced there was so absolutely beyond anything I had known until then about feeling great in a community that it created in me a strong feeling of: How wonderful it would be to offer such a conference sometime in my home country Switzerland! Thus my dream was born, and I did not forget it anymore although I knew it was just a dream! In 2010 at another International Focusing Conference in Pforzheim there were a group of Swiss Focusing professionals, amongst them Coordinator Christiane Geiser, who all of a sudden , as if out of the blue, decided they were going to propose the invitation for such a big event in Switzerland for 2013. They wanted me to be the leader of the team and said: If you agree, we’ll do it! That particular moment meant a lot to me: My dream was becoming reality…
We set up a deeply committed group of 35 Swiss Focusing Professionals who helped the core
organizing team to welcome 220 people from 28 countries in May 2013 to our homeland. In a one-year process in 2011 we found our theme: Coming Home! We found it by looking at the „Heidi“ in us – what does it mean to us to be born and live in Switzerland. All these processes built the foundation of the conference, which had a huge impact on all participants – as we were later told. Many people said to me how wonderful it was: My dream had come true for me, but also for them.

Organizing Committee of the 25th International Focusing Conference 2013 in Switzerland

The Focuser’s Focus, Vol.16, No.1, Spring Issue 2013

Focusing developing in China

By Xu Jun
(Certifying Coordinator, China)

Through more than ten years efforts to explore, Focusing and Focusing-orientation Therapy is acknowledged by therapists in China.

In 2000, a chapter introducing Focusing was found in the Chinese version of Theories of Psychotherapy and Counseling: Concepts Case (Sharf, 2000). This was the first time for Chinese therapists to know about the word Focusing in Chinese reference. In 2002, Han Yan, a Chinese Australian psychologist, introduced about Focusing-oriented therapy in his thesis Construction of an Integrated Psychotherapy Model. In 2004, Xu Jun compiled Focusing-oriented Therapy Introduction. Through those resources, the therapists from mainland of China gradually approach to Focusing and some of them attempt to use this technique consciously during their therapy process.

In 2006, an American Buddhist psychology Michael PhD and his translator Wang Yifu from China proactively contacted The Focusing Institute (TFI). After the draft translation version of Focusing being finished, they collaborated with Xu Jun to publish its final Chinese version in May of 2009.

Meanwhile, Michael PhD and Xu Jun got in touch with Professor Campbell Purton, an English Focusing coordinator and trainer. They helped to bring about the First Focusing-oriented Therapy Workshop being held in Shanghai of China in April of 2008. After that, Xu Jun discussed with Professor Campbell Purton who came to China for teaching Focusing to establish a systematical and sustainable training system according to the training compendium for English focusing-oriented therapists. They reached an agreement on a Focusing-oriented therapy training project in 20 days in four times (160 class hours in total). In 2010, this project accomplished successfully. 16 participants had passed the examination from Professor Campbell Purton and got the qualification as Focusing-oriented therapist. In the same year, The Focusing-Oriented Counseling Primer written by Professor Campbell Purton has been published in Chinese version.

After the year of 2010, Xu Jun was recommended as international Focusing coordinator by both Professor Campbell Purton and Professor Akira Ikami. Considered in the process of Focusing development in China, the classic Focusing had its own features to develop, besides, it had better connect with the diversity of international Focusing. Therefore, with the help of Professor Campbell Purton, Xu Jun invited Professor Akira Ikami from Japan to teach Art-oriented Focusing, Professor Yasuyuki Kira to teach the Focusing for Therapists, and Professor Masumi Maeda and Professor Mieko Ito to teach Interactive Focusing in China. Especially the Chinese Character Focusing, initiated by Professor Akira Ikami, was developed into various types, such as Chinese Character Focusing Encounter group, Chinese Character Focusing dream interpretation technology and more others. It developed so flourishing under the collaboration of Professor Akira Ikami and Xu Jun, which presents a new combination of Focusing communication in the common cultural background between China and Japan.

So far by January of 2013, in China mainland, there have been 1 trainer and coordinator, 26 Focusing-oriented therapist certificate holders and more than 70 participants being trained for a systematical training, let alone more than 1000 participants being trained at least the basic level. The amount is increasing every year. Meanwhile, there have been 2 trainers and several candidates in Hongkong of China.

Upon the actual condition of therapist development in China mainland, the Focusing therapist system, after the discussion with Professor Campbell Purton from TFI, is set into five levels, which are Focusing trainer candidate, Focusing-oriented therapist, Focusing trainer (Focusing teacher without psychotherapist certificate), Focusing intern trainer, and coordinate. Actually, Focusing was developed earlier in Hongkong than in mainland, but developed relatively slowly. In recent years, it has been developed well. The Focusing training system in Hongkong is different from that in mainland. They only have three levels which are international coordinator, Focusing trainer and candidate.

In October of 2011, the First Summit Forum on Focusing and its Therapy was held in Shanghai of China. Professor Campbell and Professor Akira Ikemi participated in together. In March of 2013, the Second Summit Forum was held in Hangzhou of China. It had larger scale with more than 80 people participating in. Professor Zhang Jiaxing and Mr. Chen Zhichang organized 14 people from Hongkong participated in. Professor Masumi Maeda and Professor Mieko Ito from Japan conducted a workshop on Children’s Focusing during the Forum. The Third Summit Forum was decided to be held in October of 2015 in Shenzhen of China.

Reference

Gendlin, E. T. 2009. Focusing Psychology. Shanghai: Orient Press.

Purton, C. 2010. The Focusing-Oriented Counseling Primer. Beijing: China Light Industry Press.

Sharf, R. S., 2000. Theories of Psychotherapy and Counseling: Concepts Case. (6th Edition). Beijing: China Light Industry Press.