'Focusing' is a technique first developed 25 years ago by American psychologist and philosopher Eugene Gendlin. Hugely influential, it offers six specific steps you can take to open up your inner world of deeper feelings and intuition - and shows you how to listen to others with more empathy. Short, very accessible yet also profound, Focusing is even more relevant today than it was when originally published.

'Focusing is a beautiful and meditative approach to psychotherapy and personal growth. It offers a deep parallel to the practice of mindfulness in a carefully developed and sensitive way.' Jack Kornfield, author of A Path With Heart

'The focusing skill-can be learned by anyone in or out of therapy' Washington Post

'Learning to access and dissolve personal problems by focusing on the language and wisdom of the body was a historic discovery. Gendlin's genius has stood the test of time and Focusing has become a classic' Harville Hendrix, author of Getting The Love You Want

What is focusing?  Based on research at the University of Chicago, focusing is a new technique of self therapy that teaches you to identify and change the way your personal problems concretely exist in your body. Focusing consists of steps of felt change.  Unlike methods that stress "getting in touch with your feelings," there is a built-in test:  each focusing step, when done correctly, is marked by a physical relief, a profound release of tension. Focusing guides you to the deepest level of awareness within your body.  It is on this level, unfamiliar to most people, that unresolved problems actually exist, and only on this level can they change.

Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: The Experiential Method addresses specific ways in which a therapist can engender the therapeutic process, especially with clients with whom nothing effective is happening. Working with transcripts of actual sessions, the author examines each client statement to show where therapeutic movement has taken place and then each therapist response to show how it did or did not help bring about a kind of direct bodily experiencing called "focusing." What the author shows can be used in any orientation of therapy. Individual chapters address bodily energy, action, habits, behavior, traumatic memories, imagery, catharsis, emotions, cognitive assumptions, values, super-ego messages, dreams, role-play, interpretation, and client-therapist interaction. The author shows how the therapist's responses can turn difficulties into moments of relational therapy. Most importantly, he shows how whatever arises inwardly in the client is respected and pursued.

Psychologist Gendlin (Behavioral Sciences, University of Chicago) comes from Carl Rogers's circle. Following Focusing (Everest House, 1978), this book shows how Gendlin's method of tapping the body's responses can be applied to the understanding and appreciation of one's dreams. He implies, rightly, that there are many ways of interpreting dreams, based on various theoretical approaches, each with its own validity. Yet, what really counts is the dreamer's somatic response to questions raised or interpretations suggested; the body has the answer, preverbally as it were. One can feel the author's respect for the privacy of the individual and for the message of one's inner nature. Simply and clearly written, this will be useful both for the lay public and therapists.

An examination of the relation between concepts and experiencing. This work examines the edge of awareness, where language emerges from non-language. In moving back and forth between what is already verbalized and what is as yet unarticulated, Eugene Gendlin shows how experiencing functions in the transitions between one formulation and the next. A whole array of more than logical ""characteristics"" enables us to examine as well as to employ this new kind of thinking which is not merely conceptual because it begins from the intricacy of felt meaning and returns to it again and again.

Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy: The Experiential Method addresses specific ways in which a therapist can engender the therapeutic process, especially with clients with whom nothing effective is happening. Working with transcripts of actual sessions, the author examines each client statement to show where therapeutic movement has taken place and then each therapist response to show how it did or did not help bring about a kind of direct bodily experiencing called "focusing." What the author shows can be used in any orientation of therapy. Individual chapters address bodily energy, action, habits, behavior, traumatic memories, imagery, catharsis, emotions, cognitive assumptions, values, super-ego messages, dreams, role-play, interpretation, and client-therapist interaction. The author shows how the therapist's responses can turn difficulties into moments of relational therapy. Most importantly, he shows how whatever arises inwardly in the client is respected and pursued.